Park Hill students say "Enrichment Fridays" gives high‑achieving pupils problem‑solving challenges

Student 1, a Park Hill student, said, "What I love about enrichment Fridays is, that we can do just, like, fun brain puzzles that make you think."

Students described Enrichment Fridays as a weekly opportunity to work on puzzles, matching games and hands‑on activities designed to stretch students who are performing above grade level but may not be enrolled in the district's formal gifted program. "Every Bridal, we go to the enrichment group with mister Hamlin, and we do sheets on paper that test our blank. We get to do cards, and we see which ones match and don't," Student 2 said.

"Bridges is our gifted program. It's for our students who are academically gifted, who think about things in different ways, who are ahead of maybe standard math or reading practices and really need that extra challenge of looking at things outside of the box," Student 3 said, describing how Enrichment Fridays complements Bridges by offering additional challenges for students who "maybe don't test as well on those Bridal tests."

Students said activities vary by week — sometimes paper worksheets, sometimes manipulatives — and often emphasize group problem solving and strategies rather than single, right answers. "It's how can I challenge them in ways that they're ready for, that maybe aren't direct answers where we don't have just a specific, this is the answer, and they get to look at problem solving actual problems where they're working together as a group oftentimes to to do something different for them that's also challenging and really engaging?" Student 3 said.

Several students noted that the strategies learned during Enrichment Fridays have helped them in regular classes. "Something I've learned from enrichment Bridal is, probably that some it's not about the answer. It's about, like, how you get to the answer," Student 1 said. "So many of these kids, especially the higher end kids, are already high achieving. ... Getting to this position where they're able to do that, and have them work on, like, really novel things for them is the goal to still keep them really engaged in everything that they're doing here at school," Student 3 added.

The students' remarks describe Enrichment Fridays as a supplement to classroom instruction and to the Bridges program; the transcript does not record administrative decisions, funding details or program eligibility criteria beyond the students' descriptions.