Brain Food What are the options for students who show more than your average smarts?

Headmaster John Tucker, right, and others at Norfolk Academy encouraged Itzhak Gartenburg's academic and musical talents.

By Kathleen F. Phalen
Like most parents, Ehud Gartenberg wanted the best for his children. He wanted a school that nurtured students’ talents — whether academic, artistic or athletic. He selected the private Norfolk Academy for his eldest son, Itzhak. "I wanted the best. Not good, the best," he says. "We went by the reputation."

All three of Gartenberg’s children have attended the Norfolk school. Two have graduated and the youngest is still enrolled, but it was Itzhak who had special needs. By the third grade he was playing the piano day and night and extensively during the weekend, not because of parental prodding but because of an inner drive.

Because of Itzhak’s high intellect and unusual talent, his father believes he would have performed well in most any setting. But it was at the Academy that Itzhak, now 20 and a junior at Yale, blossomed. The academics were challenging and rigorous — just as the Gartenbergs expected. But it was the human element that made the difference. "Dr. [John] Tucker, the headmaster, and the teachers not only accommodated my son, they gave him the feeling that his interests were important to them. They gave him the feeling he was special."

Headmaster John Tucker, who will retire this year after 22 years at Norfolk Academy, attended most of Itzhak’s piano concerts. When he wasn’t there, a teacher was in his place — when Itzhak played with the Virginia Symphony, the Williamsburg Symphonia and the Virginia Beach Symphony. "They help the students grow to be whoever they are," Gartenberg says. "Above everything, it was the continuous nurturing, their recognition of what was important to Itzhak. That gave him the feeling what he was doing was important to them. ... With kids, there is nothing more killing than indifference. That doesn’t happen at the academy. I believe that Dr. Tucker was one of the most important people in my son’s life."

When a child shows an extraordinary gift, Virginia offers parents and students many options, both in the public and private arenas. Educators are learning to be flexible to meet the needs of children who move rapidly through the curriculum. As with Itzhak, individual attention is the key.

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For many gifted children, traditional educational programs can be deadly boring. Experts say it’s not uncommon for them to have mastered nearly 85 percent of what is being taught at their grade level. "These students learn in different ways. Often their processing is more abstract, more complex," says Carolyn Callahan, a professor at the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education and director of U.Va.’s National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented.

Barbara McGonagill, a specialist for Virginia’s Governor’s Schools and gifted education, tells the story of a first-grader who was given a worksheet along with his classmates. The students had 25 minutes to complete the task. He answered a question. Waited. Answered another. Waited. "He was clearly timing the space between questions," she says. "I asked him why, and he said, ‘The last time I finished early I got another worksheet to do, and I don’t want to do another one of these.’"

According to the National Association for Gifted Children, slightly over half of gifted learners in the United States are receiving education appropriate to their needs. "They need access to intellectual challenges that are pegged with their intellectual age," McGonagill says. "You can’t treat them as a 10-year-old when they’re intellectually 15."

Some parents don’t want to advance a child’s grade level or otherwise separate him from his age group. To develop social skills, gifted children need time with their age peers as much as they need interaction with their intellectual peers. "They are used to functioning at a higher level, so cooperative learning is not something that comes easy," McGonagill says. "We have to help them bridge that. ... They can’t live in a world of one."

For the longest time, 13-year-old Davi Rios didn’t like school. He wouldn’t participate. He’d bring in his own books and read during class. "By the fourth grade he had all the tests and measured at the top of everything," says his mother, Melanie Rios of Arlington. Davi excelled in math, science and languages, but it was hard for him to get his thoughts written down on paper.

McGonagill says the disconnect in skills is common. "When I worked in Texas, there was a third-grader who was doing math ... at a college level. But his reading was at grade level, so he couldn’t read the textbooks. We found some graduate students and a retired Texas A&M professor who worked with him. When looking at programs for the gifted, we have to assess individual needs."

Sometimes gifted kids get labeled as having attention deficit disorder, or they’re labeled as underachievers. "They are bored with going through the drill when they should be doing advanced- level work," says Rosemarie Scotti Hughes, dean of the school of counseling and human services at Regent University.

Parents often have to step in as advocates for their gifted children. Virginia is ahead of many states, McGonagill says. "Virginia law mandates that gifted students must be served. A portion of state dollars are designated for the gifted," she says. "It is one of the states that believes it is important. Maryland, for example, does not have a state mandate."

Davi’s parents stepped in, and he was able to start taking high school courses. He progressed out of algebra and into geometry in three days. He is fluent in several languages. At 13, he has finished half of his high school credits. After years of boredom, Davi is finding his niche. He’s in school part of the day and spends the rest of the time in the real world. He has two internships and runs his own computer consulting business. He’d also like to do some peer counseling at his Arlington middle school, his mother says.

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Roanoke’s Community School, a nontraditional private school for preschool through middle school, was founded in 1971, when parents in the area were not satisfied with public schools.

Learning there is experiential. There are no grades, no rules dictating when a child reads or writes. It’s all about an individual child’s development. "All children learn in different ways," says Marcie Johnson, the school’s director. "They are grouped according to ability. We have multi-age classes that challenge each child at their level, rather than assuming they are all on the same page at the same time."

Regent University’s Hughes says this setup can work well for gifted learners. "In a way it’s too bad we have grades that keep kids of one age together, rather than allowing children to progress through work when they are ready."

Johnson says the goal is to challenge all students, to teach them how to think. "We might read a play, then we will discover the play. We might say, let’s perform this, let’s create the costuming, let’s read a modern play and compare. ... We want to provide children with the tools to learn how to learn, how to ask the right questions."

U.Va.’s Callahan says all children respond well in a hands-on environment. "The problem is getting the teachers skilled in this type of education," she says. "In addressing the needs of the gifted, there need to be ways to get some teachers to change their setting."

Like the Community School, Alexandria’s Browne Academy, a private school that offers classes through the eighth grade, has individualized, interdisciplinary classes. There are brain stations and thinker’s toolboxes aimed at developing skills. Thinking is critical, says Academic Dean Leah Brixey. "We concentrate on developing higher-level thinking skills for our students," she says. "If a 3-year-old shows an interest in reading and dinosaurs, we will have the student research and dictate a story about dinosaurs, illustrate it, read it to the other students. ... Nothing is ever a cookie cutter approach."

Anne Booker says she’s just getting some news: Many of the students at St. Christopher’s in Richmond have received early admission notices for Harvard, Princeton, William & Mary and the University of Virginia. "Typically our students get into the Ivy Leagues," says the director of admissions for the private prep school for boys. "We have small classes and are able to move kids along at their pace. We would like to think that we are the best academic choice, but we also stress other things. We care about who these boys are as citizens. We look at the whole person."

Savvy consumers need to ask questions when looking for the best school for their children, says Stuart Hall’s Headmaster, the Rev. J. Kevin Fox. "They need to ask, what percentage of your students take the [advanced placement] test, and how many fours or fives did you have?" he says. Students scoring a four or five can earn college credit for high school work. Fox, who heads the Staunton-based independent day and boarding school, says many schools say they have AP courses, but student scores are important. "You need to find out about the qualifications of teachers and also get names of other parents and talk to them," he says. "Find out where the school’s graduates are going to college." Also ask about the atmosphere. Is it nurturing? What is the internal culture of the school?

Fox says 100 percent of Stuart Hall students get accepted to college. "Our regular college-prep curriculum equals an honors track in public school. Our new honors program is designed for very bright, motivated students," he says.

The focus isn’t all academic. The school also has a highly regarded program for the visual and performing arts. Those accepted into the program have a three-hour block of intensive arts work every day. Students gifted in the arts have an opportunity to explore their talents and develop extensive portfolios. "They need to have an area of strength. ... Not everybody is going to be involved in computer start-ups. We encourage strengths," Fox says. "We’ve had students accepted at the Rhode Island School of Design, perform in major ballet performances. ... Once students audition for the program, they have to commit to their work."

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When Amanda Goad and her family moved to Richmond in 1991, she was in the eighth grade and ready to take algebra II. She couldn’t. It wasn’t part of Byrd Middle School’s prescribed curriculum.

"Henrico [County] had strict policies about that," says the now 20-year-old Rice University senior. Things have changed since then. Younger gifted students are finding nontraditional programs and flexible administrators. Consider the 10-year-old Ashland boy, Gregory Smith, who is an honor student at Randolph-Macon College. Hundreds of elementary students are taking high school classes, and high school students are in honors programs, advanced-placement programs and are even enrolled in college courses part of the day. Both public and private schools offer options.

Each year about 70 young women — age 13 and up — enter Mary Baldwin College’s Program for the Exceptionally Gifted, which offers them a residential college experience and an accelerated bachelor’s degree.

Goad’s mother, though, had to fight. She had to convince the district to let her daughter take the advanced algebra course at Godwin High School. They finally agreed, and her mom drove her there every day. The district wasn’t picking up the tab. By ninth grade, Goad was accepted into Richmond’s Governor’s School for Government and Inter-national Studies. Life got much better, both socially and academically. "The idea of a school population of gifted students was appealing," Goad says. Before, she’d been teased by classmates because she was smart.

The state-funded Governor’s School program began in 1973 under Gov. Linwood Holton as a summer program. It has now grown to 13 schools that operate during the academic year and six residential and 20 regional programs that operate in the summer. "Our purpose is to build a community of learners," McGonagill says. "But there is a tremendous screening process. These are very intense programs, and we have to ensure there is a likelihood the child will be successful."

At the public Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Fairfax, the oldest operating Governor’s School, only 15 percent to 17 percent of applicants make the cut. "Out of a 2,700 applicant pool, only 420 are accepted," says Shirley Bloomquist, director of guidance and student services at the school. She says its programs are highly sophisticated. Students "have the opportunity to stretch and grow. ... We have students working with the [Food and Drug Administration] on infectious bacteria coming into the country."

Goad felt challenged at the Governor’s School and had the opportunity to think on her own. She won a perfect score on her SATs. She won $25,000 on Jeopardy’s Teen Tournament and she’ll graduate from Rice University this spring. "I am very glad I chose to go to the Governor’s School," she says. "I was well-prepared academically. Academics were valued rather than looked down upon. When I got to Rice, I was very used to a heavy workload and independent thinking. ... I also learned that it is important to honor diversity. It enhances an understanding of what America is all about."

Diversity is something 17-year-old Jeremy Ruburg also discovered at a challenging public high school. Like Itzhak Gartenberg, Jeremy went to the Hebrew Academy in Virginia Beach for his early education. His class there had seven students. By eighth grade he was accepted at the Norfolk Academy. While Jeremy and his father, Rabbi Arthur Ruberg, agree the Norfolk Academy is a fine school, Jeremy was ready for a change — and he was tired of riding the bus. "It was ultimately up to me, and I decided to go to Maury High School because I could walk to school." It was his neighborhood school.

Maury High School, in Norfolk’s Ghent area, isn’t your average public school. Many of its students are accepted into Ivy League schools and other high-caliber universities. Jeremy was accepted early at both Columbia University and Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. "The environment at Maury is conducive to working hard," says Jeremy. "And the students expect a lot of the teachers. They have to live up to expectations. ... We are all working together."

Mike Spencer, Maury’s principal, was Virginia’s 1999 Principal of the Year. Spencer, a Maury graduate himself, says it is a school with low teacher turnover and one where everyone is invested. "The community values the school. ... There is a strong tradition of academic excellence," he says. "Don’t get me wrong. There is a segment of our population that really struggles. But within a high academic track, there is a lot of positive peer pressure. There is a synergy of doing well, and a success synergy just keeps on going."