Middle School Highly Capable Services

Grade level standards and curriculum in the middle school Challenge Program is the same as the rest of the students at their grade level but designated courses are taught with the needs of highly capable students in mind. Students will receive differentiation through enrichment opportunities in the classroom alongside their peers.

The middle school Challenge program assigns highly capable classes for language arts, social studies, and science. For math course options and information please refer to our Secondary Math Pathways.

Middle School Challenge Classrooms: 

• Provide differentiated instruction and enrichment opportunities
• Thinking, creativity, and problem solving are parts of learning
• Provide students with social-emotional learning skills
• Align student learning strengths and challenges with learning pace

Earned Honors provides an opportunity to deepen learning for all students who are demonstrating mastery of grade-level standard(s) and showing potential to benefit from enhanced work based on their strengths and learning needs.  For students who qualify for highly capable services, this option allows students to remain in the general education setting classroom.

Earned Honors is available in the following content areas: Language Arts, Social Studies and Science.  Similar to the Challenge program, standards and curriculum are specific to the grade level that students are enrolled in.

Earned Honors will be noted in report card grade comments when students complete an extension of their current learning and demonstrate proficiency.  Students can earn the notation in one or more standards for the grading period.

Earned Honors is available at Cascade, Chinook, Glacier, Pacific and Sylvester Middle Schools.

What you may see in Earned Honors:

Teachers will determine how to differentiate instruction to deliver these services to your student. Examples may include:

Rigorous Content - giving students rigorous content and more challenging assignments

Curriculum Compacting - replacing lesson content that students have mastered

Addition of depth and/or complexity - student work that includes more information or problem-solving steps

Problem-based learning - students learn about a subject through solving an open ended problem

Project-based learning - students work to solve a real world problem or answer a complex question

Tiered assignments - tasks that are similar to the whole class with different levels of instruction