This post was contributed by Maria Janney, High Ability (DEEP) Coordinator at St. John the Baptist School in Newburgh, Indiana.
St. John the Baptist School in Newburgh, Indiana has many unique programs for our students making it an amazing, Christ-centered place to learn! Most notably, in August 2013, we began a groundbreaking program that not only set us apart from all other schools but also changed our school’s entire climate of learning.
At that time, we began DEEP, Diocese of Evansville Enrichment Program, to meet the needs of our high ability (gifted and talented) students in intentional ways. The success of this program lies in our school’s embracement of a culture of differentiation where teachers create environments where all students can thrive. In our school, high ability students are those who perform in the top 2-4% nationally on a valid measure of achievement and/or ability. These students are often at a mismatch with the general education curriculum because of their unique cognitive characteristics including problem-solving abilities, abstract reasoning, in-depth interests, natural curiosity and high capacity memory. On seeing our great need for this program in grades K-8, we quickly expanded to adding a full-time teacher dedicated to high ability math along with our full-time teacher for high ability language arts and program coordination.
Students who are identified as high ability have their needs met through a variety of methods including differentiation by the classroom teacher, cluster grouping, working with the high ability teacher as a resource, self-contained classes with a high ability teacher and subject-skipping (working on curriculum from a grade level or two above). SJB is committed to providing enrichment and acceleration in a nurturing environment to help these students reach their cognitive potential as well as develop skills in academic risk-taking, self-discipline and self-motivation that are essential for lifetime success. Our ultimate goal is for all students to develop their God-given talents to the best of their abilities.
St. John the Baptist Catholic School is a Christ-centered community forming disciples through faith, knowledge and service.
