When Michael Giampetruzzi didn’t do his schoolwork as a child, it wasn’t because he couldn’t.

“It didn’t interest me, so I didn’t do it,” he said.

It turned out that he needed more of a challenge in school. It came in the form of enrichment work with a teacher outside his classroom.

Now the Freeport resident, originally from Raymond, is getting to make a similar difference in all three of Wiscasset’s schools as a gifted-and-talented teacher. The program helps identified students get the most they can out of school, when grade-level work alone doesn’t hold their interest or allow them the growth they’re capable of, Giampetruzzi said.

“They are so bright, so quick, always far ahead of their peers. They need support because they need to have growth and academic rigor, to feed those brains.” Without that support, boredom over classwork can yield behavior problems in addition to limiting a student’s growth, Giampetruzzi said.

Test scores and parents’ and teachers’ nominations help determine the students in the program. Giampetruzzi also meets with prospective entrants into the program to gauge their creativity and their appetite for learning, he said.

He expects to draw some of his ideas for this year from the Odyssey of the Mind program. It involves a national competition that Giampetruzzi doesn’t expect to enter teams into, but the problem-solving the program centers on can be a valuable tool in gifted-and-talented work.

He also plans to get his students involved in projects outside their schools, so that they understand they can use their talents to make a difference. 

“I’d like kids to realize that,” he said.

Giampetruzzi, 30, received his bachelor’s degree in English from St. Joseph’s College in Standish in 2006. His summers working for the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth, at various sites, and his work in special education at Jordan-Small School in Raymond, from 2006 to 2013, added to his interest in, and knowledge for, the gifted-and-talented work.

The transition to his new job in Wiscasset has gone well.

“It’s been a good move. Everyone has been very friendly, very welcoming,” he said.