Another Interesting Summer For Kayleigh Metviner

By Kaaren Valenta

Kayleigh Metviner, 13, always has an interesting summer. This year she divided her time between painting a mural for the dog pound and attending, for the third straight year, a gifted and talented program sponsored by the Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth (CTY).

Kayleigh, an eighth grade student at the Newtown Middle School, got involved in the dog pound project by volunteering with Canine Advocates.

“Virginia Jess of Canine Advocates was looking for someone to paint a mural because it is so difficult for people to find the dog pound,” Kayleigh explained.

Kayleigh started planning the project with her friend Shannon Burnette at the beginning of the summer. The mural design had to be approved by the first selectman’s office, then Kayleigh had to leave for St Mary’s College of Maryland at St Mary’s City, Md., for a three-week program studying ancient Greece with other seventh and eighth graders who had scored at the 97th percentile or higher on school standardized tests.

Kayleigh and other seventh and eighth graders took the college SAT; fifth and sixth graders take the Plus academic Abilities Assessment to qualify for the Johns Hopkins program.

More than 84,000 students from 19 states and the District of Columbia participated in the talent searches offered this year through CTY. Hundreds of Connecticut’s top academic students, including Kayleigh, were honored last spring in a special ceremony at Quinnipiac College in New Haven. They also were eligible to attend the summer programs.

Last year Kayleigh studied forensics in the three-week program. Two years ago she read college-level literature and studied different writing forms such as poems and narratives at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts

“There are all different kinds of programs –– writing, science, biology, ethics, government, and politics –– held at different colleges as far away as Hawaii,” Kayleigh explained.

Kayleigh’s mother, Jackie Scaringella, a special education teacher at the Wooster School in Danbury, said it is important for parents to know about the CTY program, especially now that the gifted and talented program has been curtailed in the Newtown schools because of the budget cuts.

“The Johns Hopkins program has been wonderful for Kayleigh,” she said. “It’s a terrific program.”

When Kayleigh came home and finally tackled the mural painting, her mother helped.

“It was really hot,” Ms Scaringella said. “There were biting flies so we didn’t last more than two or three hours a day. Plus there was an awful smell from the dump and noise from the trash compactor. But we finally got it done.”

The animal shelter now features brightly colored dogs on the side facing the transfer/recycling center. Kayleigh and her mother hope the mural will help draw attention to facility.

“I’ve lived here almost eight years and I didn’t know where the pound was,” Ms Scaringella said. “The sign seems to paint in the wrong direction.”