Cape to offer accelerated classes

Cape Henlopen School District plans to offer accelerated math and English classes at each of its four elementary schools.

The Cape Accelerated Program – CAP for short – is meant to challenge children from kindergarten to fifth grade, said Donna Kolakowski, supervisor of elementary education.

“This is going to be a great program, and it’s really going to benefit our students,” Kolakowski said.

Accelerated materials will be presented to all students in kindergarten to second grade, but by third, fourth and fifth grades, Kolakowski said, students will be nominated by parents and teachers to be screened to participate in accelerated classes.

A nonverbal ability test, known as the Naglieri test, will be given to students nominated. The test does a good job of gauging academic ability without penalizing students, such as English language learners, who may not be proficient in English, she said.

Students who score in the 90th percentile will then receive a rating from educators based on leadership, motivation, artistic talent, creativity, and academic and intellectual ability.

Kolakowski said nomination forms for potential students will be sent out shortly, and a copy will be posted on the district website, www.capehenlopenschools.com.

Once all the nomination forms have been turned in, she said, children now in second, third and fourth grades will be tested for the fall program, which Kolakowski said would be considered a pilot program.

Third-graders will participate in an enrichment program during a school’s 50-minute Response to Intervention period – which teachers use to help students who need help in English and math while allowing advanced learners to participate in science, technology, engineering and math enrichment, commonly known as STEM.

Under Cape’s new accelerated program, fourth- and fifth-graders will meet for math and English language arts instruction with a teacher hired specifically to teach the accelerated class. The rest of the school day, Kolakowski said, students would return to their homeroom classroom and attend classes with their classmates.

“We want to have the top 5 to 10 percent of the fourth- and fifth-graders combined in one class,” she said.

One teacher certified in gifted and talented education will teach an accelerated class of 20 to 24 students.

It will cost about $100,000 to hire a teacher certified in gifted and talented education per elementary school. Another $14,000 has been set aside to test students nominated for the program, Kolakowski said. All four existing elementary schools and the future fifth school to be built on Route 24 are all slated for new teachers, she said.

During recent discussion of the new program, Cape Superintendent Robert Fulton said the accelerated program will push students academically.

“We need to do a better job of meeting the needs of all students in the district,” he said.

The accelerated program is the latest in a series of enrichment programs the district has provided to students, Kolakowski said. STEM classes offered to students over the past few years recently expanded to include art and became known as STEAM. The district may continue to use those enrichment programs for groups of students not enrolled in the accelerated program, she said. Those in the accelerated program will receive more academic focus through a challenging curriculum, she said.

“It’s another layer, because we have been doing STEM and STEAM,” Kolakowski said.