Tuesday, May 2, 2017

New Initiatives out of the AL Office

There was some interesting news out of the HCS AC meeting tonight.

  • The referral window for the program will open on May 15th this year. Current teachers will be invited to submit students.
  • The teacher rating scale has been simplified.
  • Parents can schedule their own date, time and location for testing in the fall. Sites will include Thurgood Marshall, Whitman, Decatur, Pathfind and Muir.

  • Universal Testing of 2nd grader students in Title 1 schools (29% or higher) is going on this week.
  • No summer testing will be needed and the students will be tested on site in their schools

  • Data (presumably SBAC or MAP) will be analyzed and letters sent out to families in under represented groups inviting them to test to enter the program.


[Update: I now have copies of the handouts]

7 comments:

Anonymous said...


Benjamin,

Thank you for being at the meeting and for your previous post.

I think Stephen and Kari? are very naive about what is going on to undermine the program and their tieing MTSS to hcc going forward.

Robert

Anonymous said...

Any discussion of actual programming? While identification seems to be getting attention, the AL program itself seems to be getting more and more dependent on teacher and school whims.

-How will AL/HCC students be served at newly opening schools?
-Updates on Garfield's Honors for All and TM's social studies?
-Any plan to move the waitlist for HCC at IHS, and what is the future of IB at IHS?
-Enrollment trends for next year's HCC 9th graders?


Anonymous said...

-How will AL/HCC students be served at newly opening schools?
Yes and this will perhaps turn the corner on HCC and AL.They are wanting to increase overview/assessment on HCC and perhaps move closer to the recommendations of the ALTF starting 2017-18. This is hoped to include all buildings but certainly it should include those coming on line next year. Although I feel that the ALTF recommendations are far from being implemented I think we are inching closer to making that happen. Also I would say that the HCC AC is maintaining its objective focus on services. It is not their job to decrease the opportunity gap. Just like it is not SpEd's. The district is the gatekeeper to the services.

I would also add that Kari and Stephen get HC education, although they haven't seen the APPartheid stickers, I guess. Katie May and Ted Howard's experiments should come under closer consideration for what they really are; but that was supposed to be baked in with further evaluations as part of their waiver. You can't have deeper faster and gen ed at the same time. Or then why provide the services at all? So let us stop providing the services as they are not needed.
-Updates on Garfield's Honors for All and TM's social studies?
No - unless you are seeing this on a longitudinal bases as I describe above.
-Any plan to move the waitlist for HCC at IHS, and what is the future of IB at IHS?
No- IBX seems to be dieing.
-Enrollment trends for next year's HCC 9th graders?
No

Anonymous said...

Without IBX, there is little in the way of acceleration until 11th grade. At that point, Running Start is available and potentially offers more advanced science and math options (Calculus based Engineering Physics, Calculus 3 and beyond), but either way, a student is essentially put in a holding pattern for the first 2 years. Sure, they could take AP Calculus in 9th or 10th, but the science options are still very limited.

So what's the draw?

Is the thinking, IBX served its purpose to alleviate overcrowding, but now they can let it die a slow death? Will IHS continue to be an IB school once the addition opens?

Benjamin Leis said...

One could easily argue the same case about the curriculum at Garfield vs. Running Start. I think the proof is in the pudding here. Ingraham has continued to be very popular with families choosing High School and most people I have talked to in person are happy with the degree of rigor (at at least the same level or more so than the alternatives.)

The long term fiscal issues with IB are still around but other than that I don't see any sign of it going away in fact the new 500 seat addition at IHS should fuel further growth.


Anonymous said...

Yes, IBX is the only real option for acceleration until 11th grade. Unfortunately, IBX is not available to all who want it and are qualified for it. IN other words, the district denies appropriate services to some HC students.

Adan said...

Allowing teachers to recommend students in May for AL testing is so much better than the second week of school!!!! By May 15, teachers have had about 9 months to get to know their students. They should have a much better idea if they have any to recommend for advanced learning testing than they would at the beginning of October after only a couple of weeks with them. A couple of weeks that are mostly spent on reviewing fire drill procedures and the basics of how the new classroom will operate and starting to review from the previous year and learning the students' names, etc. This makes SO MUCH MORE SENSE!!!

The current system has relied much more on parents to flag students for AL testing, since parents obviously know their children just as well on October 6 as any other day of the year. But this has done a huge disservice to students whose parents don't know or don't about AL issues or find out about them after October 6. It's wonderful that schools and families can now choose to act in May. This will help children gain access to the educational services they need to get a basic education. Excellent move, Seattle!