Isaiah Slife is seemingly a drumming prodigy with nowhere to go — but the potential for a gifted and talented program to be built from the ground-up could open new opportunities for him down the road even after his drumming career with Rifle High School ended this school year. 

Slife is 10 years old and goes to Highland Elementary School in Rifle. His mother, Kristy Slife, has been looking for more opportunities for Isaiah to drum at his level. 

“There’s nothing really around the area,” Kristy said. “We’ve gone to Denver for School of Rock, there’s a place in Basalt we’re looking at, starting in January, he’s participated with our Church, but there’s not a lot.”

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Isaiah Slife has been drumming since he was two years old and in those eight years, he’s been working hard. He’s spent time in drumline, marching and band camps. 

“Before we even started using any instruments, we were just practicing how to march,” Isaiah said. 

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Drumming with RHS

He attended the camps along with students from the Rifle High School Drumline. In fact, Kristy Slife asked the band director at the high school at the time, Bill Ishee, if Isaiah could join the high schoolers in their drumming endeavors.

“I said, ‘I know this is crazy, I’m a crazy mom, but could you please look at these videos’, and he watched some videos and (Ishee) said, ‘bring him up here’,” Kristy Slife said. “He handed him (Isaiah) some music and said, ‘this is high school music, I don’t know for sure if he can play it or not’.” 

Isaiah Slife worked hard at that time, at eight years old, to learn how to read music so he could play with the high school drumline. He’s also very good at matching what he hears.

“He can hear it (music) and picks it up,” Kristy Slife said. 

Isaiah can play full drums but says he prefers the snare drum right now.

“It’s because I can play with others,” he said. “It’s heavy. It feels like 70 pounds.” His mother informed him it weighed 13. 

Isaiah would go play events with the high school, like varsity games or homecoming. Kristy Slife said it was a great group of kids at the Rifle High School Drumline. 

“They treated him like he was 10, they really watched their language,” Kristy Slife said. “But in terms of playing, they treated him like a high schooler.”

Off the drumline

This year, when Isaiah tried to go back, he was refused. 

He and his mother, Kristy Slife, appealed to the Garfield Re-2 School Board on Aug. 28 during their regularly scheduled meeting. 

“The board agreed with the high school and said no,” Kristy Slife said. “They said that the principal is new and the (music) teacher is new and they were concerned about the experience at the high school.”

Isaiah Slife expressed disappointment at the answer, drumming with his hands on the bleachers while he spoke. 

“I feel kind of like I’m left out, like I can’t play anymore,” he said. The high schoolers in the drumline, he said, liked him and that he could keep up with them. 

The answer that Slife received was that he was too young to play with the high schoolers. 

“There are kids who have Instagrammed (messaged) him from the high school, asking when he’s going to come back and drum with them,” Kristy Slife said. 

The most shocking thing, Kristy Slife said, was that Isaiah wasn’t allowed to drum with the high school anymore and that all the administrators had agreed he shouldn’t have been drumming in the first place. 

It was also perplexing because Kristy Slife said that Isaiah had been going to public events, like football and basketball games to drum, but also at an opening ceremony to welcome teachers and administration back to school. 

“I have a picture of him there,” she said. Kristy Slife has photos and videos of Isaiah drumming at almost all the events he attended. “Nobody ever came forward and he participated in games and there were administrators present at them.”

Some people have told her that elementary school aged children shouldn’t be put together with high school aged kids, but Kristy Slife isn’t sure why. 

“We do it for all the camps we have. He was at a football camp which is run by high schoolers,” she said. 

Kristy Slife did say that the music teacher at Highlands Elementary, Taylor Smith, has been phenomenal. 

“She always tries to find opportunities for Isaiah to drum, so they’re always looking for different ways for him to participate,” she said. 

The possibility of a new beat through the Gifted and Talented program

The Garfield Re-2 School Board confirmed they supported the decision to not let Isaiah Slife participate in the Rifle High School Drumline at this time, but are supporting the Slife family to try and get Isaiah into the Gifted and Talented program. 

“If a student comes to us with a music, art or physical ability (athletic) talent, we foster their ability with support from G/T coordinators in the building,” said Simone Richardson, elementary district education coordinator for Garfield Re-2. “They work with them on leadership, reading music and how to teach other students.”

The Gifted and Talented students also work with their teachers, in this case the music teacher if Isaiah Slife gets into the program, to help their abilities in performing to crowds and fostering that talent. 

“We also look for tutors and resources for the parents,” Richardson said. “We don’t ignore the academic side.”

The state requires a portfolio for a child to begin the adjudication process to be accepted into the Gifted and Talented program, which can take years, Richardson said, but the district itself will provide those resources for the child without that state acceptance.  

“The portfolio must be a complete representation of the talent area over the course of many years,” Richardson explained. “They’re looking for a progression in a skill over time.”

Time is what differentiates a truly gifted student from a student who likes doing things in fine arts, Richardson said, which is why the acceptance from the state can take so long. 

For students in the Gifted and Talented program in the district, they receive an Advanced Learning Plan, committing to specific academic interventions and affective interventions where they pay attention to self perception and their ability to advocate for themselves, Richardson said. 

Isaiah, in the meantime, plays football, wrestles and still has a lot to learn in drumming, but has a drumming talent. He works right now with a teacher in New York over the internet. 

He said his favorite part of the drums is learning music.

“Learning new music,” he said. “And also playing with the high schoolers. It was.” 

Kristy Slife said they have drumsticks and pads all over their house. 

“He’s the guy with the drums,” his mom said.