District 24 revamps enrichment program

For years, District 24 has made it a point to make sure that those students who excel in their studies are pushed to challenge themselves even further. The aptly named Challenge Program has undergone some changes this year, with new opportunities offered for the district’s best performing students.

The top 10 to 20 percent of students in grades 4-6 are selected for the program. Children are chosen based on their performance on intelligence, reasoning and standardized tests, their class work, level of creativity and teacher recommendations.

Risa Miller, who is teaching the Challenge Program for the first time this year, said the goal is to provide students with higher level thinking skills, stimulate their minds, enhance their research and presentation skills, and help them reach their highest level of potential. She meets with each group of students for a few hours once during each six-day class cycle.

All of her groups are small – she works with no more than eight students at a time.

Miller said she is excited about a lot of the new initiatives being offered this year for students in the Challenge Program. She said one of the reasons that the curriculum was redesigned was because of the implementation of the Common Core Learning Standards, which requires a higher level of thinking to ensure that students are college and career-ready when they graduate high school.

Fifth-grade students just began a unit on the Constitution, which will run through May. They started it off by studying the Bill of Rights, and analyzed several related court cases.

“I happen to think it’s something people get passionate about, once they start learning about it,” Miller said, adding that whether a matter is constitutional or unconstitutional can stir lively debate and often has no right or wrong answer.

A robotics program is being added to the program, where children will conduct experiments that are also being done on the International Space Station. They will be studying the effects of gravitational and non-gravitational force.

Students in sixth grade will be participating in the WordMasters Challenge, a national program aimed at improving vocabulary skills. They will also take part in contests offered by Continental Mathematics League in an effort to enhance their reading comprehension and problem solving skills.

Through the Think Tank, students will participate in the 2014 Philosophy Slam, in which they will analyze issues that are important in everyday society. The children will hold a video conference with a group of enrichment-program students from another school.

Miller and art teacher Jane Berzner will work together to have the students take part in the Olympics of the Visual Arts. Children will have a problem in the area of fashion design, drawing, sculpting or photography that they have to solve, and will have to prepare a research portfolio as well as a final project. They will also study the persuasive effects of marketing and advertising.

There will a computer programming unit, and some students will take part in Project Citizen, a civic action program. Through that, they must investigate a global problem and come up with a plan to affect change on a local level.

Miller said all of these programs are designed to get students thinking critically and creatively about real-world issues.

Fifth-grader Aidan Frying said he looks forward to the enrichment classes, noting that his regular classwork often isn’t enough to keep him stimulated. “I like the Challenge program because this is what makes it confusing, but in a good way,” he said. “I’m not just writing down answers on a sheet. I’m talking and using my mind.”

He particularly enjoyed a project in which his group studied jelly beans. They had to think of different ways to use the candy, and determined what flavor someone would be based on their personality. Aidan said he also likes the technology units.

Samantha Ramirez, in her second year in the program, likes any unit that puts her creativity to use. She particularly enjoys science and technology activities, such as when she got to build a video game, or when she made small scale carnival rides out of K’nex.

Meghan Casey said one of her favorite parts of the program is a lively group discussion, and Isabella Grasso likes learning different methods to solve problems.

Superintendent Dr. Edward Fale said that Miller displays a high level of enthusiasm that spreads to her students. He said over the years, Challenge has been revised to keep it current and aligned with the trends in education. “We’ve always been proud of our Challenge program,” he said. “We’re very excited about a new beginning.”