City of Salem Schools

Children Come First in Salem!

Gifted Program Overview

• Gifted support service to:

Staff: Coordinators meet with approximately five to seven teachers a week to assist them with planning differentiation opportunities, conferencing about individual students’ needs, developing curriculum, etc;

Students: Salem has two gifted program coordinators for 338 students. The students participate in an array of differentiated opportunities in their own classrooms, as well as attend workshops in their areas of interest.

Gifted Program Overview Cont.• Gifted support service to:

– Parents: Coordinators send home differentiation opportunity logs which describe differentiation opportunities students have in the classroom. In addition, coordinators meet with parents as needed to discuss their children’s particular needs.

– Community: Various community members volunteer in programs such as our Shadow Program in which community members invite students, who have indicated an interest in their particular field, into their work place to explore potential career opportunities.

Elementary• Support for teachers

– Resource materials

– Ideas of how to use differentiation strategies in the classroom

– Team teaching

– In-service opportunities

•Support for Parents•Meeting with parents as needed to discuss their children’s individual needs

•Workshops for students•In-school and after-school

Middle School

• Tutorials– Gifted Programs Coordinators go to 6th and 7th grade tutorials at

least once a week to do whole group and small group projects.

• Support for teachers– Resource materials– Ideas of how to use differentiation strategies – In-service opportunities– Co-teaching

• Support for Parents– Meeting with parents as needed to discuss their children’s

individual needs

• Workshops for Students– Before-school– After-school

High School

• Support for teachers– Assist in planning– Working with small groups– Co-teaching– Resource materials and ideas

• Support for students– Individual assistance

–schedules–applications –college planning

– Shadow Program– Workshops–Governor’s School

• Support for parents•Meet with parents as needed to discuss individual needs•College Planning

Highlights of the Year

• Artice Ledbetter, a parent of two sons in the City of Salem Schools Gifted program has been selected as Virginia Parent of the Year for the Gifted. Artice is serving on our local advisory board, the VAG board, and is working on several projects including the Shadow Program.

Highlights of the Year

• Gifted Education Article• Amanda Gibson and Dr. Darryl

Helems co-authored an article on Multiple Intelligences and gifted learners. The article was published in the Virginia Journal of Education.

• http://www.veaweteach.org/

articles_vje_detail.asp?ContentID=2083

Highlights of the Year

• We are piloting the Renzulli Learning System, a web based teaching tool for our identified gifted seventh grade students. It enables teachers to gain a comprehensive profile of each student’s interests and learning style in just one class period. After answering questions the system searches the Renzulli Differentiation Database for learning and enrichment activities that match the students’ profiles. The database is a collection of more than 10,000 pre-screened, safety-tested, and constantly updated web-based enrichment activities. The students, their parents, and teachers are able to access this unique learning system both at school and at home.

Highlights of the Year

• Our Elementary students attended a field trip to the Science Museum of Western Virginia and Studios on the Square Art Gallery during the Parent Teacher Conference Day in November. Due to its huge success, we are planning future field trips for our students to be held on our parent teacher conference days, early release days, and during the pre-service week in August.

DestiNation ImagiNation

• Our very own ALMS DestiNation ImagiNation Team, the “ALMS DInamites, “will travel to the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Tennessee to compete in the DestiNation ImagiNation Global tournament.

• Team Manger, Rachel Sailor, will cheer on her team consisting of Clay Bradshaw, Sarah Collie, Alison Giles, Breanna Kawa, Phillip Rodgers, Jake Sailor, and Jenna Whisler.

• These students have worked diligently on creative problem solving, drama, set design, and team work to be able to compete at the highest level of competition in the arena of DestiNation ImagiNation.

DestiNation ImagiNation Volunteer Opportunities

• Team Managers

• Team Helpers

• Tournament Volunteers

• Appraisers

Future Plans

• Photography workshop• Film script workshop series• Podcasting series• Artist exploration series• Foreign language workshops• Jamestown celebration

activities• Russian pen pals• Teacher workshop series

focusing on G/T topics

Outcomes from

Parent Meetings

• Foreign Language Workshops

• Communication

Workshop notification

• Academic

College Planning

• Creative Writing Clubs

Website

Gifted and Talented

http://www.salem.k12.va.us