Columns

Helping the brightest shine

By ANDREW SKERRITT
Published February 4, 2007

With a new school on the way and major expansions planned, Hernando County School Board member Jim Malcolm thinks it's time to do something bold, ambitious.

Malcolm wants his district to open a kindergarten through 8th grade school for gifted students all housed under one roof. The school would help consolidate the mishmash of programs offered to many of the more than 600 gifted students scattered throughout the county.

What it means to be a gifted student in Hernando depends on where you attend school. At Chocachatti Elementary and Challenger K-8, two of the district's three magnet schools, gifted and regular students learn side by side in the same classroom. But gifted students in "pull out" programs have to leave their regular school one day a week to attend gifted classes on another campus. Different principals treat their gifted program differently.

"We need to have a unified, districtwide strategy for the gifted," said Malcolm. "And it's best achieved under one roof.

Malcolm, 63, grew up at a time when it was okay to group students by ability. But in this era of self esteem and mainstreaming, academic competition is sometimes discouraged. Nowadays, so much of public education - FCAT, No Child Left Behind - is focused on the lower end of the academic chart, the students in the middle and the bottom. Often the high achievers aren't being challenged. They're bored.

Those enlightened notions of inclusion can produce average students but don't do enough to raise the bar toward excellence.

"Competition is a dirty word," said Malcolm. "Kids need to be challenged and they can challenge each other when they're together."

The idea of schools for the gifted isn't new. The magnet school concept was designed to promote racial integration and student excellence.

In Sarasota County, Pineview School, a grades 2 through 12 school for the gifted, has gained a tremendous national reputation in a short time. On Wednesday, school board members and administrators plan to visit the school to see if this would be a model Hernando can adopt. Other school districts are going to be watching to see what Malcolm and his colleagues do.

But even before the tour bus leaves the parking lot, one can already hear Malcolm's proposal being trashed. Some will call it a refuge for the affluent, a private-like school paid for by taxpayers.

What message would this school send to the students who didn't get in? And why should the school district spend more resources on gifted students, who are succeeding anyway, while so many other students are either struggling or failing?

Those are valid concerns. But this is about acknowledging and preparing the best and the brightest - the future scientists and engineers.

"Some kids are brighter than others," Malcolm said. "They know who they are; teachers know who they are; classmates know who they are. You can't hide it."

Maybe, Malcolm figures, you should showcase it.

Andrew Skerritt can be reached at 813 909-4602 or toll-free at 1-800-333-7505, ext. 4602. His e-mail address is askerritt@sptimes.com.

[Last modified February 3, 2007, 19:57:09]