It took Ronette Metcalf a few years to find her niche. After leaving a career in accounting to stay at home with her three children, the now grandmother of eight said she found her calling while volunteering in the Gifted and Talented Program at her children’s school.
“I thought, ‘This is where I’m supposed to be,’” she said. “Every day is something different. You meet so many different people. There’s always something new and exciting to learn and to do. I believe that God has a purpose for people in their lives, and if you are living for that purpose, then you’re going to be much more fulfilled than if you tried to fit into some other path.”
Since her time as a parent volunteer, Metcalf has spent her career helping gifted students find their own niche and will soon be putting her talent to work as the gifted and talented coordinator for the new Jacksonville-North Pulaski School District’s Gifted and Talented Program.
“I’m so excited about going to work in Jacksonville — taking a program from ground zero and being able to develop it into something parents and the students can all be proud to say they’re a part of,” Metcalf said. “We’re setting some very high goals and standards. I’m looking forward to the challenge of helping students meet their challenges.”
Metcalf brings more than 20 years of experience to the district. Currently, she is the secondary GT facilitator for the Pulaski County Special School District and worked previously as the GT and Advanced Placement coordinator for Watson Chapel for 15 years, a role that she said gave her many memories.
“I have students that I see now, and they’re so proud when they tell me the things that they’re doing,” she said. “I had students from very diverse backgrounds. One year, I had a quiz-bowl team where no child on the team was the same religion. It was great to sit down with them and hear them discuss their different religious views and their backgrounds and how it impacts the way they work at school, the way they get along with other people and their expectations for the world.”
Metcalf was born and raised in Benton in Saline County. She and her husband, Steve, have been married since 1979, and together have one son, two daughters and eight grandchildren ranging in ages from 2 to 20. But Metcalf said the couple’s relationship started when she was just a young girl, and despite what many people told her.
“I started dating him in 1974 when I was 12 and he was 15,” Metcalf said. “We met each other at church. We started going out by sitting with each other at church. My junior high home [economics] teacher said, ‘I know you think you’re in love, but let me tell you that there will be other people.’ I just said, ‘OK.’ We’ve been together ever since.”
As a parent herself, and one who went through gifted
programs with her own children, Metcalf knows the importance of parental involvement in a student’s academics. She said that in the coming year, there will be ample opportunity for parents to be involved in the program.
“There’s going to be a lot of direct communication from GT teachers and the GT office,” she said. “There’s going to be a newsletter that comes out quarterly. We’ll have a parent night where parents can come in and see projects and be involved in the process. One thing we want parents to understand is that there is going to be very rigorous course work. If you’re a gifted student, you should be enrolling in the Pre-AP and AP courses. That’s going to be a very rigorous curriculum for preparing students for college and career.”
But academics is just a portion of the Gifted and Talented Program, Metcalf said, and projects will be developed around the interests of the students. She said competitions, from quiz bowl and chess club to Destination Imagination and project fairs, will be one of the focuses of the Jacksonville-North Pulaski School District Gifted and Talented Program. The gifted curriculum is designed to develop skills in students that can be used the rest of their lives — far beyond a classroom setting.
“There are a lot of smart people in the world, and there are lots of people who work hard and make good grades,” she said, “but there are a lot of skills that you need to be successful that you’re not going to get just from a book. That’s going to be one of the focuses of our gifted program, helping kids develop that set of skills — teamwork, communication, self-confidence. The earlier you start developing those, the more confident you’re going to be in them. And confidence in one area bleeds over into another.”
Metcalf said one of her main goals for her new position is to help kids reach their potential and fit in — not always an easy task for highly gifted students, but one she is happy to help them achieve.
“I like helping people find their niche,” Metcalf said. “Sometimes you have gifted kids who haven’t quite adjusted socially. They haven’t found that place to fit in, and the gifted program is a place we learn to be accepting of other people’s faults. These kids develop relationships, and they start to develop confidence in themselves. And that’s when you feel like you’ve really made a difference.”