Talent development is the deliberate effort to seek, recognize, respond to, and enhance the development of all students' academic strengths, talents, and interests.

Rationale for Talent Development

All students have unique talents and/or abilities that must be nurtured.

A child's talent must be developed to emerge to its greatest potential.

All students have worthwhile potentials and interests that must be developed.

New opportunities enable talents and interests to change, grow, and/or emerge over time.  Some students show advanced levels of talent and accomplishment very early in their lives.  With sustained effort, encouragement, and support, many students will continue to pursue the development of their strengths.

Nurturing talent potential is far more important for educators than simply categorizing, labeling, or sorting.

Talent development is fostered through differentiated instruction.  It is the obligation of home, school, and community to be talent "spotters" in order to become talent developers.

Appropriate and challenging education experiences are fundamental responsibilities of the school.

Talent spotting emphasizes searching for and documenting students' unique characteristics and their related instructional needs, enabling us to focus on bringing out the best in all students.

Helping students to recognize and understand their own emerging talents and then to use their self-knowledge in personal goal setting and career planning are important outcomes of talent development.