Mid-Prairie school district’s Enrichment Learning Program – formerly known as the Gifted and Talented Program – has entered its second year since being revamped.

Instructors Rebecca Yoder and Kurtis Broeg presented an update on the program at Monday’s school board meeting.

“This is our second year in the Enrichment Learning Program,” Yoder said. “We really enjoyed how the first year went, getting our feet wet and seeing how the program works.”

Yoder is the ELP instructor in the elementary and middle schools, while Broeg is the high school instructor.

Yoder highlighted some of last year’s achievements, including a Future Problem Solving team from the middle school that qualified for state and a group of fifth-graders who qualified for the national Math League competition that was held at Texas A&M.

“This year, we really wanted to focus on maintaining the good things that were already in place, but also try to find ways to expand,” Yoder said.

She explained that the ELP is structured to suit each grade level.

“Our program doesn’t look the same in kindergarten as it does in high school,” she said.

At the end of third grade, a universal screening is done to identify students for the program, and pull-out sessions begin in the fourth grade.

“As we move into the middle school, we shift a little more working into their WIN (What I Need) time,” Yoder said. “As they get older, we move into helping them get the tools to be more independent learners and advocate for themselves. We have lots of different programs to meet the very diverse needs that we have.”

In high school, there is a focus on keeping students in the program well-rounded.

“They’re in band, and they’re in sports,” Broeg said. “We really focused on adding choice. The biggest hurdle is time.

“These kids are busy. We’re trying to put choice into both the scheduled time of the day and for the WIN part of the day.”

ELP students in the high school have several options, including advanced placement classes, independent study, Model United Nations, and a variety of clubs like science, math and coding.

“One of the coolest things that happened is that we have a coding club that the students formed,” Broeg said. “These students were all interested in coding.”

He said they were able to secure donations of computer parts and built their own computers.

“Teenagers are amazing,” Broeg said. “You give them choice and you let them go and try to plant that seed, and they can do some pretty cool stuff.”

Broeg said he would like to put more focus on summer internships.

“We have students who want to take every single academic course that they can,” he said. “We need to look at encouraging them to do (summer internships) as rising juniors or rising seniors during the summer where they can go out and get a 42-hour internship during the summertime.”

He added that he would like to see an advanced placement computer science class.

“The middle school is doing an awesome job,” he said. “We’re getting kids with the technology and STEM. We need to act more like coaches than traditional teachers because we can’t stay ahead of them, but we can encourage them and let them take off.”