Middle School Highly Capable Services

The Middle School Challenge program assigns highly capable courses for Language Arts, Social Studies, and Science. For math course options and information please refer to our Secondary Math Pathways.

Highly capable middle school students are grouped or "clustered" together in classrooms that support the needs of highly capable learners. Teachers differentiate the instruction to deepen and extend learning when appropriate, and students work and learn as a part of a diverse peer group. In the Middle School Challenge classroom, students approach learning from multiple perspectives and are given opportunities to grapple with a more complex understanding of grade level standards. The curriculum is the same as the rest of the students at their grade level.

Earned Honors is available for all students in grades 6-8 in Social Studies, Science, and Language Arts courses offered at Cascade, Chinook, Glacier, Pacific, and Sylvester.

Students do not need to formally declare their interest in Earned Honors, rather teachers communicate with students about their progress on an ongoing basis and provide extended learning for those who are ready to work at this level.

Teachers provide differentiated instruction to allow students to find appropriate challenge and deepen the learning for those who are meeting standards and showing potential to benefit from enhanced work based on their strengths and learning needs.

Earned Honors will be noted in the report card comment section when students complete and demonstrate proficiency on extensions. Students can earn the notation in one or more standards for the grading period.