Vector is an independent school, not a charter – this allows us to appropriately accelerate and shape curriculum, that while well-designed to meet and exceed state standards, is not tied to state testing or required ways to access or limit that curriculum.

While magnets, centers, online, or pullout programs work for some kids, they don’t work for all kids. Vector is an entire GT school community, rather than a round or pull-out, that specifically serves the GT population with a national reputation that precedes its programming.

Vector is focused on socioemotional development as much as academic success. In our minds, one goes with the other, and our kids’ emotional needs are not to be exoticized, problematized, or minimized into a few “mindfulness” practices.

Vector is a small school – enrollments are held to 40-60 kids across the entire school community, with classrooms of 10-14 kids served by two co-teaching professionals. We work to know and understand each and every kid with personal connections and relationships we call our “family.”

Our curriculum is integrated and interdisciplinary, meaning that everything we know about how gifted kids think and learn is embedded in comprehensive problem-based, student-driven units versus a TV tray of prescribed one-content-area-at-a-time modeling. This also allows us to accelerate students as appropriate, rather than only allowing accelerative models that demand grade-skipping or limit kids to one level increase per year (for example, Algebra 1 to Geometry only). Our learning is driven by big, essential, global human questions into which all content areas bleed – more like life itself outside of a traditional school world. See CU Boulder’s recent article on reimagining schools and section on “Why Is the Sky Blue?”

Our “grade levels” are multiaged, meaning that kids traditionally in middle school or high school are blended into multi-grade loops that allow us to deeply understand and know kids, to model mentoring and socioemotional supports, and to create an authentic community that embraces the many levels of maturity where kids aged 11-18 find themselves.

CBK and thereby Vector have successfully worked with kids identified as 2ed/twice-exceptional for decades and we are a national leader in much of that discourse. We know that the majority of our gifted population have unique learning needs that may extend into identification for additional services. We are able to provide support for most of those needs, particularly in terms of neurodiversity.

While the pandemic has revealed that online learning can be a tool for many kids, particularly those needing acceleration, at Vector we believe fully in in-person learning. There is not an online option available, as we know from decades of research that what our kids need more of is personal connection, the ability to discuss ideas and “feel” the room, support in working collaboratively, and success in sharing innovative concepts. An online community just cannot provide the community our kids need, and while some are happy to remain independent in their studies, we firmly believe our kids must still find their people beyond the screens.