Challenge Program
Program Supervisors: Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum & Instruction, and Elementary School Principals
Program Philosophy:
The administrators and teachers involved in the the Challenge Program believe that the program should be inclusive and flexible in nature. While the program is specifically designed to serve our more academically capable students at the elementary level, thus requiring some type of identification process, we also want it to be flexible enough to allow other students to get occasional support from our Challenge teachers on an as need basis. Throughout the identification and the program implementation processes, we want and aim to avoid singling students out from their peers by indicating in any manner that they are in or not in the Challenge Program.
Program's Purpose and Goal:
Typically, the regular classroom/homeroom teacher is expected to modify or differentiate the curriculum and instruction to meet the particular needs of his/her students; however, this is sometimes difficult to do for our more advanced students without the extra assistance of a Challenge teacher. Therefore, the primary purpose and goal of the Challenge Program is to provide additional human and material resources to further challenge those students in grades 3-5 who have been identified as needing further challenge primarily in math and reading/English language arts.
How the Program Works:
Student Identification: We are in the process of modifying our identification process to provide "Multiple Pathways" for identifying students who may be needing additional challenge for grades 3-5. Only students in grades 2-4 will participate in this new identification process in spring of 2010. Once students have been identified, the Challenge teachers notify their respective school principals who then try to cluster the students in a manner that allows the Challenge teacher to develop a schedule to access the students on a weekly basis, typically 1-2 times per week depending on the Challenge teacher's schedule. Principals will not necessarily place all Challenge students in the same classroom as that may disrupt overall class balances.
Each Challenge teacher is assigned to two elementary schools and has a case load of approximately 35 students in grades 3-5. In addition, the Challenge teacher will work with classroom teachers of K-2 students who they feel need additional challenge. In general, each Challenge teacher is able to work directly with identified students once a week.
The Challenge teachers work in a flexible manner with their respective students in a variety of ways:
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They provide direct services to Challenge students by working with them in small groups in the students' respective classrooms. Students other than Challenge students may occasionally will be involved in this small group work based on teacher recommendations.
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On occasion, the Challenge teacher will take small groups of students to the library media center or computer lab to work on special projects.
Reporting:
The Challenge teachers will regularly communicate by phone, e-mail, or other correspondence with the parents and teachers of identified students regarding the work and progress of the Challenge students over the course of the year. Challenge teachers will provide comments on the students' work, progress, and achievement on each of the students' report cards.
Math Olympiad:
An additional component of the Challenge program is our Math Olympiad Program that is coordinated by Challenge Teacher Louise Hague. Math Olympiad is an after school program that is run in each of our elementary and middle schools. Any grade 3-8 student who has an interest in problem solving is welcome to participate. School teams meet weekly from October to March to work on building math problem solving skills and to participate in five national contests, each consisting of 5 challenging math problems. Interested students should contact their math teacher and Louise Hague. Each team is run by a Math Olympiad advisor who may be a teacher, parent, or college student.
Parents and others are encouraged to go to each school's website listed and linked below to get more specific information and updates about the Challenge Program's activities going on in each of the respective schools.
Program full description with Q&A 
Resources for Parents
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Challenge Teacher |
School Assignments |
Contact Information |
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781-314-5680 781-314-5740 |
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781-314-5760 781-314-5780 |
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781-314-5720 781-314-5620 |