A Special Program for Highly Able Rural Youth in Grades Five and Six

There are many barriers to appropriate programming for highly gifted students in rural schools. This paper describes an attempt to overcome these barriers. Twp New York State County Boards of Cooperative Services (B.O.C E.S.) cooperated to begin a program for 32 fifth and sixth grade academically advanced students from 19 schools covering 2600 square miles. The local schools sent students one full day a week to one of five sites for advanced level study in humanities and science. Objective and subjective evaluation indicated that the model was successful. Now in its third year, serving 130 students, this model may serve as one approach for small, rural, geographically distant schools.