LONGMONT - The St. Vrain Valley School District is hosting a virtual meeting tonight for parents and guardians of highly advanced and potentially gifted children who are six years old or younger. The meeting will explain the admissions process and clarify the characteristics of intelligent children who may qualify and benefit from beginning elementary school early.
According to Jennifer Mayer, the gifted and talented coordinator for elementary schools in the St. Vrain Valley School District, children who may be ready to enter school early have highly advanced skills in literacy and numeracy, demonstrate appropriate social readiness, and have exhausted the resources of preschool. These children, Mayer says, require an accelerated education in order to meet their academic needs.
The school district has established a process for identifying children under the age of six who demonstrate a need for accelerating into kindergarten or first grade. This process was established in accordance with Colorado House Bill 08-1021, or the Exceptional Children’s Educational Act, which passed in 2008 to better serve highly advanced children. The ECEA details that a “highly advanced gifted child” who qualifies for early access might, for example, score in the 97th percentile and above on standardized achievement tests. All school districts in Colorado must comply with the ECEA.
The district will only consider the top two percent of the gifted population for early enrollment into elementary schools. According to the family guide for gifted services at the St. Vrain Valley School District, “these students exceed their peers in all areas of academic achievement, reasoning ability, performance, and motivation.”
The St. Vrain Valley School District is a public school district that services 13 communities in Colorado, including Broomfield, Dacono, Erie, Firestone, Frederick, Hygiene, Longmont, Lyons, Mead, Niwot, Peaceful Valley, Raymond, and Eastern Boulder. It is the seventh largest school district in the state, serving more than 33,000 students.
Families with gifted children who may qualify for early access are asked to attend the virtual meeting on January 14 at 6 p.m. Register by emailing [email protected]. Application portfolios will be available on March 3. For more information about early access to elementary schools for gifted children, contact your child's school or the school district's gifted and talented department at 303-702-7808.
