The eighth-grader spent a week this summer at a camp for gifted children. It was a chance to be around kids who, like him, learn at a different pace.
But it was also a reminder of what he doesn’t have when he goes back home.
“I feel like I’m being left behind in my school,” Houdyshell said.
Pierre is among more than 100 South Dakota school districts that have phased out gifted education programs since 1995, the year state lawmakers eliminated dedicated funding for the programs.
While districts in and around Sioux Falls continue to offer opportunities to advanced learners, communities as large as Aberdeen, Huron and Vermillion have no such programs. In South Dakota, just 21 school districts offer gifted education programs, compared to 160 districts in 1995.
Gifted students and educators sounded an alarm about the trend last month at a gifted education summit hosted by the University of South Dakota. They said cutbacks are limiting the potential of the state’s brightest learners and leaving some on a path of boredom and frustration that can lead to misbehaving, disengaging, or dropping out.
“The perception that gifted kids will be OK is a faulty one,” said Jeff Dixon, an elementary school gifted education teacher for the Sioux Falls School District. “Sure, some will. But some won’t.”
