Schools

District 622 Gifted Student Staff Has Tripled in Last Three Years

High potential students comprise 8 percent of the district's enrollment.

Over the past three years, District 622 has tripled the number of staff members devoted to educating gifted students, supervisor of educational programs Joe Slavin told the school board Tuesday evening.

The North St. Paul-Maplewood-Oakdale district’s 850 “high potential” students—8 percent of all students enrolled in the district—now have nine staff members who cater to their needs.

“Not everybody realizes that high potential students are special needs students—they have needs that we cannot ignore,” said board member Nancy Livingston.

Slavin said that in 2010-11 the state allocated $150,000 to the district for high potential programming, and the district spent a total of $390,000 on student identification, expanded learning opportunities, advocacy and professional development.

Slavin said that 85 percent of high potential students are white, though only 65 percent of the district is white.

“How do we ensure that the students who make up our gifted and talented program are representative of the students who make up our school district?” Slavin said.

Some of the programs offered to the district’s gifted students include early entrance to kindergarten, flexible grouping, classroom differentiation, content acceleration (guided reading, enrichment math), grade acceleration, COMET (trip to science museum) and a summer academy.

“We have opportunities for rigor and programming for high potential students that start at the elementary and move all the way up to the high school level,” Slavin said.

Board member Theresa Auge said she was “proud” that the district spends more on gifted programming than is allocated by the state.

“Having had kids go through the high school and being able to be exposed to the College in the Schools and those AP classes—and not necessarily being a top 5 percent student—to me is what sets us apart,” she said. “I would eventually like to see one of our schools be an IB (International Baccalaureate) program, but to have that opportunity for an average student I think is a really wonderful opportunity.”


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