Gifted

Gifted Programs create high-end learning opportunities which allow students to flourish in stimulating academic and social environments. Gifted education seeks to develop the whole child to maximum potential, academically and socially, while fostering an intrinsic motivation to be an independent thinker and life-long learner. In designing challenging educational opportunities, we strive to raise the floor, remove the walls and eliminate the ceiling on learning.

Ceilings are for rooms, not students.

Our instructional programs for gifted students are based on the principle that every student receive challenging, engaging and satisfying work every day. Because gifted students generally demonstrate high performance or capacity for high performance beyond age/grade expectations, they are atypical learners who require specialized learning experiences beyond those normally provided by the general education program.

Program Features and Differentiation

  • Focus on student strengths and interests
  • More complex understandings of generalizations, principles, theories, and the structure of the content area
  • Abstract concepts and thought processes or skills
  • Level and type of resources used to obtain information, acquire skills, and develop products
  • Appropriation of longer/shorter time span for learning
  • Generating new information and/or products
  • Transfer of learning to new/different disciplines, situations
  • Development of personal growth and sophistication in attitudes, appreciations, feelings, intuition
  • Independence of thought and study
  • Variety in content, process of information acquisition, and assessment

Staff

Malgorzata Cole – Program Specialist

(772) 429-7701

It is our goal to work closely with families, a well as the administrative and instructional staff at the student’s home school to facilitate a smooth, successful transition for the student’s return to a school program on a comprehensive campus.

Levels of Available Services

Gifted students exhibit “excellence” or the capacity for excellence far beyond that of their chronological peers. They demonstrate high performance in cognition, creativity, and higher-order thinking. Their level of giftedness ranges from the very bright to the profoundly gifted. Given their uniqueness, gifted students require modifications to their educational experience and a differentiated educational program in order to realize their ability to contribute to self and society. Gifted students typically display some, not all, of the following characteristics:

Learning

  • Enriched and advanced vocabulary for age
  • Keen and alert observer
  • Learns quickly and retains what is learned
  • High math ability
  • Reads at an early age
  • Enjoys reading for pleasure
  • Curious
  • Wants to know what makes things “tick”
  • Asks many thought-provoking questions
  • Advanced knowledge

Motivational

  • Easily bored with routine tasks
  • Enjoys working independently
  • Interested in adult problems and conversation
  • Strives toward perfection
  • Persists in completing tasks of interest
  • Enjoys challenge and is responsive to new ideas

Creativity

  • Keen sense of humor
  • High risk taker
  • Produces ideas different from the norm
  • Has an entrepreneurial spirit
  • Improvises when solving problems
  • Inventive, creative, imaginative

Leadership

  • Responsible
  • Shows leadership among peers
  • Readily adapts to new situations
  • Self-confident
  • Excels athletically
  • Tends to dominate others
  • Is sensitive to feelings of others

Referral

Students attending private schools are evaluated by the St. Lucie Public Schools System. Parents of private school students should contact the principal of your child’s school for referral information.

Service Delivery Models

Elementary Resource (K-5) – Students attend a classroom for the gifted for a part of the school week and remain in the general education classroom for basic instruction. Resource services are available in designated elementary school sites.

Elementary Full-time (K-5) – Students are served in a self-contained classroom for gifted in which gifted strategies are utilized throughout the school day and across all subject areas. A full-time program is provided in each of the District’s three attendance zones.

Middle School Gifted Program (6-8) – Students are offered academic classes that utilize gifted strategies in reading, language arts, science, social studies and math. Middle school classes are comprised of gifted and advanced level students at a middle school in each of the three attendance zones. Students who are gifted (if accepted) also attend core classes comprised of only gifted students at a secondary magnet school.

Resource Links

FL DOE Bureau of Exceptional Education and Student Services – Gifted Student Education provides information such as state laws and regulations, publications, technical assistance papers, and resources and school district contacts.

FLAG Florida Association for Gifted Children (FLAG) – Affiliate of the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) whose mission is to support educationally appropriate programs for gifted students through exchanging information, promoting research, supporting constructive changes.

The National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) – organization of parents, educators, other professionals and community leaders to address the unique needs of children and youth with demonstrated gifts and talents as well as those children who may be able to develop their talent potential with appropriate educational experiences.

Supporting Emotional Needs of the Gifted (SENG) – focuses primarily on the adults in the lives of gifted children. SENG provides information on identification, guidance, and effective ways to live and work with gifted individuals.

Hoagies’ Gifted Education – a resource guide for the education of gifted children with links to resources on nearly every aspect of gifted education available on the Internet, plus annotations and first hand information provided by parents.

Davidson Academy of Nevada – a free, public school for profoundly gifted pupils on the University of Nevada, Reno campus. The mission of The Davidson Academy is to provide profoundly gifted young people an advanced educational opportunity matched to their abilities, strengths and interests.