Kimberly Garcia knows Highly Gifted. She was a student at San Jose HG Magnet herself! She went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in English Literature at UCLA and a Master’s degree in Educational Leadership and Policy at CSUN. Coming home, she has been a teacher at San Jose since 1998.
Ms. Garcia also has National Board Certification, which recognizes the most outstanding teachers in the country. Always looking for new and varied teaching modalities to use in her classroom, Miss Garcia regularly attends conferences on highly/gifted education and courses on how to integrate the latest technology. She understands the need to teach students how to use technology appropriately and effectively. Students in her class use their tech savvy to do projects, create engaging presentations, and do their weekly “mini-research” reports.
Her innovative techniques earned Ms. Garcia the prestigious 2010 LA Music Center BRAVO Award for exemplary education in the arts. In addition to her classroom duties, Ms. Garcia is a Curriculum Advisor for the Getty Foundation Education Department, creating lessons and training other teachers on how to integrate fine arts with science, social studies, and language units.
Her passion is to provide multiple pathways to access standard content. Ms. Garcia’s goal is to create a learning environment where highly gifted students feel understood, are academically challenged, and develop important life skills.
Some of our projects
Mission Infrastructure: Students work in groups to build not only a California Mission but its surrounding community and socio-economic infrastructure.
Fourth Grade Mall: For the Open Court Reading “Dollars and Sense” unit, student groups create their own businesses, including developing business plans, making products, strategizing cost and profitability, creating advertising, and ultimately selling their products at a one-day “mall” to which other classes are invited.
Trip to Sacramento: We just had our first parent-funded trip to the State Capitol. Students learn first-hand about California history, how public policies are made, and met with many legislators. Here we are with Assemblyman Tony Mendoza on the Assembly Floor.
Project Citizen: The Sacramento trip was part of research for a unit on Public Policy. Students pick a public problem, research the issues and existing policies, come up with their own solutions, and make action plans on how they can get policymakers to enact their solution. They present these ideas in “mock hearings” to experts and policymakers for feedback. This year, San Jose students were invited to present at the statewide Project Citizen Showcase.
