Baker Middle School in West Denver is the first school to offer a gifted and talented program for bilingual students.

Denver Public Schools designated Baker a bilingual school this year. Horace Mann Middle School in north Denver also will launch its gifted and talented program for bilingual students this month.

”My role is to push students as hard as I can,” said Elsie Pimentel, Baker instructor. ”My biggest problem is not having enough books in Spanish.

”At the beginning I found nothing I could use. . . . I had to go and translate everything myself.”

Student reaction has been good.

”The sixth graders love it,” Pimentel said. ”It makes them feel good – like they know they’re going to go to college.”

Pimentel attended a training seminar for identifying and instructing students in the gifted and talented program. Another seminar participant was Joe Mascarenes, a science teacher at Horace Mann who is working to incorporate technology in the classroom.

”I heard they had implemented the program at Baker and I thought it would be nice to have it here too,” Mascarenes said. ”With training, students can excel or expand so as not to limit them.”

There are two teams, each with five bilingual teachers at Horace Mann. The first team includes instructors Mike Cedillos, math; Juanita Halverson, English and Spanish; James Drihuela, social studies; and Maria Vera, English and Spanish.

”I think the gifted and talentd program fundamentally can be applied in any class,” Mascarenes said. ”After we identify them we keep track of their test scores and keep in close touch with their parents to see how the students are progressing. We’re hoping it will have a positive effect.”

”We will have higher expectations of them and they will have additional homework in order to meet their requirements.”



Comments are closed.