Highly Capable Program

Columbia School District Highly Capable Program

The Columbia School District serves highly capable students in grades K-12 through a variety of options.  Each school year, the district opens the referral process to identify students who may qualify for the program.  Referrals can be made by teachers, school staff, parents and community members.  The district defines highly capable students as students who perform or show potential for performing at significantly advanced academic levels when compared with others of their age, experiences, or environments.  Outstanding abilities are seen within students’ general intellectual aptitudes, specific academic abilities, and/or creative productivities within a specific domain.  These students are present not only in the general populace, but are present within all protected classes.

Students who are highly capable may possess, but are not limited to, these learning characteristics:

•    Capacity to learn with unusual depth of understanding, to retain what has been learned, and to transfer learning to new situations;
•    Capacity and willingness to deal with increasing levels of abstraction and complexity earlier than their chronological peers;
•    Creative ability to make unusual connections among ideas and concepts;
•    Ability to learn quickly in their area(s) of intellectual strength; and
•    Capacity for intense concentration and/or focus.

If you would like to refer a student for consideration for the Highly Capable Program, please contact your building principal.  If you would like further information regarding the program or need any assistance, please contact Julie DeBord, Highly Capable District Liaison, by phone at 547-9393 or by email at [email protected]. 

Mission of the Highly Capable Program:  In the Columbia School District, it is our mission to provide enrichment experiences that are challenging and allow students to work at their own pace and pursue subjects that are of high interest to them. 

Goals of the Highly Capable Program: 

1.     To identify students who have high academic, intellectual and creative abilities
2.     To provide unique instruction appropriate to the needs of our gifted learners
3.     To help students develop a passion for lifelong learning, strive to produce work of the highest quality and develop critical and creative thinking skills
4.     To help students be prepared for post-secondary education and career readiness