The problem here is that NO ONE is accountable. Parents were told at the split in 2008 that APP would have its own curriculum. I hope no one was holding their breath.
The district lies, yes lies, to parents and nothing happens. I don't believe the district ever had any intention of creating a new curriculum. The parents complain, bitch and moan, but what can we do?
The less talked about benefit (to the school district, not the kids) of splitting APP all over the place is that the parents no longer know each other and it's much harder to organize.
We are finally going private next year. This liberal, public school educated Seattleite just can't take it anymore.
NW Mom, I haven't. Were you under the impression that those who are either Spectrum eligible or not at all eligible would be getting the letters? Obviously, if they are just starting to do the achievement tests, they couldn't send them all out.
Or, are they sending snail mail letters about achievement testing? I thought people were getting phone calls regarding that, like we did for the CogAT.
Or, are they sending letters for upper grades and not K?
Our child was tested for HCC/APP entry as a 9th grader. Like everyone else, we're still waiting for our test results.
Our current choices for high school enrollment seem to be either Ingraham IBx (HCC only) or Ballard (geographic assignment). We might also consider Ingraham IB, but are not sure if the waiting list would clear.
Any there others in the Ingraham IB or IBx program? Any others with Ballard feedback?
If you test into HCC you are guaranteed a spot, right? Does that apply to 9th grade, too? Since testing in at 9th grade really only gives you access to IBX, does that mean you automatically get a spot? As HCC grows, it seems more and more likely that there will be a waiting list for IBX (since I understand it isn't easy to quickly ramp up and just add a bunch more kids). If there's more demand for the IBX program than spots available, how does it work with the new test-ins?
Agreed on all counts. We made the move last year, (1 to private, 1 out of district public) and haven't looked back. Our stress level has gone down immensely. Too many years of fighting for APP with very little results, and a district who doesn't seem to care, or has bigger fish to fry. I don't know why SPS can't seem to pull it together, but in the end I just needed my kids to learn something and be happy without having to do endless advocacy or fighting. Now they just go to school, and great educators are steering the ship (at both private and public). I'm really stumped as to how to fix SPS at this point. -Rare Commenter
No letter or achievement testing for my private schooled 5th grader - but I'm wondering - my child qualified for app last year and on the sps app/HCC webpage it says that kids retain eligibility now, without any caveat for private or non-ALO schools. Could it be they don't plan on doing his achievement testing as he retained his eligibility from last year? The wording about retaining eligibility has changed since last year so I'm not sure. I'm going to email SPS but has anyone heard any ring about this?
Placement is based on a combination of 4th grade MSP and 5th grade MAP scores. No mention of how students from schools that are administering Amplify interim benchmarks instead of the MAP will be placed.
The current 5th graders are also given the Math MAP even if the school does Amplify tests. It will interesting to see what criteria will be used next year for 6th grade math placement.
If you are in private school for 5th grade, why would you want to go public? Do you not know that Washington is going to balloon with more and more portables as they wait for Meany to open? It's a great school, but the next 2 years will be rough. Then Hamilton, with no option for portables, is over their capacity limit of 960, and next year it's going to break - do it will be 3 buildings in three years for those unlucky 6th graders. JAMS will work out - it is the most stable of all 3, but the HIMS principal did a lot of damage to the program - and Tolley let her do it, she was the one who demanded general Ed and APP study the same thing at the same time - it was her, not the District, and the District let her and parents didn't stand up to this. So yes, stay private if you already ate. I cry uncle is telling it like it is.
Private does not necessarily mean a prestige (expensive) school. We are at a very small, inexpensive, alternative school that does not offer a middle school pathway. Almost all of my child's peers go to public school for middle. We are ready for rigor and wider social opportunities. Public school does have its challenges but it does offer these and the price sure is right!
Re: retaining eligibility while in private, I'd say it's a crapshoot. The AL office doesn't seem to do a great job with record keeping, so you never know. My kid, for example, tested into APP one year, then we decided to stay at our neighborhood school--which did not offer Spectrum or ALO, so thus no "APP report card." We should have lost eligibility, so retested. When we ultimately got the letter that showed qualifying scores, the letter specifically noted that he had already qualified and hadn't needed to test. (Although I'm sure if he hadn't retested, they would have said his eligibility had expired!)
I just heard a rumor that the middle school placement for Fairmont Park APP will be Madison. Is the principal over there hostile to the idea of integrating HCC into the school? I heard some nebulous comments from the principal that made me wonder. J
Yes, very hostile! Hostile to ability based learning as it is, friendly to the have peers-teach-peers model.
There are a few West Seattle parents who are demanding they get to 'have' APP at Madison. They are doing so quietly so as not to arouse other WS APP parents who don't want to get shut-out from WMS.
But, Madison's 'inclusivity' 'model' is antithetical to the Highly Capable Sevices self-contained core classes model that is what middle school APP is. Also, there has to be a minimum number of HCC sections per grade for many, many reasons: 1. to support colaboration in PLCs among HCC teachers to support the professional development of their HCC best practises, 2. enough students -90 per grade minimum to build out a master schedule do that the whole site works efficiently, and 3. enough students to support the social and emotional needs of the HC students. There are not yet enough in West Seattle, although when there is, then it's a program placement discussion to have.
This move some WS parents want makes no sense from a servicing-the-student education point of view (Washington does a great job), and it especially makes no sense from a capacity point of view. West seatttle has a desperate shortage of middle school seats, as all those elementary students are rolling up into Madison and Denny, there simply is not enough space to accommodate them, let alone add back the APP students who leave to go to Washington, AND Washington has lots of space as Meany is about to open and it is going to take 5 elementary schools that currently feed into Washington away -- leaving Washington with tonnes of space.
Parents who are advocating for this are obviously going to keep doing so and will keep doing so, that's what they believe and want, but they lack the vision if they think they are going to get a Washington experience at Madison. It will not happen, and it will further damage the program as a whole. And, my bet is it will lead to a high school assignment away from Garfeild to RB.
Just think a little long term (say, 5 years), and you can see why this happening now, right now is very destructive. Timing really is everything.
You articulated our family's experience perfectly. Principal Watters did a considerable amount of damage to APP/HCC at HIMS. I also went all the way to the school board to question her arbitrary limiting of the program, her curriculum, and her illegal (with respect to state law) practices regarding capacity and staffing. Tolley backed her up all the way. Basically said that all curriculum and academic decisions are at the discretion of the principal. This leaves it open for the principal to make any decision, whatsoever, for students in the program and CLOAK it in an academic decision. The central district has no plan for APP/HCC students - unless it is to distribute them throughout the schools to act as surrogate teachers (this is the philosophy of many in the district). APP/HCC families are at the mercy of the personal philosophy of the principal at each school. And if you are lucky enough to find a scholastically enlightened principal - he or she could be gone in an instant.
We had to leave HIMS and now attend JAMS. It costs us 2 hours of personal commuting each day but it has been worth it. I hope the JAMS principal stays a while. She is awesome. The only academic challenge available to my kid at HIMS was band.
Our child is at JAMS and we are not finding much academic challenge in HCC specific classes. We have not found it an improvement over what we experienced at HIMS. I'm not sure some teachers have a feel for what pace or level of challenge the students can handle. My child thinks the projects are at a 5th grade level.
The non-music electives at JAMS have been solid. My child is learning much more in the world language class at JAMS. I have heard math placement is more flexible at JAMS than at HIMS (but math is not considered an HCC specific class).
I am not fully against the alignment of HCC Social Studies to the general state suggested sequence. The larger concern is the classes have not been modified to provide adequate challenge for HCC students. They can cover content at both a brisker pace and on a higher level of complexity, so they can theoretically include both more depth and more breadth in HCC classes. My child's class is doing neither. I don't even think they are covering content and skills at the grade level CCSS standard. This is based on n=1, so it is hard to say what is teacher specific and what is program specific.
Anon at 11:07, your experience at JAMS--which is similar to ours at HIMS--is why I have concerns about the upcoming 6-8 social studies adoption.
I recently spoke with Kathleen Vasquez, who is leading the effort, and while she indicated that a HC subcommittee of the adoption committee would be free to recommend something other than what the general committee prefers, she also indicated that it would be perfectly acceptable to choose the same texts--that we need to increase rigor and reading complexity for all students, so they might indeed come up with very challenging texts that would serve all. She specifically indicated that they've requested that textbook companies provide copies of their extensions and supplemental materials for advanced learners (and ELL, etc.), but it's hard at this point to know how much additional challenge these components would provide. Yes, textbook companies include resources for what they call advanced learners, but how extensive will those be, and how advanced? Remains to be seen.
Ms. Vasquez does seem to agree, however, that HC students need SOMETHING additional or different. If it's the same text, they need more advanced supplemental materials--including historic texts, texts that provide additional context that can be used to help frame the analysis, etc. Unfortunately, however, there aren't really any requirements that this sort of thing be incorporated. The adoption committee (and subcommittees) will be the ones identifying the primary criteria for reviewing the materials, and if they don't include something like text complexity in their criteria then it's not something they'll look for. Given that "text complexity" can be hard to measure, there's a good chance they might avoid that--which would be very unfortunate. But even teachers often often don't agree on what is sufficiently complex...
Which brings me to the issue of expertise. I don't know how big the HC subcommittee of the adoption committee is. If it has a parent or two and some teachers with HC experience, will it really have sufficient expertise re: the needs of highly capable learners? Most of the middle school HC teachers we've seen do NOT have specific training in working with gifted kids, so they tend to do things just like any other teacher--and they tend to have fairly low expectations, too. If these are the ones picking the curriculum, are they going to be setting the bar high enough? (And if they are likely to end up teaching a mix of HC and non-HC classes, as many do, it seems like a no-brainer for them to recommend the same text for all, as it would make their lives a lot easier).
So I guess my point is that people need to pay close attention to this social studies adoption if they want to help set the bar sufficiently high for middle school HCC in all subjects. Be sure to review the materials when they come out, and provide your feedback early in the process re: what is needed for HC learners. Additionally, Ms. Vasquez mentioned that there will be a survey coming out soon re: what everyone's priorities are re: the adoption, so be sure to include specific re: the needs of HC students in your comments--this feedback will help drive the selection criteria of the HC subcommittee. (Greg, maybe once the survey comes out we can get a thread going re: priorities for HC students, so people can share their responses? I know I always leave some things out until I see the great ideas of others...)
Thanks for the update, Lassie. It's concerning that they aren't starting out looking at substantially different texts. In 7th grade, HIMS used some cast off Ballard texts for World History. They were somewhat basic, but at least they were written for high school, not middle school. They covered a substantial amount of material. Though I strongly agree expectations should increase for all students, I think it's magical thinking to believe one text will appropriately serve both GenEd and HCC students.
Dear Program Service Integrity First, Thank you for your comments. I am the parent of a 1st grader at Schmitz Park elementary, down the street from Madison MS, and considering HCC @ Fairmount in the Fall. My child has the test scores but the teacher wrote him a poor recommendation, claiming that his inattentiveness was due to poor study skills rather than boredom. The attitude at SP is very anti-Advanced Learning. The SP principal recently sent out comments in the school newsletter that all but said AL is unnecessary except in the most extreme of cases. It sounds as if the Middle school options for HC may not be much better though. Frustrated in WS
Does anyone have any experience with poor teacher recommendations? My son has all 3 of the necessary test scores (96 cogat, 95 reading, 98 verbal) for AL. The reading/verbal were tested privately so I am waiting for the appeal process to start. Is another teacher recommendation necessary for appeals? Should I ask the teacher for an updated letter? Do I need to reiterate in my parent letter that classroom wiggles from a 7-year old boy is one of the most common signs of boredom and underachievement? Frustrated in WS
If your child has the test scores, the teacher recommendation won't matter at all. My first grader is at Fairmount Park this year and we are very happy. Middle school is several years down the road. There will be plenty of room at Washington by the time we get to that point.
Are you trying to get into HCC? If so, the first score, "96 cogat," isn't a qualifying score, unless you are testing for Spectrum.
From SPS: " Serves students identified through district testing as Highly Capable, which typically includes cognitive scores at or above the 98th percentile and achievement scores at or above the 95th."
I just wanted to make sure you knew this prior to appealing, unless you are just appealing for Spectrum. Did you do testing for math achievement?
I agree that if the scores qualify, the teacher recommendation likely won't matter much. I think that is used more for borderline cases.
HCC has never said that they will offer challenging work to all qualified students. For years they have told parents that they will not provide appropriate academics for profoundly gifted students. Parents who have advocated for challenging work, have been told, that 'we can't serve everyone'. That was true before the splits too. So why is anyone surprised if their kid isn't challenged in HCC? It's all about the cohort, not the academics. Just like special ed, they'll put you in a separate room, but no one promises you'll learn anything in there.
Anon at 8:23, I don't think parents of profoundly gifted students really expect the district to serve their kids well. We understand the challenges of trying to tailor services to such a small and diverse group. (That said, a little more flexibility and accommodation on the part of the district, such as allowing on-site independent study, seems like a more than reasonable expectation to me.) And while it's true that the AL office has never specifically said they'd challenge profoundly gifted kids, it's worth noting that the Highly Capable policy does say this:
"As such, all Highly Capable students and Advanced Learners will have equitable access to academically challenging and appropriate programs and services." I assume they don't mean "equitable access to programs and services that are academically challenging for some kids but not others." But yes, we understand the realities.
HCC, however, is largely NOT populated by profoundly gifted kids. Most students are more typically "highly gifted," and with a program this large I think it is indeed reasonable to expect the district to serve them well and provide sufficient challenge. If they are not, there's little justification for the program and I would consider it a misuse of funds.
anon@8:23, when a middle school HCC reading circle (I'm not a big fan of largely student guided reading analysis, but that's another topic) contains books written mostly at an upper elementary reading level, are you suggesting we should just be content they are with the cohort?
As HIMSmom suggested, the issue is not about meeting every student at their level, but about offering an academically challenging program that rises to the level appropriate for students testing at the 95-98%iles.
234 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 234 of 234The problem here is that NO ONE is accountable. Parents were told at the split in 2008 that APP would have its own curriculum. I hope no one was holding their breath.
The district lies, yes lies, to parents and nothing happens. I don't believe the district ever had any intention of creating a new curriculum. The parents complain, bitch and moan, but what can we do?
The less talked about benefit (to the school district, not the kids) of splitting APP all over the place is that the parents no longer know each other and it's much harder to organize.
We are finally going private next year. This liberal, public school educated Seattleite just can't take it anymore.
-I cry uncle
"it also becomes a lot easier to argue that we don't really need HCC--teachers can just take care of everything via in-class differentiation, right?"
I think this is the goal of the SPS district administration.
-Disappointed in APP/HCC
They sent the first letters yesterday. Did anybody get one yet?
NW Mom
NW Mom, I haven't. Were you under the impression that those who are either Spectrum eligible or not at all eligible would be getting the letters? Obviously, if they are just starting to do the achievement tests, they couldn't send them all out.
Or, are they sending snail mail letters about achievement testing? I thought people were getting phone calls regarding that, like we did for the CogAT.
Or, are they sending letters for upper grades and not K?
Confused.
Our child was tested for HCC/APP entry as a 9th grader. Like everyone else, we're still waiting for our test results.
Our current choices for high school enrollment seem to be either Ingraham IBx (HCC only) or Ballard (geographic assignment). We might also consider Ingraham IB, but are not sure if the waiting list would clear.
Any there others in the Ingraham IB or IBx program? Any others with Ballard feedback?
Indecisive for High school...
If you test into HCC you are guaranteed a spot, right? Does that apply to 9th grade, too? Since testing in at 9th grade really only gives you access to IBX, does that mean you automatically get a spot? As HCC grows, it seems more and more likely that there will be a waiting list for IBX (since I understand it isn't easy to quickly ramp up and just add a bunch more kids). If there's more demand for the IBX program than spots available, how does it work with the new test-ins?
I cry uncle at 11:30 -
Agreed on all counts. We made the move last year, (1 to private, 1 out of district public) and haven't looked back. Our stress level has gone down immensely. Too many years of fighting for APP with very little results, and a district who doesn't seem to care, or has bigger fish to fry. I don't know why SPS can't seem to pull it together, but in the end I just needed my kids to learn something and be happy without having to do endless advocacy or fighting. Now they just go to school, and great educators are steering the ship (at both private and public). I'm really stumped as to how to fix SPS at this point.
-Rare Commenter
Anyone get a letter?
stillwaiting
No letter here. Kindergarten student in the northeast with no achievement testing yet.
No letter or achievement testing here either. -Kparent
No letter or achievement testing for my private schooled 5th grader - but I'm wondering - my child qualified for app last year and on the sps app/HCC webpage it says that kids retain eligibility now, without any caveat for private or non-ALO schools. Could it be they don't plan on doing his achievement testing as he retained his eligibility from last year? The wording about retaining eligibility has changed since last year so I'm not sure. I'm going to email SPS but has anyone heard any ring about this?
6th grade math placement guidelines have been posted on the Advanced Learning webpage.
Placement is based on a combination of 4th grade MSP and 5th grade MAP scores. No mention of how students from schools that are administering Amplify interim benchmarks instead of the MAP will be placed.
The current 5th graders are also given the Math MAP even if the school does Amplify tests. It will interesting to see what criteria will be used next year for 6th grade math placement.
Nisha
If you are in private school for 5th grade, why would you want to go public? Do you not know that Washington is going to balloon with more and more portables as they wait for Meany to open? It's a great school, but the next 2 years will be rough. Then Hamilton, with no option for portables, is over their capacity limit of 960, and next year it's going to break - do it will be 3 buildings in three years for those unlucky 6th graders. JAMS will work out - it is the most stable of all 3, but the HIMS principal did a lot of damage to the program - and Tolley let her do it, she was the one who demanded general Ed and APP study the same thing at the same time - it was her, not the District, and the District let her and parents didn't stand up to this. So yes, stay private if you already ate. I cry uncle is telling it like it is.
Can't afford private
Private does not necessarily mean a prestige (expensive) school. We are at a very small, inexpensive, alternative school that does not offer a middle school pathway. Almost all of my child's peers go to public school for middle. We are ready for rigor and wider social opportunities. Public school does have its challenges but it does offer these and the price sure is right!
Re: retaining eligibility while in private, I'd say it's a crapshoot. The AL office doesn't seem to do a great job with record keeping, so you never know. My kid, for example, tested into APP one year, then we decided to stay at our neighborhood school--which did not offer Spectrum or ALO, so thus no "APP report card." We should have lost eligibility, so retested. When we ultimately got the letter that showed qualifying scores, the letter specifically noted that he had already qualified and hadn't needed to test. (Although I'm sure if he hadn't retested, they would have said his eligibility had expired!)
I just heard a rumor that the middle school placement for Fairmont Park APP will be Madison. Is the principal over there hostile to the idea of integrating HCC into the school? I heard some nebulous comments from the principal that made me wonder.
J
Yes, very hostile! Hostile to ability based learning as it is, friendly to the have peers-teach-peers model.
There are a few West Seattle parents who are demanding they get to 'have' APP at Madison. They are doing so quietly so as not to arouse other WS APP parents who don't want to get shut-out from WMS.
But, Madison's 'inclusivity' 'model' is antithetical to the Highly Capable Sevices self-contained core classes model that is what middle school APP is. Also, there has to be a minimum number of HCC sections per grade for many, many reasons: 1. to support colaboration in PLCs among HCC teachers to support the professional development of their HCC best practises, 2. enough students -90 per grade minimum to build out a master schedule do that the whole site works efficiently, and 3. enough students to support the social and emotional needs of the HC students. There are not yet enough in West Seattle, although when there is, then it's a program placement discussion to have.
This move some WS parents want makes no sense from a servicing-the-student education point of view (Washington does a great job), and it especially makes no sense from a capacity point of view. West seatttle has a desperate shortage of middle school seats, as all those elementary students are rolling up into Madison and Denny, there simply is not enough space to accommodate them, let alone add back the APP students who leave to go to Washington, AND Washington has lots of space as Meany is about to open and it is going to take 5 elementary schools that currently feed into Washington away -- leaving Washington with tonnes of space.
Parents who are advocating for this are obviously going to keep doing so and will keep doing so, that's what they believe and want, but they lack the vision if they think they are going to get a Washington experience at Madison. It will not happen, and it will further damage the program as a whole. And, my bet is it will lead to a high school assignment away from Garfeild to RB.
Just think a little long term (say, 5 years), and you can see why this happening now, right now is very destructive. Timing really is everything.
Program Service Integrity First
Wow, Can't afford at 5:07pm,
You articulated our family's experience perfectly. Principal Watters did a considerable amount of damage to APP/HCC at HIMS. I also went all the way to the school board to question her arbitrary limiting of the program, her curriculum, and her illegal (with respect to state law) practices regarding capacity and staffing. Tolley backed her up all the way. Basically said that all curriculum and academic decisions are at the discretion of the principal. This leaves it open for the principal to make any decision, whatsoever, for students in the program and CLOAK it in an academic decision. The central district has no plan for APP/HCC students - unless it is to distribute them throughout the schools to act as surrogate teachers (this is the philosophy of many in the district). APP/HCC families are at the mercy of the personal philosophy of the principal at each school. And if you are lucky enough to find a scholastically enlightened principal - he or she could be gone in an instant.
We had to leave HIMS and now attend JAMS. It costs us 2 hours of personal commuting each day but it has been worth it. I hope the JAMS principal stays a while. She is awesome. The only academic challenge available to my kid at HIMS was band.
-PrincipalsCanBeTheProblemOrTheSolution
Peers-teach-peers? I thought we sent our kids to school so that they could have professional teachers.
J
Our child is at JAMS and we are not finding much academic challenge in HCC specific classes. We have not found it an improvement over what we experienced at HIMS. I'm not sure some teachers have a feel for what pace or level of challenge the students can handle. My child thinks the projects are at a 5th grade level.
The non-music electives at JAMS have been solid. My child is learning much more in the world language class at JAMS. I have heard math placement is more flexible at JAMS than at HIMS (but math is not considered an HCC specific class).
I am not fully against the alignment of HCC Social Studies to the general state suggested sequence. The larger concern is the classes have not been modified to provide adequate challenge for HCC students. They can cover content at both a brisker pace and on a higher level of complexity, so they can theoretically include both more depth and more breadth in HCC classes. My child's class is doing neither. I don't even think they are covering content and skills at the grade level CCSS standard. This is based on n=1, so it is hard to say what is teacher specific and what is program specific.
Anon at 11:07, your experience at JAMS--which is similar to ours at HIMS--is why I have concerns about the upcoming 6-8 social studies adoption.
I recently spoke with Kathleen Vasquez, who is leading the effort, and while she indicated that a HC subcommittee of the adoption committee would be free to recommend something other than what the general committee prefers, she also indicated that it would be perfectly acceptable to choose the same texts--that we need to increase rigor and reading complexity for all students, so they might indeed come up with very challenging texts that would serve all. She specifically indicated that they've requested that textbook companies provide copies of their extensions and supplemental materials for advanced learners (and ELL, etc.), but it's hard at this point to know how much additional challenge these components would provide. Yes, textbook companies include resources for what they call advanced learners, but how extensive will those be, and how advanced? Remains to be seen.
Ms. Vasquez does seem to agree, however, that HC students need SOMETHING additional or different. If it's the same text, they need more advanced supplemental materials--including historic texts, texts that provide additional context that can be used to help frame the analysis, etc. Unfortunately, however, there aren't really any requirements that this sort of thing be incorporated. The adoption committee (and subcommittees) will be the ones identifying the primary criteria for reviewing the materials, and if they don't include something like text complexity in their criteria then it's not something they'll look for. Given that "text complexity" can be hard to measure, there's a good chance they might avoid that--which would be very unfortunate. But even teachers often often don't agree on what is sufficiently complex...
Which brings me to the issue of expertise. I don't know how big the HC subcommittee of the adoption committee is. If it has a parent or two and some teachers with HC experience, will it really have sufficient expertise re: the needs of highly capable learners? Most of the middle school HC teachers we've seen do NOT have specific training in working with gifted kids, so they tend to do things just like any other teacher--and they tend to have fairly low expectations, too. If these are the ones picking the curriculum, are they going to be setting the bar high enough? (And if they are likely to end up teaching a mix of HC and non-HC classes, as many do, it seems like a no-brainer for them to recommend the same text for all, as it would make their lives a lot easier).
So I guess my point is that people need to pay close attention to this social studies adoption if they want to help set the bar sufficiently high for middle school HCC in all subjects. Be sure to review the materials when they come out, and provide your feedback early in the process re: what is needed for HC learners. Additionally, Ms. Vasquez mentioned that there will be a survey coming out soon re: what everyone's priorities are re: the adoption, so be sure to include specific re: the needs of HC students in your comments--this feedback will help drive the selection criteria of the HC subcommittee. (Greg, maybe once the survey comes out we can get a thread going re: priorities for HC students, so people can share their responses? I know I always leave some things out until I see the great ideas of others...)
Lassie
Thanks for the update, Lassie. It's concerning that they aren't starting out looking at substantially different texts. In 7th grade, HIMS used some cast off Ballard texts for World History. They were somewhat basic, but at least they were written for high school, not middle school. They covered a substantial amount of material. Though I strongly agree expectations should increase for all students, I think it's magical thinking to believe one text will appropriately serve both GenEd and HCC students.
anon@11:07
Dear Program Service Integrity First,
Thank you for your comments. I am the parent of a 1st grader at Schmitz Park elementary, down the street from Madison MS, and considering HCC @ Fairmount in the Fall. My child has the test scores but the teacher wrote him a poor recommendation, claiming that his inattentiveness was due to poor study skills rather than boredom. The attitude at SP is very anti-Advanced Learning. The SP principal recently sent out comments in the school newsletter that all but said AL is unnecessary except in the most extreme of cases.
It sounds as if the Middle school options for HC may not be much better though.
Frustrated in WS
Does anyone have any experience with poor teacher recommendations? My son has all 3 of the necessary test scores (96 cogat, 95 reading, 98 verbal) for AL. The reading/verbal were tested privately so I am waiting for the appeal process to start. Is another teacher recommendation necessary for appeals? Should I ask the teacher for an updated letter? Do I need to reiterate in my parent letter that classroom wiggles from a 7-year old boy is one of the most common signs of boredom and underachievement?
Frustrated in WS
Teacher recommendations have not held any weight in the past.
J
A 1st grader should not have any study skills.
J
Frustrated,
If your child has the test scores, the teacher recommendation won't matter at all. My first grader is at Fairmount Park this year and we are very happy. Middle school is several years down the road. There will be plenty of room at Washington by the time we get to that point.
Frustrated in WS, not understanding your test scores or situation. Did you get your Cogat results already? 98 is needed on two areas...
Frustrated in WS-
Are you trying to get into HCC? If so, the first score, "96 cogat," isn't a qualifying score, unless you are testing for Spectrum.
From SPS: " Serves students identified through district testing as Highly Capable, which typically includes cognitive scores at or above the 98th percentile and achievement scores at or above the 95th."
I just wanted to make sure you knew this prior to appealing, unless you are just appealing for Spectrum. Did you do testing for math achievement?
I agree that if the scores qualify, the teacher recommendation likely won't matter much. I think that is used more for borderline cases.
Thanks for helpful comments, everyone! :)
-Frustrated in WS
HCC has never said that they will offer challenging work to all qualified students. For years they have told parents that they will not provide appropriate academics for profoundly gifted students. Parents who have advocated for challenging work, have been told, that 'we can't serve everyone'. That was true before the splits too. So why is anyone surprised if their kid isn't challenged in HCC? It's all about the cohort, not the academics. Just like special ed, they'll put you in a separate room, but no one promises you'll learn anything in there.
Anon at 8:23, I don't think parents of profoundly gifted students really expect the district to serve their kids well. We understand the challenges of trying to tailor services to such a small and diverse group. (That said, a little more flexibility and accommodation on the part of the district, such as allowing on-site independent study, seems like a more than reasonable expectation to me.) And while it's true that the AL office has never specifically said they'd challenge profoundly gifted kids, it's worth noting that the Highly Capable policy does say this:
"As such, all Highly Capable students and Advanced Learners will have equitable access to academically challenging and appropriate programs and services." I assume they don't mean "equitable access to programs and services that are academically challenging for some kids but not others." But yes, we understand the realities.
HCC, however, is largely NOT populated by profoundly gifted kids. Most students are more typically "highly gifted," and with a program this large I think it is indeed reasonable to expect the district to serve them well and provide sufficient challenge. If they are not, there's little justification for the program and I would consider it a misuse of funds.
HIMSmom
anon@8:23, when a middle school HCC reading circle (I'm not a big fan of largely student guided reading analysis, but that's another topic) contains books written mostly at an upper elementary reading level, are you suggesting we should just be content they are with the cohort?
As HIMSmom suggested, the issue is not about meeting every student at their level, but about offering an academically challenging program that rises to the level appropriate for students testing at the 95-98%iles.
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