The Columbia County school system intends to make changes to Horizons, its elementary-school gifted program, for the 2008-09 school year.

The school system plans to launch a pilot program for gifted pupils at River Ridge Elementary School, and it will offer home school-based gifted classes at Riverside Elementary School.

Under the pilot program, gifted children in second through fifth grades will be clustered in groups of six to eight pupils in regular classrooms at River Ridge.

These classes will be taught by teachers who have been trained to instruct gifted pupils. The children will be clustered in two classes in each of the grades.

"The goal behind this is to meet all of our students' needs," principal Revelle Cox said.

Seven teachers in these grades have completed a series of four courses in a gifted endorsement program to earn their certification to teach gifted pupils, and an eighth teacher is pursuing the certification, said Virginia Stephens, the lead teacher for Horizons.

She will continue to teach gifted pupils in weekly classes at River Ridge.

"Different students need different levels of work,"she said. "A child who already gets it will have options."

Ms. Stephens said research has shown that cluster grouping benefits all pupils in a school, not just gifted children.

She also said River Ridge is starting the pilot program because the needs of advanced learners are not always met.

"The kids are not just gifted one day a week. They need something every single day," she said.

Mike Lindsey, the director of gifted student learning, said Riverside qualified for a school-based program based on the number of gifted pupils enrolled at the school.

"The numbers have grown at that school. We're looking at 80," he said.

The home school-based programs began a year ago when the school system established gifted classes at Greenbrier, Lewiston, River Ridge and Stevens Creek elementary schools. The school system also set up a learning center at Euchee Creek Elementary School for gifted pupils at Euchee Creek, Grovetown, Cedar Ridge and North Harlem elementary schools.

Gifted pupils from the remaining eight elementary schools will continue to travel to Westmont, where all of the Horizons pupils were bused until the home school-based programs started last year.

"The biggest improvement in the whole program is the curriculum," Mr. Lindsey said.

He said the gifted teachers revamped the Horizons curriculum with new units last summer. He said they approved the units based on their ability to engage the students, their correlation with the Georgia Performance Standards and their degree of difficulty.

"If a child who is not gifted would be successful in the unit, then it was not rigorous enough," Mr. Lindsey said.

Reach Betsy Gilliland at (706) 868-1222, ext. 113,or betsy.gilliland@augustachronicle.com.