At the Dec. 1 Rockwood School Board meeting, the Board of Education (BOE) addressed, among other things, the current status of the Gifted Education Evaluation. Carolyn Callahan, who conducted the evaluation with Karen Austin, gave a presentation to the Board and people in the audience about her commendations, problems and recommendations for the Rockwood Gifted Program.
Before the presentation began, Steve Smith, BOE president, stressed that there was no plan to do away with the gifted program and the evaluation done by Callahan and Austin supports the need for the gifted program in Rockwood.
At the beginning of the presentation, Callahan explained that they approached the evaluation with the mindset that, “If something is not growing, it’s dying.” From here, she went on to explain how the evaluation was handled and the results from the evaluation.
The planning for this evaluation started last spring, according to Callahan. The evaluation process included interviews, observations in classrooms, surveys, a review of documents of the gifted program and a review of demographic and performance data. Interviews were conducted with general education and gifted teachers, students, the school board, parents, principals, the superintendent and the design team. Surveys were given to a diverse group of people that the evaluators felt would best show the current situation of the gifted program, and were also available for the general public to submit. Observations were held in Center for Creative Learning (CCL), Academic Stretch and general education classrooms.
From the observation period, Callahan and Austin put together a report addressing their recommendations for how Rockwood’s gifted education program should be improved. This full presentation can be found on the Guiding Change page of Rockwood’s website.
In the presentation, Callahan addressed key aspects of the gifted program and how to adjust them to extend the benefits of this program to more students.
Rockwood must have a definition of “gifted” and know what it means to be gifted and talented. This would be used to determine what children get into the gifted program and are able to go to CCL or Academic Stretch classes, but also to find out how best to teach to the needs of these gifted kids.
Furthermore, Callahan repeatedly came back to the idea that gifted education needs to be something that goes on daily in regular classrooms. One aspect of the presentation was that the teaching style of the gifted education program could be used in regular classrooms to not only help gifted kids but to also help kids at the average level of their grade to learn critical thinking skills often fine-tuned in CCL or Academic Stretch classes.
Callahan ended the presentation with a summary reminding the BOE that improving Rockwood’s gifted education program will require careful, rather than quick, planning. She said to remember that changes take time and commitment from all educators. Callahan ended by saying that although it is not easy to change, this school system has the potential to change and change well.
