District proposes gifted ‘reach’ centers at every elementary school after state policy change

District instructional staff proposed a systemwide change to gifted services at the board’s Instructional Services committee on May 14, saying the Georgia Department of Education’s elimination of the collaborative gifted model requires Bibb County to redesign delivery.

"The key takeaway is this, as 1 gifted service model is phased out, expanding reach centers at every elementary school ensures uninterrupted services, strengthens equity, maintains legal compliance, and promotes instructional consistency for students," Olena Stavich said in the presentation.

Stavich described the current "reach" model — in which students sometimes travel to centralized gifted centers — and pointed to measurable disparities: students at bus centers receive about 255 minutes of reach instruction on a reach day compared with 355 minutes at non-bus centers, a 100-minute single‑day difference that the district estimated added up to about 57 hours annually (roughly 14 full school days) when extrapolated across the year.

Under the proposed model, the district would have teachers travel to students so that learners remain in their home schools. Stavich said the district will initially use its existing 13 reach teachers to cover 21 elementary schools while building capacity through district-managed endorsement cohorts and by strategically placing endorsed teachers. She emphasized that the district intends to protect instructional time by designing teacher schedules to report to the site they will serve for the day, provide site resources, and coordinate with principals on rooming and materials.

Board members asked whether every school has enough students to justify a local gifted offering and whether travel will shift lost minutes from students to teachers. Stavich said every elementary school has identified gifted students and that the model expands access to advanced learners who were previously untested or under-identified. She also said teachers will begin and end their day at the site they serve on a given day to minimize lost instructional time.

The proposal frames the change as both a compliance response to state policy and an equity measure to standardize gifted access across the district. Administration said resources would be drawn from existing state gifted funds and that teachers will not be expected to carry all reach materials between sites; the district plans to stage materials at centers or supply sites before implementation.

Next steps: the board and staff will continue planning details about scheduling, staffing ratios and material distribution ahead of implementing reach centers at each elementary school.