To Meet Demand, After-School Program For Gifted is Hiring More Instructors

Demand is keen for a pricey afterschool program for gifted and talented students at Indian Hill School in Holmdel,so the provider is planning to hire more instructors for the 2012 sessions in order to accomodate more students. 

The Summer Institute of the Gifted (SIG), which charges $395 per student for a 10-week session, is looking to hire two instructors and two program assistants, preferably with a specialization in gifted/talented pedagogy. (See the document attached to this article for more details.)

“Normally when we start an afterschool program we get 25 students, and we hire two instructors,” said SIG Marketing Director Kate Vieillard. “But we got 44 kids out of the chute. And we could have had 60, but we couldn’t find the qualified staff,” she said.

SIG runs summer residential programs on college campuses at places like Dartmouth, Princeton and Yale for children aged 10-17, who have been identified as gifted and talented. But with school budgets being crunched, SIG is now being invited by school districts to create after-school and weekend programs at home, for which parents pay out-of-pocket.  In Princeton, they operate a daytime program at Stuart Country Day School of the Sacred Heart which attracts almost 100 students ages 4-12. The residential program for students ages 10-17 at Princeton University attracts 300 students per summer.

“School districts are contacting us. People are looking for alternative ways to provide enrichment opportunities for kids,” said Vieillard. “Our business is up 30 percent from last year,” she said.

There are currently 733 children enrolled in Holmdel’s Indian Hill School, which serves the township’s grades four through six. About 50 students are enrolled in the Voyagers Program which is intended to provide appropriate challenges for students who need it, as part of the board’s goal to provide "differentiated instruction.” 

Students are selected based on multiple criteria beginning at the end of second grade, or upon enrollment in the school district.

The Voyagers program is designed as a “push in” cluster program with limited “pull out,” said Board of Education President Barbara Garrity. The Teacher of the Gifted and Talented goes into the classrooms on a regular basis.  Once per week, the students meet with the specialist teacher for approximately 45 minutes out of the regular classroom environment.

Last year, the Board of Education reached out to SIG to ask if they would be interested in running the problem-based learning program in Holmdel. “We were aware of Holmdel youngsters who had attended this program in Princeton,” said Garrity.

The non-profit company pays the school district a rental fee for its facilities, which includes access to the science and computer labs on Tuesdays. The tuition cost is $395 per student per 10-week session at Indian Hill. “It's an enrichment opportunity at a pretty reasonable rate,” said Vieillard. In the Holmdel area, tutoring costs approximately $40 an hour, she said, so SIG Beyond students are paying half that hourly rate, she said.

A few of the students enrolled in the program are not in the Voyager program, but met SIG qualifications to enter. A few come from out of town, but the program is now closed to non-Holmdel students due to the in-town demand.

“We’re looking for more schools to be partners with,” said Vieillard

To apply for one of the positions, see the attached job description for more details. SIG is also hiring for summer positions. All job inquiries can be emailed to hr@giftedstudy.org.