Consultant finds disparities in Helena schools gifted program access

A Johns Hopkins consultant has identified disparities in access to Helena Public Schools’ PEAK gifted-and-talented program, putting renewed scrutiny on who gets in, who gets left out and how the district measures fairness in advanced learning.

The findings are now before the district’s teaching and learning committee, where PEAK’s identification process and long-running role in Helena schools are under review. PEAK has operated for more than 20 years and serves students from third grade through high school, but the new report raises questions about whether the district’s screening and referral paths are reaching all students equally.

Helena Public Schools says its identification process has two routes: universal screening of all second graders and a referral process for individual screening. The district uses CogAT and iReady results, teacher behavior checklists and creativity assessments to flag students for review. District materials also say a PEAK review is underway during the 2025-2026 school year, with any changes to the referral process expected to be implemented in 2026-2027.

The program’s reach is wider than a single pull-out class. Helena Public Schools says PEAK includes differentiation consults for classroom teachers, acceleration options, weekly intervention services for students in grades 3-12, monthly seminar pull-out services for grades 6-12, multi-day symposiums for grades 8-12 and a spring leadership conference for grades 3-12. The district also lists a PEAK Parent Group, speakers series, book club, a GT resource library and student engagement activities, showing that families are already deeply connected to the program.

District policy 2166 says gifted and talented students should have access to appropriate educational programs to the extent possible with available resources. PEAK program materials say the district’s mission is to challenge and empower each student to maximize individual potential, and the evaluation page says the program is monitored through daily formative assessment, summative assessments from parents, students and other authentic audiences, climate surveys, OPI grant data and end-of-year comprehensive data.

The review lands against a history of budget pressure that has already reshaped where PEAK is delivered. In March 2023, Superintendent Rex Weltz said Helena would close the Ray Bjork Learning Center and relocate PEAK and four other programs because of a roughly $6 million shortfall. That history makes the current access review more than an internal program check. It is part of a larger question about how Helena organizes advanced learning, which students benefit from it and whether the district’s screening model is serving Lewis and Clark County families fairly.