Some Northwest Arkansas school districts are talented when it comes to teaching gifted students.
The Rogers School District recently was named this year's recipient of the state's Act 56 Outstanding Gifted and Talented Program award. The Bentonville School District earned the Certificate of Merit in the same category.
Gifted and talented
The Arkansas Legislature passed a law in 1979 establishing the Office for the Gifted & Talented and Advanced Placement as part of the Department of Education. Money was appropriated to provide financial assistance to school districts operating programs for gifted and talented students. Guidelines were developed to provide information to assist districts in planning, implementing and evaluating those programs.
Source: Arkansas Department of Education
The award "affirms what we're doing is the right thing for our learners and all of our stakeholders," said Beth Carnes, Rogers' director of gifted and talented programs. "It not only allows others to know we are a district that is able to do these wonderful things for our students but it also allows other districts to realize we are there to partner with them and network with their learning."
The Governor's Advisory Council on the Education of Gifted and Talented Students determines Act 56 award winners annually for three categories of districts by size. Rogers also received the Act 56 Award in 2000 and the Certificate of Merit in 1992 and 2014, said Kim Friedman, director of communications for the Arkansas Department of Education.
Summer enrichment programs and an annual Showcase Fair are two things that helped Rogers nab the top honor this year, Friedman said. The council also noted Rogers' robotics program and coding activities.
Winning districts receive $3,000. Rogers is considering using its prize money to buy a 3-D printer, Carnes said.
Rogers' gifted and talented program is known as REACH, which stands for Reaching Exceptional Academic and Creative Heights. The district serves 1,258 gifted and talented students in grades three through 12; it also provides whole-class enrichment for grades kindergarten through two.
The gifted program brings third- through fifth-graders together once per week. They explore different topics depending on grade level. Fifth-graders, for example, focus on structures, from those of the brain to the Earth, according to a district news release.
At the secondary level, Rogers offers 21 Advanced Placement and 16 pre-Advanced Placement courses. Fifty-three percent of seventh- through 12th-graders took one of those classes in 2014.
Gifted students sometimes apply their abilities to community service projects. In December, gifted and talented teacher Christie Price's fifth-graders at Reagan Elementary School made sock animals to be donated to the Northwest Arkansas Children's Shelter. None of the children had sewn by hand before, Price said.
"They put a lot of time into planning it," Price said. "I want them to know they can make a difference in the world. These are the people who will be the producers and leaders in the world."
Hannah Pockrus, 10, one of Price's students at Reagan Elementary, said the gifted program is special to her because she finds it difficult to challenge herself.
"So this (program) helps push my mind," Hannah said.
Udakarman Sandhu, 10, said he looks forward to his gifted and talented class.
"Over here we challenge ourselves and we become more motivated," Udakarman said.
Price's students are working on end-of-year research projects. Alauna Little, 11, decided she wanted to do her project on the axolotl, a kind of salamander that lives in water.
"It's a weird type of animal and I've always wanted to research it," Alauna said.
Research shows about 5 percent of all students are gifted and talented, Price said. Fostering their love of learning and making them understand it's OK to challenge themselves is important, she said.
"You can fall and you can fail," Price said.
The district is working hard to identify all students who have "gifted talents and gifted needs," Carnes said. That includes those students who speak English as a second language, a challenge that sometimes prevents educators from seeing a student's giftedness, Carnes said.
"Just because you don't speak English as your first language doesn't mean you're not gifted," she said.
Bentonville, like Rogers, offers gifted education services in grades kindergarten through 12. The TREC (Think Research Explore Create) program provides enrichment activities to kindergartners and first-graders at all 10 elementary schools. Students in second through fifth grades are served at the TREC Center on Bella Vista Road. Gifted and talented students in grades six through 12 are served through various program options, such as pre-Advanced Placement, honors, Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate classes, according to a Bentonville district news release.
The Certificate of Merit Bentonville received this year marked the first time the district has been recognized through the Act 56 awards, Friedman said. Jean Womack, Bentonville's gifted and talented program director, could not be reached for comment.
Other districts that received the Act 56 Award this year included Heber Springs for districts between 1,000 and 3,000 students and Scranton for districts with fewer than 1,000 students.
NW News on 03/25/2015