EER Staff

Program Goals

  • The Jefferson City Elementary EER Program emphasizes the following goals:

    • To facilitate and enhance the development of students' self-concepts
    • To facilitate and enhance the students' abilities to communicate and work effectively with others
    • To assist the student in becoming a more independent and self-directed learner
    • To provide time and resources for in-depth, investigating experiences that result in audience appropriate products
    • To develop students' creative, critical, and higher level thinking skills via problem-solving models
    • To provide the format for academically gifted students to interact, to challenge each other and to learn valuable group dynamic strategies
    • To provide differentiated curriculum including new and challenging learning experiences.
     
    These goals are achieved through semester-long units of study.  Each teacher prepares two units of study and the students choose two of these four classes.   The units are designed using the Project Based Learning format which includes significant content, a driving question, in-depth inquiry, and a public audience.  Due to the nature of these units, each lesson builds towards the final project and attendance is key to the child's success.  Remember, at EER, one semester equals 16 days!  At the end of the unit, teachers prepare a report card and mail it to the family address as well as the "home" school.  

    Why do learners with high IQ’s need special programming? Many people assume that bright children will automatically be successful in school.  Sadly, this is often not the case.  According to The Marland Report to Congress, “…because the majority of gifted children’s school adjustment problems occur between kindergarten and fourth grade, about half of gifted children become ‘mental dropouts’ at around 10 years of age.”  According to Dr. Sylvia Rimm, a psychologist who specializes in gifted underachievement,  “If gifted children are not challenged by curriculum early in their school lives, they will equate smart with easy, and challenge and hard work will feel threatening to their self-esteem.  They will either become perfectionistic and avoid challenges, or they will search for easy-way-out solutions, such as avoiding handing in assignments, procrastination, and disorganization for fear conscientious work may reveal that they are not as smart as they are assumed to be.”  At EER, we work to provide challenges for our students, opportunities for critical and creative thinking, and problem-solving experiences that develop perseverance.   We find joy in seeing the self-satisfaction children experience when a difficult task is completed with excellence.

     

Attendance Schedule

  • Students attend EER at West Elementary School at 100 Dix Road, Jefferson City.  The phone number is 573-659-3195. Students begin the day at their sending or "home" school.  A bus will bring them to EER.  
     
    A typical day includes:  
      9:00 am - 9:20 am:     Arrival, attendance, lunch counts and morning announcements
      9:20 am - 10:40 am:  (A) Media literacy, library, affective learning strategies and research
                                        (B) Morning class
    10:40 am - 12:00 pm:  (B) Media literacy, library, affective learning strategies and research
                                        (A) Morning class
    12:00 pm - 12:20 pm:  Recess
    12:20 pm - 12:40 pm:  Lunch
    12:40 pm - 2:00 pm:    Afternoon class
      2:00 pm - 2:10 pm:    Dismissal and afternoon announcements
     
    Monday:         Belair, South, West
    Tuesday:        Callaway Hills, East, North, Moreau Heights, Thorpe Gordon
    Wednesday:   St. Joe, I.C., River Oak, Homeschooled
    Thursday:       Cedar Hill, Lawson, Pioneer Trail
    Friday:            St. Peter, St. Martin, Trinity
     

    EER public school students' lunch accounts are accessed here, so no additional money needs to be sent.  However, EER Parochial students and homeschooled students need to pay for school lunches through the West Elementary school office.  Contact the school office for more information.

Outside resources

  • Often times parents look for extra information to help their child.  EER has a lending library for parents, and this is a great place to start.  There are also a few websites that may be helpful.
     
    Department of Elementary and Secondary Education - Gifted:  https://dese.mo.gov/quality-schools/gifted-education
     
    Gifted Association of Missouri (GAM):  http://www.mogam.org 

Eligibility

  • Referral questions should be directed to your building principal or to Bridget Frank in the Office of Special Services at 573-659-3016.

    Students must have requested testing from their building principal or from the Special Services office (659-3016) and/or provide an IQ test showing a full-scale IQ score of 125 or greater from a global cognitive assessment.
     
    Once students have tested and qualified for EER, they do not need to be tested again and can remain in the program for as long as it is available.