Last spring, several Bayfield Middle School parents complained to the school board that their gifted students in math were shunted to online classes that changed them from loving math to hating it. Superintendent Troy Zabel promised a task force to look into the district's gifted and talented offerings and make recommendations.
Andrea Berghoff, gifted and talented specialist with the Colorado Department of Education, gave an update to the school board on Oct. 25. She said Zabel asked her to evaluate the whole GT program in Bayfield. "I wanted it to be a structured program so stuff actually gets done," she said, referring to the task force.
"I get to work with rural communities. There's a big difference in GT in rural versus urban districts," she said. "We looked at what's working or not working in the other districts." The task force has been meeting once a month. It includes teachers; BMS Principal Tod Lokey; a student; the district's multi-tiered systems of support coordinator, Cori Poitry; and GT director Deb Nielsen from the San Juan Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES).
"It's a pretty darn good team with a lot of experience," Berghoff said. "I think we've made a lot of progress. ... We'll review what's currently going on and compare that to the state rubric... We'll recommend a gifted definition, procedures to identify or receive referrals for gifted."
Berghoff said, "I'm here once a month. It's fun to be in a district that's motivated and forward-looking with something that often gets ignored."
The first task force meeting was on Aug. 31 with discussion of the definition of gifted enrichment. Similar to the state definition, it includes "persons whose abilities, aptitude (defined as an ability to reason and learn), talents, and potential are so exceptional that they require provisions to meet their educational programming needs." It lists gifted areas of general or specific intellectual ability; specific academic aptitude; creative or productive thinking; leadership abilities; visual or performing arts, musical or psychomotor abilities.
The task force focus for September was identifying gifted students, and October was on communication.
Berghoff provided a CDE handout with guidelines called Right4Rural to improve parent, family, and student engagement and communication. Similar to state student achievement scores, it has unsatisfactory, progressing toward requirements, meets requirements, and exceptional.
Task force meetings are scheduled for Nov. 30 to discuss programming, Dec. 14, Jan. 25, Feb. 22, Apr. 26, May 31 and present a final document in June.
Task force meetings are 4:45 to 6:45 p.m. at the mid school. Berghoff said visitors are welcome.
