Anger over Seattle’s decision to close its schools for gifted and talented students has grown – as newly discovered footage showed shocking behavior from the board that made the decision.
Last month’s announcement that high-performing cohort (HCC) schools would close because they had too many white and Asian students angered parents who say bright but disadvantaged children of all races will now suffer.
Kiley Riffell, whose two daughters attend HCC’s Cascadia Elementary School, said, “SPS is removing all of HC’s programs and replacing them with empty promises, a zero plan, and zero funding.” I’m sad to see so many families leaving the public school system, but I can’t blame them.
Eric Feeny told Fox13: “Until you have a better system, don’t come up with a fake system or a half-solution”
Sobbing parents begged Seattle not to close its gifted and talented programs as critics charged they contained too many white and Asian students, newly discovered footage shows.
Parents were further upset when school board president Zachary DeWolf used the emotional hearing to recite a poem to his mother.
Teachers will now be forced to manage classes of 30 mixed-ability children simultaneously, without additional resources or funding. HCC schools, which cater to the top two percent of students, are currently being phased out and will disappear completely by 2024.
And newly discovered footage of the board behind the decision shows behavior that will further worry parents, with two of the most vocal ringleaders since disgraced by accusations of bullying.
At the January 2020 meeting, Sara Jones, a high-achieving Black tech executive and mom who thrived after attending an HCC, cried as she begged the school board to keep the schools.
“It breaks my heart that little boys and girls like me may not have the opportunity that I had,” she told the board, in remarks reported for the first time by the Seattle Stranger.
Other parents of all ethnicities made similar appeals — but were abruptly cut off by former board member Zachary DeWolf once time expired.
He and his colleague Chandra Hampson, the district’s former superintendent, were both accused of racist bullying and ignoring parents’ concerns.
But DeWolf was happy to waste time with a very personal indulgence: forcing distressed spectators to listen to a poem he wanted to read to mark his birthday.
He said: “And finally, today is my birthday and I really want to dedicate it, especially my mother who calls me, every birthday very early while I’m still sleeping, so I’m going to read a poem.”
DeWolf then read a gushing poem about the love between a parent and child. Despite the emphasis on “fairness” and kindness, he and board member Chandra Hampson were later accused of racist bullying against two black board members.
Allegations of racism were dismissed by an investigation, but allegations of bullying were upheld. DeWolf has since left the board, but the changes he helped push through will now upend the lives of thousands of Seattle schoolchildren.
Hampson sparked even more fury by claiming that black parents who wanted to maintain HCC schools were “tokenizing” their own children into the largely white and Asian student body.
When the school board decided to end the program, Vice President Chandra Hampson criticized parents of minority students who had asked the school board to keep the “token” program.
According to Seattle Public School data, among high-proficiency students in the 2022-2023 school year, 52 percent were white, 16 percent were Asian and 3.4 percent were Black.
The new system means teachers will now have to come up with up to 30 individual learning plans for each student, based on their academic abilities.
This comes despite growing anger among parents of the few black and Hispanic children who were already in the gifted program.
“It’s not going to help these kids to cut the program all together,” his mom, Sirin Parmar, told Fox13 Seattle this week. “We weren’t maintaining them enough. You are not helping by removing the program.
“What we should be doing is identifying more children from underrepresented groups who are not being equitably impacted in testing, doing more to address this problem and providing these services to more children across the city .”
Garfield High School is one of the Seattle public schools that will be forced to close its gifted and talented program.
According to Seattle Public School data, among high-proficiency students in the 2022-2023 school year, 52% were white, 16% Asian and 3.4% black (file photo).
The move angered parents who accused DeWolf of focusing on the meeting instead of hearing their feedback.
The situation was later exacerbated by director Chandra Hampson after she claimed the minority parents complaining were “tokenistic.”
Amid the furor, it was also revealed that Hampson and DeWolf had previously been accused of racism.
Both were found to have violated the anti-harassment, bullying and intimidation policy due to their treatment of two black employees who were working on an anti-racism plan.
DeWolf told the Seattle Times he “totally disagreed” with the allegations, while Hampson admitted there had been tension but denied violating the anti-bullying policy.
Currently, three elementary schools, five middle schools, and three high schools are currently high-performing cohort schools – all of which will be phased out by the 2027-2028 school year.
The gifted and talented program has been replaced by the high-performing neighborhood school model that requires teachers to provide individualized learning programs for all of their students.
According to Seattle Public Schools, the new model will be “more inclusive, equitable and culturally sensitive.”
Critics say this is wrong, as there are insufficient resources to ensure that students at all levels will receive an education that best meets their needs.
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