Gateway Program
The Gateway program is a level four service located at Valley Crossing Elementary School. The Gateway program serves students in an all advanced learner environment using curriculum with increased depth, complexity and pacing as the primary lens for designing instruction.
Gateway immerses students in an intellectually challenging community that encourages academic risk-taking to develop students’ academic potential and supports their social and emotional needs as learners.
In the 2022-23 school year, Gateway will serve highly advanced learners in grades 3-5.
About the Gateway Program
Contact
Benjamin Lacina
Talent Development and Advanced Academics Coordinator
651-425-6210
blacina@sowashco.org
Skip to Section:
Placement Determinations | Gateway Interest Form Timeline | Questions and Answers | Gateway Interest Form | Levels of Service
Placement Determinations
Students are placed into the Gateway program as space allows. Gateway for 2022-23 includes one grade 3 classroom, two grade 4 classrooms and two grade 5 classrooms.
After families submit an interest form by the deadline, students are placed in four tiers based on the following data:
-
Achievement data in math and reading based on MAP (Measures of Academic Progress) from the current school year.
-
Ability data based on CogAT (Cognitive Abilities Assessment) areas of verbal, quantitative, nonverbal or composite total.
-
Teacher rating scale of advanced learner behaviors.
Students are placed in the Gateway Program first starting in Tier 1, then moving to Tier 2, Tier 3 and Tier 4 as space allows in the Gateway classrooms. Within each Tier, students who meet all of the criteria will be placed first, 3 criteria will be placed second.
Please know that most identified advanced learners receive their advanced academic services through the cluster classroom at their current school, not the Gateway Program.
Gateway Application Timeline
Gateway Timeline
The deadline to submit an interest form for the 2023-24 school year has passed. Families were notified of their child's placement in March.
Interest forms for the 2024-25 school year will be available in February, 2024.
Gateway Program Questions and Answers
- How is instruction in a Gateway classroom different from a cluster classroom in a SoWashCo elementary school?
- Which grades comprise the Gateway program?
- Where is the Gateway program located?
- If my chid also qualifies for special education services are they able to receive services at Gateway?
- If my child attends their current school cluster classroom, will they still receive advanced academic services?
- Are Gateway students assigned extra homework?
- Are class sizes different in the Gateway program?
- Is there a cost to attend the Gateway program?
- Is transportation provided and how long is the bus ride?
- Can my other child(ren) also attend Valley Crossing?
- Is there before and after school care for Gateway students and their siblings?
- Is there a waiting list for the Gateway program?
- If an Interest Form was submitted in a previous school year and the current school cluster classroom is the placement, may we submit a Gateway Interest Form the following year?
- Do I need to submit an interest form every year if my child is already in the Gateway program?
- What if my child or family decides the Gateway program is not a good fit? Can my child go back to their boundary school cluster classroom?
- What is the relationship between the Gateway program and Valley Crossing Elementary School?
- What happens to students in the Gateway program when they go to middle school?
- When are parents notified of their child's placement in the Gateway program or current school cluster classroom?
- When can I complete a Gateway Interest form?
How is instruction in a Gateway classroom different from a cluster classroom in a SoWashCo elementary school?
Which grades comprise the Gateway program?
Where is the Gateway program located?
If my chid also qualifies for special education services are they able to receive services at Gateway?
If my child attends their current school cluster classroom, will they still receive advanced academic services?
Are Gateway students assigned extra homework?
Are class sizes different in the Gateway program?
Is there a cost to attend the Gateway program?
Is transportation provided and how long is the bus ride?
Can my other child(ren) also attend Valley Crossing?
Is there before and after school care for Gateway students and their siblings?
Is there a waiting list for the Gateway program?
If an Interest Form was submitted in a previous school year and the current school cluster classroom is the placement, may we submit a Gateway Interest Form the following year?
Do I need to submit an interest form every year if my child is already in the Gateway program?
What if my child or family decides the Gateway program is not a good fit? Can my child go back to their boundary school cluster classroom?
What is the relationship between the Gateway program and Valley Crossing Elementary School?
What happens to students in the Gateway program when they go to middle school?
When are parents notified of their child's placement in the Gateway program or current school cluster classroom?
When can I complete a Gateway Interest form?
Gateway Program Interest Form
Gateway Interest Form
The deadline to submit an interest form for the 2023-24 school year has passed. Families were notified of their child's placement in March.
Interest forms for the 2024-25 school year will be available in February, 2024.
Talent Development and Advanced Academics services are provided at all SoWashCo elementary and middle schools through the Levels of Service approach (Treffinger, 1998).
These levels are based on the individual programming model developed by Dr. Donald Treffinger of the Center for Creative Learning, Inc. in Sarasota, Florida.
Levels of Service Programming is:
- Flexible: Programming includes many different people, places, and kinds of activities. It does not follow one formula, single curriculum, or set program of activities or services.
- Inclusive: Programming that is appropriate, challenging, and developmental can be available to anyone. Programming includes a broad range of talents and does not serve just one fixed group of students.
- Responsive: Programming responds to the positive needs of students. It guides planning and decision making and leads to modifications of instruction. The mission of programming is to design and deliver instruction through which we can bring out the best in every student.
- Proactive: Programming challenges the teacher, school, district, parents, and community to take constructive actions for talent development. Taking initiative for talent development becomes everyone's business.
- Unifying: Programming provides a structure and terminology for communicating effectively about talent development within and among home, school, and community.
Teachers do not assume that students who have a great deal of potential in one area have a high level of potential in all areas. Sometimes, students with high potential for math may not have high reading ability and vice versa. High ability in one area does not equate with high ability in other areas. LoS provides a framework for planning, delivering, and managing a wide range of responses to the needs of students. (Selby & Young, 2001)
Edwin C Selby, & Grover C Young. (2003, October). The Levels of Service approach to talent development: Parallels with existing programs. Gifted Child Today, 26(4), 44-50,65.