The Center for Advanced Academics

08/26/2026

🌟 Meet Our Board: Rachel Stohler

We’re excited to introduce Rachel Stohler, who is entering her second year on The Center for Advanced Academics Board of Directors and serves as our Secretary!

Rachel lives in Madison with her husband and enjoys spending time with her three kids. Her oldest child, Lloyd, just graduated from Carleton College; her middle, Leah, attends SCAD (the Savannah College of Art and Design); and her youngest, Meghan, is a junior at MCDS. The Stohlers enjoy travel, theater, trivia, and the Renaissance Faire.

Rachel is currently the Advanced Learning Specialist at Velma Hamilton Middle School in Madison, WI. Formerly, she was the Advanced Learning Coordinator for Confluence Academies in St. Louis, MO and a parent support group leader through Gifted Support Network. She has a MS in Education from UW-Madison and a certificate in Gifted and Talented Education from Purdue. She has spent her career advocating for and serving Gifted and Talented and Twice Exceptional students and their families.

We’re so grateful to have Rachel continuing her service on our board and bringing her experience, expertise, and commitment to advanced learners to The Center! 💙

08/24/2026

A new school year means new challenges, new ideas, and new opportunities to grow. We can't wait to see where our students' curiosity takes them this year!

08/21/2026

🎉 We’re headed to NAGC 2026!

We’re thrilled to share that our own Lydia Bertram will be presenting at the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) Annual Convention in Milwaukee this November!

Her session, From Scrolling to Scholarly: Teaching Students to Think Critically in Online Discussions, will explore how educators can move online discussions beyond quick responses and surface-level interaction to create meaningful opportunities for critical thinking, thoughtful dialogue, and deeper learning.

As an instructor at The Center for Advanced Academics, Lydia has seen firsthand the potential of online learning to connect advanced learners across schools and communities. This session will share strategies and ideas developed through that work.

📅 Saturday, November 7
⏰ 1:15–2:15 PM
📍 NAGC Annual Convention | Milwaukee, WI

We’re incredibly proud to have Lydia representing The Center and excited to share our work with gifted education professionals from across the country!

08/20/2026

When so much has come quickly, being a beginner can feel deeply uncomfortable. Struggle can feel less like part of learning and more like evidence that maybe you aren’t as capable as you thought.

And that matters, because if gifted kids are allowed to spend their lives doing only what comes easily, they may never discover what they are capable of when something doesn’t.

We need to build experiences that allow them to be beginners, to encounter something they don’t immediately know how to do and have to stay with it long enough to learn. They need to know what it feels like to make an attempt that doesn’t work, to rethink it, to ask for help, to practice, and eventually to realize that the struggle did not mean they weren’t capable. It meant they were learning.

The goal isn’t to teach gifted kids that struggle is good. It’s to help them learn that struggle is survivable. They can be uncertain and still be capable. They can struggle with something today and learn to do it tomorrow.

Being a beginner says nothing about how far they can go.

Gifted kids need opportunities to discover that they are capable of far more than what comes easily.

08/19/2026

🌟 Meet Our Board: Deb Lemminger

We’re excited to welcome Deb Lemminger to The Center for Advanced Academics Board of Directors!

Deb lives in Johnson Creek with her husband and enjoys an active family life with their three married daughters and seven grandchildren. In her free time, she enjoys participating in and watching sports, spending time outdoors at the family’s “up north” cabin, playing cards and games, and traveling.

Deb recently retired from her role as an Advanced Learning Coordinator in Jefferson, bringing years of experience and a deep commitment to supporting advanced learners. She is excited to continue contributing to the field of Advanced Learning through volunteer service and other professional opportunities.

This year, Deb will serve as Vice President of The Center for Advanced Academics Board of Directors, helping support the organization’s continued growth and its mission to provide exceptional academic opportunities for Wisconsin’s advanced learners.

We’re grateful to have Deb’s experience, enthusiasm, and passion for advanced learning on our board. Welcome, Deb! 💙

08/17/2026

Advanced learners have needs, too. 💡

Just like any student, academically advanced learners benefit from support that matches their individual needs. Some students need an opportunity to go deeper. Others need greater challenge, enrichment, or a more intensive academic experience.

At The Center for Advanced Academics, our programming spans Tier 2 and Tier 3 supports, giving schools and families multiple ways to provide meaningful challenge:

📚 Project A, Book Club & Math Enrichment offer Tier 2 enrichment opportunities.
🎓 Academy provides a Tier 3 ELA replacement for students who need a greater level of academic challenge.

Our goal isn't simply to give students more work. It's to provide the right level of challenge and support so advanced learners can continue to grow.

Explore our programming: centerforadvancedacademics.com

08/14/2026

Our new website is here! 🎉

We’re excited to share the newly redesigned website for The Center for Advanced Academics!

We’ve made it easier for families and schools to:
✨ Learn about our programs
✨ Understand how we support advanced learners
✨ Explore upcoming course opportunities
✨ Find answers to common questions
✨ Connect with us

Whether you’re a parent wondering if The Center might be a good fit for your child or a school looking for ways to better support advanced learners, we invite you to take a look.

👉 Explore our new website at centerforadvancedacademics.com

08/12/2026

🎯 Teaching gifted and advanced learners how to process and respond to feedback and differing opinions is at the core of what we do at the Center.

08/11/2026

At the Center, there is always a real teacher on the other end evaluating and providing feedback on every piece of student writing.

https://www.ajjuliani.com/blog/the-big-problem-with-using-ai-for-assessment #:~:text=Can%20A.I.%20be%20used%20in,when%20we%20really%20want%20to

08/10/2026

An interesting take on challenging our students. Is there such a thing as too much support? How can we strike a balance to encourage critical thinking and self reliance?

On every school tour, there is a parent who asks, in one form or another, for a guarantee that their child will never be stuck. It is never phrased that way. It arrives as reasonable questions: will he get help the moment he needs it, what happens if she finds maths hard, how quickly do you intervene. Underneath the questions sits a single request — remove the difficulty — and the uncomfortable truth of modern schooling is that we increasingly can.

Consider how much friction a well-resourced school can now engineer away. The worksheet arrives pre-scaffolded, each problem broken into steps sized so that no step is ever quite hard. The essay comes with its structure supplied- hamburger, PEEL, a paragraph frame for every occasion-so that writing becomes assembly. The homework question that once meant twenty minutes of being lost now means eleven seconds with an AI tutor that explains everything, at any hour, in a tone of infinite patience. The timetable app removes the experience of being lost in a corridor; the notification removes the experience of forgetting; the teacher, coached to intervene early, removes the experience of sitting with a problem that does not yield. Every one of these removals is defensible on its own. The sum of them is a new kind of school, and we have not thought hard enough about what kind.

Read more: https://theeducatorsroom.com/the-frictionless-school-what-should-a-school-do-with-difficulty/