47th Annual CAGT
Conference 2025
Empowering Change
Believe it or not, the planning for our 47th Annual CAGT Conference 2025, Empowering Change, is in the works! All of our conference and conference-related events for the 2025 conference are open to register, nominate, and apply for these exciting opportunities. Our conference is an incredible event filled with over 900 educators, administrators, mental health personnel, parents, and students all learning, networking, collaborating, and having tons of fun over two amazing days! The synergy is extraordinary! We hope those of you who joined us last year experienced an incredible event and will return this year, and those of you who have not had the opportunity to attend will consider registering this year. CAGT’s annual conference is one of the largest and most revered events focused on gifted students and their education in the nation.
For more information and to register of our 47th Annual Conference events, scroll down to check out the various opportunities to participate in our conference. We hope to see you at the Embassy Suites, Loveland, Oct. 19th-21st.
CONFERENCE EVENTS:
Conference Registration – Open – Early Bird Closes Sept. 15th
Youth Impact Awards – Closed – Nominations Closed June 9th
Call for Proposals – Closed – July 7th
Leadership Awards – Closed – Nominations Closed August 22nd
Conference Scholarships – Closed – Applications Closed August 22nd
Exhibitors and Sponsorships – Open – Closes Oct. 16th
SCROLL DOWN TO ACCESS ALL EVENTS
*Scroll down to see the 2024 Award Winners, Art Contest, Conference photos and presenter resources.
Join us for our 47th Annual Conference
Empowering Change
Oct. 19th-21st, 2025!
HERE IT IS!
Click the link below to check out the 2025 Conference At-a-Glance schedule.
2025 At-a- Glance
Sessions are subject to change.
Order Your 2025 Conference T-Shirt
Click here to pre-order your shirts. Pre-orders are due by October 1st.
2025 Call for Proposals
The window for submitting presentation proposals for CAGT’s 2025 Annual Conference Empowering Change is now closed. Please consider sharing your knowledge and expertise about our gifted children and their unique needs next year at our 2026 conference, October 18-20. Our professional conference offers over 80 presentations from experts in the field of gifted education and has an annual attendance of over 800 educators, administrators, parents, and community members. Call for Proposals for the 2026 conference, Cultivate the Extraordinary, will open in the spring, so come back and check out all of the conference offerings and to submit your proposals for sessions to share with our gifted community. Any topic that addresses and supports the needs of gifted learners, best practices for teaching this unique population, and ideas to help both new and veteran educators hone their pedagogy will be considered.
2025 CAGT Leadership Awards
The time period for submitting nominations for the 2025 CAGT Leadership Awards is now closed. Thank you for your nominations of incredible educators, administrators, parents, advocates and community members from your corner of Colorado who are doing amazing things for gifted children and their education. Please consider nominating deserving individuals for the 2026 Leadership Awards for next year’s conference in the following categories: George T. Betts Inspiration Award, Jacquelin Medina Visionary Leadership Award, Parent of the Year, Educator of the Year, Administrator of the Year, Special Advocate of the Year, and the Lifetime Achievement Award. We can’t wait to honor outstanding individuals from our gifted community at CAGT’s 47th Annual Conference this October.
CAGT Conference Scholarship Applications
This year’s CAGT Scholarships to attend the 2025 annual conference Empowering Change are now closed. For information to take advantage of the many scholarships to attend next year’s 2026 conference and learn from local, national and international experts from the field of gifted education, check back in March. We offer four scholarships to attend conference for educators, administrators and mental health providers interested in learning how to better their pedagogy to support the needs of gifted students and programming at their schools. In addition to our Colorado Scholars and Leaders in Action scholarships, we offer scholarships to help send our teachers of color and our mental health support personnel to conference. Don’t miss these opportunities to attend the 2026 conference! Again, check back next spring for more information and to apply for scholarships to attend our 2026 conference, Cultivate the Extraordinary.
Exhibitors and Sponsorships
Exhibitors and Sponsors – Come join us next year for our 47th Annual Conference, Empowering Change. We would love to have you exhibit and/or be a sponsor at our 2025 conference at the Embassy Suites in Loveland, October 19-21st as it is your support that helps make our conference a success! Information for both exhibiting and sponsoring will be available next March.
We hope you join us next October!
Youth Impact Award Nominations
The 2025 Colorado Association for Gifted and Talented (CAGT) Youth Impact Awards are no longer accepting nominations. Each year these awards are granted to children ages 7-18, who have made a positive, meaningful, and beneficial impact on others in their classroom, school and/or community. CAGT chooses four children from the state of Colorado who will be named CAGT Youth Impact Award Students: one student for the Junior Division (ages 7-9), one student for the Senior Division (ages 10-12), and two students for the Masters Division (ages 13-18). All four students who are selected receive a CAGT Certificate of Excellence and a cash reward. Please consider nominating students who you feel are deserving of this award next year for our 2026 Youth Impact Awards.
Family Institute
CAGT’s 2025 Family Institute is on September 4th and is now open for registration. This Family Institute is being co-hosted by our affiliate PPAGS (Pikes Peak Association for Gifted Students) and the AcademyACL in Colorado Springs. The format will be a choice of various 30 minute workshops that parents and guardians will rotate through for a total of three presentations. Click below for more information and to register for this informative event. We hope to see you there!
The 2024 CAGT Leadership and Youth Impact Award Winners!
Leadership Award Winners
George T. Betts Inspirational Award:
Terry Bradley (Boulder)
Jacquelin Medina Visionary Leadership Award:
Lisa Rogers (District 8 – Colorado Springs)
Janet Peasley (Steamboat Springs)
Lifetime Achievement:
Gail Stine (Denver)
Special Advocate Award:
Shyla Christiansen (Canyon City)
Administrator of the Year:
Pattie Vail (Harrison School District-Colorado Springs)
Educator of the Year:
Kaileigh Bonner (Burlington)
Parent of the Year:
Marion Clawson (Colorado Springs)
Youth Impact Award Winners
Senior Division
Anirudh Rao
STEM School – Highlands Ranch
Masters Division:
Amara Fantl
Venture Academy of Leadership and Entrepreneurship – Douglas County
Mateo Beauvineau
Fairview High School – Boulder
CAGT’s 6th Annual Art Contest Winners!
CAGT would like to congratulate our 2024 Art Contest Winners
Elementary K-2 Division
1st Place – Celdiano Travis, 2nd Grade
“Riding Bluebird”
2nd Place – Madalyn Bryant, 2nd Grade
“Spinning”
3rd Place – Thea Light, 1st Grade
“Patchworks of Beauty”
Elementary 3-5 Division
1st Place – Evelyn Hughes, 5th grade
“Tigers”
2nd Place – Anika Kiran, 4th grade
3rd Place – Aoife Beal, 5th grade
“Push and Pull”
Middle School Division
1st Place – Danny Henes, 6th grade
“I Am Colorado History”
2nd Place – Ayden Davis, 8th grade
“Universe”
3rd Place – Sophia Rodriguez, 7th grade
High School Division
1st Place – Sophie Zhou, 11th grade
“The Burnout”
2nd Place – Jenna Rahal, 12th grade
“Planty”
3rd Place – Olivia Ekstrom, 10th grade
Congratulations to all of our winners and every student who submitted their interpretation of our conference theme this year – Purpose & Passion. The artwork was remarkable and we hope to see even more incredible entries at our next conference!
Take a peek at all of the artwork from this year’s contest on our Virtual Showcase.