Director of Special Services outlines GATE program outcomes; board asks about budget trend

Hannah Iverson, the district's director of special services, presented an evaluation of the Kearney R‑I GATE (gifted and talented education) program, summarizing enrollment, service delivery, student outcomes and budgetary trends.

Iverson said the program serves students in grades 2 through 9 with elementary students receiving 150 minutes per week in their home school, middle-school students served through an elective, and junior-high students in a daily seminar. "A 100% of our gifted students that graduated in 2023 attended a 2 or a 4 year college," Iverson reported, and noted that gifted graduates in 2024 had earned roughly double the college credits of their peers and averaged a 26.83 ACT score compared with 21.73 for non‑gifted peers.

The presentation included enrollment breakdowns and pictures of student projects (team-building activities, logic and reasoning puzzles, and a 6th-grade roller-coaster project used to study kinetic and potential energy). Iverson also said the program's expenditures have increased over the last three years and presented a budget overview without listing a specific fund balance or revenue change.

Board members asked whether the apparent increase in program expenditures would level out. Iverson and other staff said some of the change is tied to personnel and program needs; the board discussed staffing adjustments at the middle level to maintain services. The superintendent noted state expectations that districts generally see a minimum percentage of students identified for gifted services as a benchmark for program planning.

Why it matters: The presentation gives the board data on college attendance, credit attainment and standardized test performance for gifted students and flagged a spending trend the board said it will monitor when considering staffing and program priorities.