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Date: 4/27/2017
EAST LONGMEADOW – The town’s approach to gifted and talented students has won recognition from the Massachusetts Association for Gifted Education.
Superintendent Gordon Smith explained to Reminder Publications the district was recently presented with the Gifted Education Award for 2017.
He said he was “humbled” and surprised that leaders in the field of gifted education would give this award to the district.
Smith said Mary Grace Stewart, a teacher at the Academy Hill School in Springfield, nominated the district after having worked with the East Longmeadow program.
Smith said the district has taken a different approach to gifted and talented students. He said that through grades kindergarten through five all students participate in activities designed to enrich their school experience and “may expose them to new challenges.”
The Meadowbrook, Mapleshade and Mountain View schools all have a gifted and talented teacher assigned to them, he added.
The program is a “push in” or inclusive one that endeavors to support and develop all students.
Starting in the fourth grade there is an effort to identify gifted and talented students. This allows the district to prepare them for inclusion of the “pull-out” program in middle school.
Once in middle school, the gifted and talented students are part of the STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math) program that is offered to all students.
Once in high school there are Advanced Placement and honors classes, as well as academic clubs, for gifted and talented students, Smith explained.
Smith said one of the challenges is to fund the gifted and talented program when budgets are tight. He said traditionally it has been a program that has been cut.
He said the “push-in” part of the program is unique as all students are benefiting from the effort.
The program has been in place for at least 16 years and Smith said the district “is always looking to improve it.”