• Midtown High School Gifted and Talented Education

  • Midtown Families of Gifted & Talented:

    Welcome to the 2025-2026 school year at Midtown High School! We are proud to serve nearly 700 students who have been identified as gifted & talented. You enrich our school community, and we are committed to supporting your academic growth with rigorous and meaningful opportunities.

    Program Leadership
    This year, the Gifted & Talented program is led by Ms. Kelly Wren along with a dedicated team of gifted-certified educators. We collaborate closely with classroom teachers to ensure your learning experiences are appropriately challenging and tailored to your abilities.

    Program Structure
    Unlike the pull-out “challenge” programs common in elementary and middle school, high school Gifted & Talented instruction is integrated primarily through Honors and Advanced Placement (AP) courses. These courses are designed to provide advanced content, faster pacing, and opportunities for intellectual autonomy. Teachers of these courses differentiate instruction to meet the needs of gifted & talented students. Our team supports teachers in maintaining high-quality differentiation.

    Mentorship and Internship Opportunities

    Midtown High School offers a specialized Mentorship & Internship course for gifted & talented juniors and seniors. This year-long program combines fall semester preparation—focused on professional skills like networking, resume writing, and career exploration—with a spring semester internship placing students in real-world work environments aligned with their interests. Students gain valuable hands-on experience, build professional relationships with mentors, and develop workplace skills essential for future success. Enrollment is by application and open to gifted & talented 11th and 12th graders. For more information or to apply, please contact your school counselor.  Learn more about this program here.  

    Academic Enrichment & Extracurriculars
    Gifted students are encouraged to pursue academic projects such as the Academic Fair in Math, Science, Social Studies, or Technology. We facilitate connections with adult mentors from industry and academia to support these endeavors. For students seeking challenging extracurricular activities, Ms. Wren is available to provide guidance and recommendations. Please see the list below for highlights of academic clubs and competitive teams.

    Contact Information

    Kelly Wren
    Email: Kelly.Wren@apsk12.org

     

    Academic Clubs & Activities Highlights - For a complete list of clubs and additional details click here.

    21stCL YLC@Grady - 21st Century Leaders is a collaboration of business and professional leaders inspiring high school students to take on leadership positions, explore career opportunities, and give back to their communities by connecting them with a diverse group of enthusiastic peers, passionate professionals, and powerful ideas, transforming their skills, attitudes, and abilities through training and hands-on experiences. Grady’s Youth Leadership Center (YLC) provides students with opportunities to practice critical thinking and communication skills and to serve others in our school and community through service learning. Our service activities also enable students to meet one of our Grady Cluster’s key initiatives – Citizenship – and help students meet and exceed the graduation requirement of 75 service hours.  See Ms. Van Atta in IS6 to sign up.

    Academic Decathlon – There are lots of wonderful academic competitions out there.  You can go prove you’re the best writer, or the best physicist, or the best speller. Academic Decathlon® isn’t about any of that, though. It’s not about demonstrating how good a student you already are. It’s about daring to push your limits, to master college-level material, and to practice skills, like public speaking, that might be wholly new to you. It’s about the people you’ll meet along the way—the coaches who will mentor you, the competitors who will challenge you, and the teammates who will become your lifelong friends. 

    Beta Club is the nation's largest independent, non-profit, educational youth organization. We are committed to recognizing and promoting high academic achievement, rewarding and nurturing worthy character, fostering leadership skills, and encouraging service to others.  Our mission is to promote the ideals of academic achievement, character, service, and leadership among elementary and secondary school students. See Mr. Wallace for more information.

    DECA is an association of marketing students. It is open to any student interested in business, marketing, or advertising. We participate in community service projects, enter regional business competitions, and work with local businesses and industries to assist students in developing leadership skills.  

    Engineering TSA – The Technology Student Association's mission is to prepare its membership to be successful leaders and responsible citizens in a technological society through co-curricular activities within the engineering program including communication, leadership, and competitive skill development in the classroom/laboratory environment.  See Ms. Schofield or Mr. Yarnold in room E206 for more information.

    G3 Robotics Team – Students work with adult engineering mentors to design and build robots for the FIRST robotics competitions.  In addition to engineering, our team also provides students with the opportunity to learn leadership, speaking, and writing skills. See Dr. Ogden for more information.

    HOSA: Future Healthcare Professionals – The mission of HOSA is to enhance the delivery of compassionate, quality health care by providing opportunities for knowledge, skill, and leadership development of all health science education students, therefore, helping the student meet the needs of the health care community. 

    Jesters Speech and Debate Team – Our goal is to embrace the values speech and debate activities bring to our students, our educational system, and our society. Through speech and debate activities, Midtown High School students have the opportunity to not only vastly improve their abilities in the four core zones of literacy—reading, writing, speaking, and listening—but also gain the self-confidence and higher-level thinking they need to become great leaders. We belong to the National Forensic League, the nation's oldest high school honor society, as well as several other national associations. By competing at tournaments throughout the country throughout the school year, we have become an eight-time state championship team, have numerous national finalists, and national champions- all this while still having a fun and fantastic time! We are proud to be recognized as a top team in the region and nation. See Mr. Herrera or Ms. Willoughby in C324 for more information.

    Latin Certamen Team competes in several academic bowl tournaments throughout the year.  If you have a passion for Latin, mythology, Roman culture and history, and English derivatives, come see Mrs. Leonard or Mr. Allen. Practices will be Wednesday after school in IS-9.  

    Mock Trial – Coached by volunteer attorneys and teachers, teams of 14 students work together to prepare their presentations from case materials. In the competition phase, students play the roles of attorneys and witnesses based on the evidence and witness statements. Teams are evaluated on their ability to make a logical, cohesive, and persuasive presentation, rather than on the legal merits of the case. See Mr. Copeland in C225 for more information. 

    Mathematics Club & Honor Society - Students with an interest in Mathematics can join our club to discuss interesting problems, hear presentations from guest speakers, and participate in mathematics competitions.  Math club members are also eligible for the Mathematics Honor Society, Mu Alpha Theta.

    Moot Court helps train and prepare students for legal and other careers via an entry in moot appellate argument competitions, testing their understanding of cutting-edge legal questions.  Students will have the opportunity to strengthen written and oral advocacy skills, and also enhance critical thinking/analytical reasoning and public speaking abilities - - useful skills in any future job.  Because topics usually focus on the applicability of current legal issues to the high school setting, Moot Court provides students with valuable knowledge of the U.S. Constitution and judicial system, which is helpful in other courses (such as American Government/Civics and U.S. History).  All interested students are welcome.  

    Orator Yearbook – Do you have what it takes? Join the yearbook to write stories, take pictures, make memories, and have fun! 

    SkillsUSA is a national professional organization for students enrolled in career and technical education classes. SkillsUSA's mission is to empower its members to become world-class workers, leaders, and responsible American citizens. At the heart of this mission are SkillsUSA’s core values: integrity, responsibility, citizenship, service, and respect. SkillsUSA serves Grady’s Audio Video Tech & Film pathway and Graphic Communications pathway. 

    Quiz Bowl is an academic competition team.  In tournaments, students answer a variety of challenging questions on history, literature, math, science, philosophy, art, music, psychology, current events, and popular culture.

    For a complete list of clubs and additional details click here.