Teachers College's experts recommend how to identify and deliver education to gifted students.
A report written by experts at Columbia University's Teachers College presented recently to West Hartford's Board of Education by recommended district leaders to rethink how they identify and deliver education to gifted students.
The experts drafted their findings after spending five days in
The report's authors said they recognized West
The experts also urged district leaders to consider reestablishing a full-time coordinator position for the QUEST program, a job previously held on a full-time basis and cut down to part-time under recent budget pressures.
"We think in order for the program to move forward in a way with vision, we cannot urge you enough to reinstate that position to a full-time position," said a co-author of the report.
Board of Education member Clare Kindall commented on the importance of the program's efficacy, saying she worried that without the QUEST program, gifted students could be "lost," as a lack of engagement predisposes them to tune out or drop out.
But she and other Board of Education members were hard-up to make promises about some of the changes they saw as less than plausible under these economic circumstances.
The suggestions will be crucial as the Board of Education and district administration engage in talks about how to move the program forward and prevail over the sense of tenuousness that many believe have permeated the program for a number of years.
The article “A report presented recently to
Published Monday, Jan. 5, 2009