The Trenton Times published the following article on July 8, 2013. To read the full article, click here.

After hiatus, Trenton middle schools could see gifted and talented curriculum return

By Jenna Pizzi/The Times of Trenton 
on July 08, 2013 at 6:45 AM, updated July 08, 2013 at 6:46 AM

TRENTON — After years without a program for highly achieving students, the city’s public schools could see a new gifted and talented curriculum integrated into their classrooms as early as this fall.

A computer-based program that identifies a student’s interests and strengths and meshes those with the curriculum would be introduced in the district’s four middle schools this year, said Norberto Diaz, the supervisor overseeing the program. But that is just the beginning of what he is hoping to create.

“We want to go big or go home,” Diaz said.

Eventually he sees the district opening a “school within a school,” where students who are identified as gifted can be instructed by specially qualified teachers, he said.

In the short term, the program could start at the middle school level and expand to the upper grades as participating children advance in school, though the district could also incorporate younger students as officials see fit, he said.

Diaz said he is writing a proposal to present to Superintendent Francisco Duran for review and possible recommendation to the school board for approval.

Board members have expressed interest in reviving the gifted and talented program, which was eliminated due to budget cuts years ago.

“Our district allocates so much needed funding and support for our special-needs children,” board President Sasa Olessi Montaño said. “Our gifted and talented children also have special needs and we have not been meeting those needs systematically for a long time.”

Diaz’s plan resulted from two months of meetings and research by a committee he chaired that was made up of teachers and community members. They settled on the program based on the methodologies of Joseph Renzulli, an educational psychologist at the University of Connecticut who started a gifted and talented program in Hartford, Conn.

Diaz said the first step will be to equip teachers with a computer program created by Renzulli that gives each student different activities tailored to their interests but still related to the class curriculum. Diaz said the program would cost the district $5,000.
“The student will get online and the program will take them through the survey, and it creates a profile for their strengths and weaknesses,” Diaz said. “The whole philosophy is to find out what their true interest is.”

Renzulli made a presentation to the school board last month, saying his focus is on “high-potential/low-income students.”

“We are trying to make school more interesting and engaging,” he said.

The board has not yet approved a contract with Renzulli or signed on to the plan.

In Hartford, Renzulli started a special school for gifted and talented students. He said the school costs less per-pupil for the Hartford school district and is producing high-performing and achieving students.

The Hartford school enrolls students from around the district who are identified as gifted and talented. Diaz said in Trenton, gifted and talented students would be selected not only for high test scores, but also would be evaluated according to input from teachers, parents and the students themselves as well as their portfolio and an interview.

Montaño said the school board was impressed by the program. Whatever model the board ultimately chooses, the district must make a financial commitment for years to come to keep the program intact, she said.

“We are losing too many of our G&T kids to private or charter schools because their families feel that they are not being served,” she said. “We would like to see this trend reversed.”

Contact Jenna Pizzi at jpizzi@njtimes.com or (609) 989-5717.