As the bell rings to signal the end of class, students file into the halls and bustle through the traffic to get to their next classes. Caught in the crowd is sixth grader Aidan Pierce, with his brown puffy coat and wheeled backpack trailing behind him.

He is not here for a visit, nor is he a stranger to this building.

Pierce continues on his path and squeezes into the elevator with gifted education teacher Thomas Birt on his way to BC Calculus class.

Pierce is identified as gifted and comes to LHS from South Middle School to partake in higher level classes to help feed his hunger for knowledge.

“I think AP Biology [is my favorite class], but I like calculus too,” Pierce said. “[I like these classes] because I find it fun to do things at very advanced levels.”

Pierce’s ability to grasp complex and advanced subjects was first noticed when he was just 18 months, and this ability has only continued to grow.

“He began counting and working with numbers when he was just a small toddler,” Jacqueline Pierce, Aidan’s mother, said. “By the time he was in preschool, he was working on more complex math problems and would spend lots of time at the chalkboard at his Montessori preschool multiplying or dividing long strings of numbers. He thought it was great fun.”

His advanced placement in school began in kindergarten when he tested into algebra. From there, Pierce began taking sixth grade math in first grade and continued to advance from that point on.

“We balked a little at that since he was still so young,” Jacqueline Pierce said.

Currently, Pierce is enrolled in AP Calculus BC and AP Biology at LHS and enjoys the time he spends here.

“I like getting to interact with kids in other age groups,” Pierce said.

Birt believes that while being enrolled in these classes is obviously helping Pierce educationally, they also aid him socially.

“He can be elbows to elbows with other students looking at the same complex problem trying to solve it and not be alone in the process,” Birt said. “He gets to be in the company of his intellectual peers. And having relationships with people who understand things at a level that you understand is really important for all of us.”

Although Pierce’s academic advances were strongly recommended, he continues to make progress and accelerate at this rate by choice.

“Each year, it has been his choice to continue and he does it because he really wants to keep learning,” Jacqueline Pierce said. “We wanted this to be something he does because he loves it, not because he was pushed to do it.”

Once Pierce attends his two classes at LHS, his day is far from over. He heads back to South where he takes the rest of his classes for the school day.

“I think that [my favorite class at South] would be P.E. because, quoting the P.E. teacher, ‘It’s the only class where you’re suppose to be having fun,’ ” Pierce said.

At South, Pierce is able to take normal classes with other sixth graders as well, but only by choice.

“Social studies and language arts are my tie-in classes, which keeps me together with kids my age,” Pierce said. “I could advance in both of those if I wanted to, but I want to have some time with other sixth graders.”

Outside of school, Pierce is just like any other kid. He enjoys playing sports, video games and using his creativity.

“Basically, I like to [design] plans for languages, buildings, planets, levels in a couple computer games, pretty much anything you can imagine I like to make plans for,” Pierce said.

As far as his future is concerned, there are still many questions up in the air, one of them being his graduation from high school. Since Pierce is only in sixth grade, he is unable to receive high school credit for the classes he has taken at LHS. And after this year, he will have maxed out of math classes offered at LHS.

This dilemma, however, does not concern Birt.

“I don’t think he’s going to not get a high school diploma,” Birt said. “The diploma he gets will be a creative one that respects his individuality and will include a whole lot of college-level courses.”

Despite the questions and concerns, everyone wants what is in Pierce’s best interest, and the future looks promising for him.

“He’ll reach his early 20’s doing something really special, living in some really cool place,” Birt said. “No matter where he goes, wonderful things are going to happen for him. I don’t think there’s any way we could mess up what a good, smart kid he is.”