The school will have to get a waiver for next year.
By Winslow Durgin
Special to the Sun Journal

MINOT – The School Committee Tuesday night approved establishing a gifted and talented program at the Minot Consolidated School. However, because funding for next year, the 2003-04 school year, was just set at the March town meeting, the program will not begin until the fall of 2004.

Union 29 Curriculum Coordinator Christine Chamberlain noted that the school currently has a waiver from the State Department of Education for not having a gifted and talented program this year and that the School Committee will have to apply for a waiver for next year. She noted the fact that next year’s school budget has been set should be adequate basis for requesting the waiver.

Chamberlain recommended that Minot’s program focus on supplementary material in the English language, arts and mathematics areas, with the equivalent of a one half-time person running the program. According to guidelines, between 3 percent and 5 percent of the school’s students would be participating.

School Committee member Colleen Quint, noting that it could be easy to miss some students who would benefit most from the program – bright bored kids with low grades – questioned Chamberlain on how students would be identified for participation.

Chamberlain said a variety of screening tools will be used and that the sort of student Quint described would be sought out.

While the program will cost the school in terms of space – already identified as a problem in Minot – and in salary, School Superintendent Robert Wall noted that the town will receive some reimbursement from the state, in the same manner that special education costs are handled.

Minot Consolidated School middle level mathematics teacher Karen Nichols suggested that while the School Committee was looking at implementing programs aimed at furthering the intellectual development of identifiable subgroups, it might do well to look into an alternative program for middle school-aged students who are just not performing in the traditional structure.

The committee agreed to have the school’s Code of Conduct Committee address issues raised by Nichols. Quint observed that perhaps summer school, being established for the first time this summer, may provide a partial, short-time way for students to experience an alternative approach to material they weren’t handling well.

In other business, the School Committee accepted resignations from fifth-grade teacher Eric Gagnon and French teacher Shawna Winters.