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<p>Here’s how our school does that–albeit not well. Every freshman MUST take at least one honors class in a core subject. What it did was dumb down the freshman honors classes for everyone. The really bright students, the ones who are interested in learning, don’t get a chance to distance themselves from the rest of the student body until junior year when the school offers AP and IB classes.</p>
<p>By then, many who excelled in middle school have decided that being smart is no longer cool and they meld into the middle-of-the-road group.</p>
<p>This is something I hope to address next year in my new volunteer position as liaison to parents of gifted students. Nothing says (yet) that counselors and the principal can’t assign the gifted kids into the same section of those honors classes as freshmen and sophomores to keep them excited about learning.</p>
<p>We’ll see how long before that idea gets squashed as “elitist.”</p>