Lucile Erwin Middle School is committed to supporting the unique needs of our gifted learners. Before the main Incoming 6th Grade Parent Night, we invite families to join us for a Gifted Education Program Meeting to learn more about our services and opportunities for advanced learners.
- Date: Thursday, February 20th
- Time: 5:30 – 6:00 PM
- Location: LEMS Library
For more details, please read the Introductory Letter below.
We look forward to sharing how we support and challenge gifted students at LEMS!
Dear families,
We are excited to welcome our incoming sixth graders for next year and want to give you some information about Gifted Education (GE) services and accommodations in middle school. For many families, this can be a significant change from the services and pull-out groups that students experience in elementary school. As gifted education specialists at the middle school level, our role is to manage the Advanced Learning Plans (ALPs) for our gifted students and support classroom teachers in providing accommodations for these students in their classrooms.
As students enter middle school, we revise the ALP. Different from elementary school, the majority of ALP goals are three-year goals that span the student’s entire middle school experience. Each year we review these and, if necessary, adjust them to meet the student’s current needs. Due to the significant increase in the number of students we advise, there are timelines that we follow for each grade level’s ALP reviews. From August to mid-November we work on setting new goals for our incoming sixth graders. Seventh grade ALP reviews typically occur between November and the end of February. February through April is the time frame for eighth grade ALP reviews. Since the middle school gifted specialists take more of an advisory role, it is the classroom teachers who provide the bulk of the ALP accommodations for students at this level.
All of our middle schools cluster gifted students in their strength areas. This means that GE students are grouped together in regular classrooms to provide an opportunity for them to work together and for the teachers to strategically differentiate for gifted learners. Some middle schools do offer advanced classes and some do not. Please contact the gifted education specialist for your child’s middle school for further details and specifics about cluster grouping in that school. It is rare that we are able to provide focused academic pull-out groups for middle school gifted students.
In regard to math accommodations, all middle schools offer telescoped math classes to our high ability and gifted and talented students identified in mathematics. The “1.5” math class is designed to cover a year and a half of math curriculum in one year. Students will work through the full sixth grade curriculum and the first semester of the seventh grade curriculum. Teachers work diligently to compact the learning for these students so that students may skip content they have already mastered in order to focus on skills that have not been mastered yet. As seventh graders, students would then move on to the “2.5” math class which covers the second semester of the seventh grade curriculum and all of the eighth grade curriculum in one year. Then, as eighth graders, this group of students will be ready for Algebra 1, thus ending up one full year accelerated in math as they prepare to move on to high school.
For language arts, clustering is the primary accommodation provided among all of our middle schools. Within each school and each clustered language arts classroom, the specific differentiation techniques vary. Some schools have full sections of advanced language arts classes and others cluster groups of GE students in typical classrooms to stretch our language arts gifted students’ thinking and communication skills.
Meeting the affective and social-emotional needs of our gifted middle students is very important to all of us. Specific accommodations and services vary greatly depending on the caseload and time the gifted education specialist is at a particular school. Since many of us are part time in our buildings, we focus largely on providing support and guidance to our students with regard to their social-emotional needs. Formalized services vary greatly from school to school and year to year depending on the needs of our students as a whole. When possible, we try to provide pull-out groups to work on these needs. If you have specific questions about support for gifted students’ social-emotional needs please contact the gifted education specialist for your child’s middle school.
We hope that this letter provides your family with the necessary information to feel comfortable with your gifted child’s transition to middle school. Please know that toward the end of the year we meet with the elementary GE specialists to talk about the specific needs of each student we expect to be working with next year. This is a great way for us to gain a basic understanding of the group that will be joining us in middle school. Again, if you have specific questions or concerns about an individual school or your child’s needs, please feel free to reach out to us. Our contact information is provided for your convenience. We wish your family a great remainder of the school year! We are excited to welcome your child to middle school next year!
Sincerely,
The Middle School Gifted Education Team
Sue Teumer and Nicole Doyle
sue.teumer@tsd.org
nicole.doyle@tsd.org
970.613.7600
