CTY program for bright Baltimore City Schools students turns 10

The Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth recently celebrated a happy milestone: The CTY Baltimore Emerging Scholars Program turned 10. Baltimore City Public School elementary students in the free, school-based enrichment program celebrated with their families on Johns Hopkins University's Homewood campus May 19 with a certificate ceremony, guest speakers, a photo booth, and cupcakes.

Founded in 2014, Emerging Scholars brings innovative, hands-on coursework to 400 city schools students with high academic potential annually. Held before or after school throughout the school year, the interdisciplinary courses teach kids about high-interest topics like architecture, engineering, space and astronomy, and digital literacy.

Image caption: From left to right: CTY alums Shantika Bhat, Alan Ramirez, and Abisola Adeusi

Image credit: Stacy Snyder Johnson / Johns Hopkins University

Amayah Pratt, a third grader at Cross Country Elementary School who attended the ceremony with her parents, participated in course Builders and Shakers: New Engineers this school year. Her favorite project was "building boats and cars out of different materials and testing them out." She said the class taught her about budgeting, planning, choosing materials, and testing designs.

CTY executive director Amy Lynne Shelton said CTY and Baltimore City Public Schools partnered to develop the program a decade ago because they knew academically advanced students were present in every neighborhood and every city school, but "test scores weren't revealing all of these advanced learners to us, because tests, as we know, are not perfect. We needed another way to identify the talent we knew was there."

As part of the program, city schools teachers are trained to look beyond test scores when identifying academic talent in their classrooms—and to understand that talent might present differently than expected. For example, Shelton said, "We asked them to look for students who might be disruptive. Why? Because we know that when advanced learners are bored, they find other ways to occupy their busy minds."

Today, Emerging Scholars is offered in-person and virtually to first through sixth graders in 56 city schools. More than 2,600 students have participated in the program since its inception.

Debra Brooks, director of the Baltimore City Mayor's Office of Children and Family Success, was also on hand at Sunday's ceremony to help celebrate the students' achievement, as were Emerging Scholars instructors, who are all city schools educators.

Three CTY alumni who attended Baltimore City Public Schools and are current college students led a panel discussion designed to demystify the college experience for young scholars and their families. They talked about the importance of reading for fun, getting involved in clubs and extracurricular activities, and exploring things they love outside of school.

True to form, the young scholars asked the CTY college students thoughtful questions—including, "Are you actively working on any projects that will change the world?"

Alan Ramirez, a rising junior at Haverford College, said he's working on a project that digitally records indigenous people speaking in their native languages. Johns Hopkins University public health major Shantika Bhat told the students about her study of health systems in other countries. And Abisola Adeusi, also a JHU student, just finished a project that factors in the effects of deforestation when modeling the impact of climate change.

"It feels like all of the things I learned in elementary school are starting to connect now," Adeusi said.

Learn more about the CTY Baltimore Emerging Scholars Program at https://cty.jhu.edu/who-we-are/cty-baltimore-emerging-scholars.