Laurel's Gifted and Talented Program...

Laurel Elementary has long held the belief that ALL children deserve instruction at his/her appropriate level. To that end, we have been meeting the needs of our gifted and high ability students in a variety of ways.

Our approach is a three-pronged one.

First, we believe that the needs of our GT kids should be principally be met in the place where they spend most of their day...their homeroom. To that end we offer support and training to the homeroom teachers in differentiating instruction for those children. It might be acceleration in a subject area or might be horizontally expanding the knowledge of a specific child in an area of strength. It might include bringing in a mentor or it might include any number of appropriate interventions.

Secondly, we offer a pull-out program for those children that have qualified according to district standards. On Fridays they are pulled with similar children and are challenged in ways not possible in the regular classroom.

Finally, we try to cluster our GT students in one homeroom within that grade level. Research has shown this to be an excellent way to meet the academic and affective needs of the brightest of our students.

For more information contact Erica Simpson.