Last school year was Matthew Lenger’s last year teaching Gifted English at the high school level before he retired, which removed Gifted English at the high school level throughout the whole school district. Gifted English may eventually make its way back to the high school level, but for now it’s gone.

“The biggest problem with gifted is that teachers have to be certified for the gifted program in addition to the subject that we teach,” English teacher and head of the English department Tori Ramsey said.

It was a challenging requirement that had the high schools without a qualified teacher.

“As for long term, I don’t know if it will come back. It will be at least a few years if they decide to bring it back,” Ramsey added.

Alex Johns is a junior this year, who took Gifted English the past two years.  

“It doesn’t really impact me much since I wasn’t going to have it this year anyway, but for being in it for two years makes me wish It was still happening because it was a really helpful class,” she said.

The absence of Gifted English will be seen by the enlarged English 1 and English 2 class sizes. 

“This year English 1 is very big because we only have two sections of it, English 2 is smaller but we have definitely seen bigger class sizes because of it,” Ramsey added.