Bear Valley maintains a pedagogy of delivering challenging, high-quality curriculum to a diverse and inclusive community of scholars. Formally identified students with advanced learning plans, in particular, receive an intentional mentorship geared towards developing students’ personal efficacy and agency through a program model centered around enrichment opportunities.
Each school day begins with a student’s designated Learning Community where students receive regular social emotional learning that strengthens the affective skills of our gifted students. This targeted curriculum aiims to strengthen resilience, reduce anxiety, and enhance overall wellbeing. Another mission of ours is to identify more culturally and linguistically diverse students for gifted programming by leveraging non-traditional identification pathways and resources.
Programming and Services
Professional development for staff on characteristics of giftedness
Targeted support to help build the capacity of teachers to differentiate within their general education classrooms
Traditional and Non-Traditional identification pathways for diverse learners
Yeti scholars are able to engage in a variety of elective courses such as drama, creative writing, choir, band, Uplift, and student council.
Social emotional support facilitated in Learning Community
Gifted and Talented students develop individualized goals around enrichment opportunities that are supported through teacher mentorship.
6th graders participate in DPS universal screening for giftedness. Gifted and Talented children are present in all student groups, regardless of gender, disability, English language proficiency, economic status, ethnic or cultural background.
Use of culturally responsive tools (Gifted Rating Scales, Accuplacer, ACCESS scores, Talent Portfolios) to identify students and address inequities in GT/HGT/ME/Talent Pool student populations.
Communication
Enrichment opportunities for gifted students and opportunities for families to engage with the community will be shared via the family newsletter or by email.
For more information about gifted programming at Bear Valley, please contact Becca Glosser via email at rebecca_glosser1@dpsk12.net.
