Path to Potential Gifted Program

The Path-to-Potential Gifted Program allows gifted scholars to delve deeper into content as they develop critical thinking skills, enhanced with our unique curriculum structure. Innovation and creation are the themes for these Scholars while they invent and solve real-world problems in the Fab Lab. The Path-to-Potential Gifted Program is a one-of-a-kind program in Casa Grande and is only available at The Grande Innovation Academy. The teachers of the program are highly qualified and experienced in differentiated instruction.

K – 2nd Grade Cluster Scholars are grouped together with other scholars and one teacher that receives specific training in gifted education and differentiation. Based on assessment data, scholars will have curriculum compacted, accelerated, and will be challenged with high-level projects.

3rd, 4th, and 5th Self-Contained Gifted Scholars receive instruction with one teacher that receives specific training in gifted education and differentiation. These scholars will have a personalized learning plan using school-adopted curriculum and extension activities. Based on assessment data scholars may have curriculum compacted and accelerated through a year’s worth of curriculum in a shorter amount of time.

Gifted Logo

6th – 8th Honors Classes The middle school gifted scholars will receive core instruction that is differentiated based on ability and need. They will receive specific leadership opportunities, STEM, and extended time in the SMALLab. Gifted middle schoolers also participate in Mock Trial taught by an attorney and math teacher, Mr. Wong.

Scholars will also participate in service-learning:

  • Feed my Starving Children
  • Local Events
Gifted Testing takes place 3 times a year using the Cognitive Abilities Test and Gifted Rating Scales. Scholars are gifted if they score in the 97 percentile or higher in one or more areas: verbal, quantitative, nonverbal. If scores fall in the 90-96 percentile a team decision will be made if the scholar should be placed in the self-contained classroom.
Contact Patty Messer for more information on the Path-to-Potential program and testing.

What is Giftedness?  

Gifted Wordly

According to the NAGC’s definition, students with gifts and talents perform—or have the capability to perform—at higher levels compared to others of the same age, experience, and environment in one or more domains may be what’s defined as gifted. They require modification(s) to their educational experience(s) to learn and realize their potential. A student with gifts and talents:

  • Come from all racial, ethnic, and cultural populations, as well as all economic strata.
  • Require sufficient access to appropriate learning opportunities to realize their potential.
  • Can have learning and processing disorders that require specialized intervention and accommodation.
  • Need support and guidance to develop socially and emotionally as well as in their areas of talent.

Read NAGC’s full definition. This definition was developed from a white paper prepared by the NAGC Definition Task Force, Key Considerations in Identifying and Supporting Gifted and Talented Learners.

Gifted in the News

PUSHING G/T STUDENTS PAST RIGHT OR WRONG ANSWERS: GRANDE INNOVATION ACADEMY

PUSHING G/T STUDENTS PAST RIGHT OR WRONG ANSWERS: GRANDE INNOVATION ACADEMY

A five-year-old boy pulled out a chair just as his aunt moved to sit down. She fell to the floor and broke her hip; incurring $11,000 in medical bills. The aunt sued her 5-year-old nephew for the battery. This story is a real-life legal case and is one that thinks law used with students across the country.

Students begin by determining the answer to the question, “Should the boy be held liable for battery?” The discussion extends further with probing questions like, “What would the world be like if people could just go around suing 5-year-olds?”  And conversely, “What would the world be like if children couldn’t be held accountable for seriously injuring adults?”

To read the rest of the article about the Grande Innovation Academy, click here.