Board of Education committee reviews student participation in gifted program and approves revisions to the curriculum

Posted By: David Fortier June 29, 2024

By Maria Caceres

Public school enrichment programs for students and adding new courses to the curriculum were among the topics raised at the Bristol Board of Education at the board’s Student Achievement and Outcomes Committee meeting Wednesday, June 26.

Alan Theriault, who runs oversees the Gifted and Talented Program in the Bristol School District, addressed student placement for the program, particularly how students are pooled, and this year’s student accomplishments.

By way of background the committee was seeking information about admittance rate of students to the Gifted and Talented Program from the Twice Exceptional program, which identifies students who qualify for special education and the gifted program, but who are unrepresented.

Only 2 to 2.4 percent of those in the Gifted and Talented Program are among those who qualify as Twice Exceptional.

Theriault said that students in the program are ones identified through screening that begins in the third grade, and that the process has evolved over the past 12 years, having been through six changes.

“That’s typically the main reason for taking the Torrance,” he said, in reference to one of the tests that students who are accepted into the program are evaluated.

Specifically, the program includes students who do well on standardized state tests like the SBAC, Renzulli and Torrance. However, only 319 students of potentially 800 slots were filled in the program in the 2023-2024 school year.

The Torrance Test of Creative Thinking, administered in two forms–figural and verbal–measures a student’s creative thinking abilities.

The Renzulli Scales measure student abilities on a variety of characteristics, from learning and motivation to planning, reading and technology.

The SBAC or the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium is a statewide assessment that aligns with Common Core State Standards, and measures achievement and growth in English Language Arts and mathematics.

Theriault said he evaluated students who are nominated the following year to see if they fit the criteria of the program.

Lauren Vernaglia, a parent, said her son was very awkward until he was put in the enrichment program and has become more social.

She said her son struggled a lot in school until she reached out to Theriault.

“He [Theriault] said he would be a mentor [for my son],” Vernaglia said.

Mary Hawk, the principal of Mountain View Elementary School, also said the students in her school that were involved in her program were exceling academically and socially.

Committee chair Maria Simmons said the program should be broad enough to figure out ways to accommodate underrepresented populations throughout the school system because it gives the students in the program different opportunities.

“Gifted and talented students are presented opportunities that other students would thrive with,” she said.

Simmons asked Theriault why some students were underrepresented in the program, but he said participation was dependent on the class and school.

“It depends on the school,” Theriault said. “If you walked into one class, it’s all males, and if you walked into another it’s mostly female.”

The members of the board said Theriault is doing a lot of work and should look into funding to find someone to help him with the program.

In other developments, Bristol Public School STEM supervisor, Dr. Jaime Rechenberg, presented several course revisions to be implemented into the school curriculum. Courses are revised on a five-year cycle.

The board members unanimously voted on for revisions of the following programs: ECE Environmental Science, CAD and Modeling, Communication Technology, Child, Family and Community and Oceanography.

Rechenberg also introduced revisions to the botany class and a new website design program while another STEM supervisor, Jillian Romann announced making revisions to the K-12 Library to teach students about media literacy, safe internet usage and how to use several communication platforms.

The board unanimously voted for each.

Editor’s note: The original article included several errors that have been corrected. In addition, the tests that were mentioned now have an explanation.

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