Accelerated school creates a rich environment for gifted
students
For the first year since its inception, the Accelerated
Achievement Academy has fourth- through eighth-graders on campus
and has received a designation as a separate school in the
Hollister School District.
Principal Christine White, who has been with the program since
its beginning, said the school has come along way since its start
with 68 students. The school now has 108 students spread across
five grades and received an API score of 942 on the most recent
test results.
Accelerated school creates a rich environment for gifted students
For the first year since its inception, the Accelerated Achievement Academy has fourth- through eighth-graders on campus and has received a designation as a separate school in the Hollister School District.
Principal Christine White, who has been with the program since its beginning, said the school has come along way since its start with 68 students. The school now has 108 students spread across five grades and received an API score of 942 on the most recent test results.
But the real sign of success for White is putting the students together, listening to them and watching them learn.
“The biggest advantage is that all the high achievers and gifted are together in one place,” White said. “They draw from each others’ talents. Research shows that gifted students do better with like peers. They compete with each other and try harder to achieve more.”
She said the students function at a high level verbally, they debate with each other and “look at challenges in the world. They are so interested in learning.”
The program started in 2007 on the Calaveras School campus, and was considered part of Calaveras until this year.
White said the program started when former Superintendent Ron Crates arrived in the district.
“He wanted to give parents choice based on the needs of the kids and families,” she said. “We had a task force and meetings.”
Out of those meetings came two magnet programs, the Hollister Dual Language Academy, which would house K-3 students, and the Accelerated Achievement Academy, which initially was a third- to fifth-grade school.
One of the initial goals of the schools was to keep students in the Hollister School District who might otherwise transfer out to private schools or to smaller school districts in the area.
Over the years, White said the focus for the academy has changed. “The goal is to reach high achievers and to give them the best program we have,” she said.
One of the goals they have achieved is to add an additional grade, up to eighth grade, each year. This year is the first year a class of eighth-graders will be promoted from the academy. The school has three classes, a combined fourth and fifth grade, a sixth grade, and a combined seventh- and eighth-grade class. The middle school classrooms are self-contained, though the students do leave for math and physical education. The school shares a math and PE teacher with Calaveras School, which is K-8.
The school does have an application process, but White stressed that it looks at a variety or criteria such as test scores, report cards, nonverbal problem solving ability, a task commitment test and teacher recommendations.
“Kids are gifted in different areas,” she said. “Some are good with tests. Some are not. Some are good at reading. Some are good in math.”
The school dropped third grade in the second year because there wasn’t enough desire from parents. White said at the time class size for the lower grades was still set at a ratio of 20 to 1.
“When they got to fourth grade was when class size started to rise and they started looking for a different program,” White said.
The school teaches the same standard curriculum as any other school in the district, White said, but at the academy the curriculum is compacted.
“They can get through it faster so we are able to compact it so they are not so bored,” White said. “They have more time to look at unique talents and do projects based on those talents.”
White described it as going deeper into the curriculum. The teachers use a web-based program with the students that helps get a profile of how the students learn and what subjects interest them. The program even contains suggestions for projects the student might like.
The goal this year is to keep students at the high level at which they are achieving, to increase enrichment activities and to increase parent participation. There is a requirement of 20 hours of parent participation each year.
“But it hasn’t been strongly enforced,” White said. “We have a lot of talent in the parents and that’s a direction I’d like to take it.”
Some of that participation will come as the school creates its own Parent Teacher Organization and puts together a school site council to consider a future site for the school as it grows. The initial plan was to share a campus with Calaveras for one year and then move to another site, White said, but budget cuts and declining enrollment across the district put those plans on hold.
One of the ongoing challenges has been recruiting students to the school.
“It’s hard to draw students away from their own home schools,” White said. “The location where we have it (at Calaveras) is really beautiful, but it’s really less than desirable for people who are unfamiliar with the neighborhood.”
One of the new challenges this year will be preparing the eighth-grade students to go onto high school next year. White said that entering the middle school years is one of the times where some parents opt to transfer their kids to a standard school.
“In Hollister a lot of parents favor the K-6,” she said. “In seventh and eighth grades, they are looking for an environment to help prepare their kids for a bigger high school. Are we sure kids will be prepared for high school, changing classes?”
She said she is talking with staff at Rancho San Justo, Marguerite Maze and some of the other K-8 schools to put together a middle school program where students can experience a bit of that.
“The kids can feel a little more grown up,” she said.
