Is Your Gifted Student Being Supported in Public School?

In recent decades, public schools find themselves facing the greater needs of diverse student populations, with varying cognitive abilities, maturity levels, and academic strengths and weaknesses. While most typical elementary, middle, and high school students find themselves immersed in a classroom of twenty to thirty peers with one lead teacher, most public schools also have “self-contained” classrooms to provide alternative settings for enhanced academic support for the children whose needs cannot be fully met in a general education classroom.

What are Self-Contained Classrooms?

Unlike standard classrooms with a large number of peers, self-contained classrooms are typically smaller settings with a fewer number of students. Created to help foster enhanced support for students with special needs or specific difficulties, self-contained rooms are generally comprised of about ten students with unique struggles who are most commonly instructed by a lead teacher with a certification in special education. Self-contained classrooms will also have at least one paraeducator who provides instructional support under the guidance of the classroom teacher.

Due to recent curriculum shifts, some self-contained rooms cater to the diverse needs of students, such as those coping with autism spectrum disorder. A lead teacher, who is highly trained to help support students with autism, is able to provide greater assistance than what these students would typically receive in a classroom with a larger student-to-teacher ratio. Other examples of students who may be enrolled in self-contained rooms include students with developmental issues, behavioral concerns, students with specific academic struggles (i.e. in math,

To provide students with academic, social, and personal enrichment opportunities year-round, many public schools and national institutions have created unique and diverse summer programs. With programs focusing on core subject areas, such as math and language, in addition to programs that spotlight team development and leadership skills, students of all ages can benefit from the exclusive perks of summer programs.

Stimulate Academic Advancement and Cognitive Development

For students who struggle in specific academic areas, or for students who demonstrate exceptional academic abilities in core areas, summer programs that focus on academic instruction allow students to enhance their cognitive skills and abilities. For example, as the American Mathematical Society reveals in their list of summer camps and programs, there are hundreds of local universities, public schools, and community colleges that provide kids with the opportunity to engage in mathematical practice, research, and investigations.

While these opportunities, in any subject area, will provide students with unique and engaging intervention activities and lessons, many of the academic programs also help support personal development and social development advancements as well.

In this video, Socratica offers 5 reasons for attending summer school.

For example, in thoroughly investigating the array of summer math programs across the country, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) directs an academically rigorous math camp with a unique social twist; the UNL camp caters specifically to young girls ranging from grades 10 through 12. Striving to

While final exams once seemed to be an unpleasant rite of passage for high school students, they are now common forms of assessment for almost every grade level! With the rise of standardized testing in the attempt to make all schools equal, most elementary, middle, and high school students are required to complete an array of final exams during their twelve years in public schools.

While many children and teens manage the stress of finals through their own strategies and tactics, some students need a bit more support. Finals can provoke stress and text anxiety and spike student mood and behavior issues. If problematic behaviors or signs of anxiety arise, parents can easily intervene to help provide their son or daughter with positive encouragement and test preparation support.

Elementary Final Exams

While many elementary schools often require students to take a final exam at the end of the semester or school year, many of these final exams do not actually impact a child’s grade; therefore, final exams at the elementary level should not be over-stressed or too greatly emphasized.

Final exams at the elementary level tend to be standardized tests that are developed by curriculum experts, and they are normally given in order to assess the teacher’s progress and the average student performance rate, in addition to providing test result information that can determine whether or not a specific student needs serious intervention strategies.

As The Chicago Public Schools’ Elementary Standardized Test

As extensive studies and reports reveal, the study and practice of music serve to boost children’s mathematical abilities. While many schools struggle to manage time, course schedules, and the cost of music programs, expert educators assert that music education classes are imperative to a child’s development.

Research and Support

When examining the music education curriculum in most elementary schools, many students are forced to be pulled out of core classes in order to attend music lessons. While many school leaders feel that pulling students out of core classes leads to deficits in cognitive growth, data and investigative studies report otherwise. According to The National Association for Music Education (NAME), a 1995 study of Ohio elementary schools reveals that pulling students out of core classes for enrichment opportunities does not harm student achievement.

While most administrators and leaders express concern about enrichment pull-outs, the Ohio study shows that students who were pulled out of core classes for a thirty-minute string instrument session two times per week scored higher than students who were not pulled out of class in every assessed subject!

Specifically, in examining the math scores of the children, string students scored an average of nearly 215 points on the Ohio Proficiency Test, while non-string students scored an average of nearly 212. In further examining the assessment results of the string versus non-string students, and to make the analysis as fair as possible, researchers of the Ohio schools “Looked at students' scores on a previous standardized