Seattle Public Schools is dismantling its gifted and talented program, which administrators say was oversaturated with white and Asian students, in favor of a more “inclusive, equitable and culturally sensitive” curriculum.
The district began phasing out its schools and classrooms from the highly proficient cohort for advanced students during the 2021-2022 school year due to racial inequities, the school district notes.
It will now cease to exist completely by the 2027-28 school year, with a new model of enrichment for all available in every school by the 2024-25 school year.
“The program is not disappearing, it is improving,” school officials said on the district’s website.
“It will be more inclusive, equitable and culturally sensitive.
“In particular, historically excluded students will now receive the same service opportunities as all other students and receive the support and enrichment they need to grow.”
Currently, the enrichment program only allows students ranked in the top 2 percentiles on standardized exams to be placed in the highly capable student cohort to receive enriched learning.
Students would then be divided into one of three elementary schools, five middle schools and three high schools.
But in 2020, the Seattle school board voted to end the program, after a 2018 survey found that students in the high-performing cohort were 13% multiracial, 11.8% Asian, 3.7% Hispanic and only 1.6% black.
Nearly 70% of the students were white.
“The numbers suggest that in our city … predominantly white children are more gifted than other cultures and races, and we know that is absolutely not true,” said Kari Hanson, the district’s director of student support services , at Parent Map at the time.
Under the new program, called the High-Performing Neighborhood School Model, teachers will be required to provide individualized learning programs for each of 20 to 30 of their students – a task they say they have no expertise in doing. time nor resources the district is faced with. a budget deficit of $104 million, according to the Seattle Times.
The district said it worked to provide teachers with a curriculum and instructions on how to make it work, but a 2020 estimate suggested an enrichment program for all would cost the district $1.1 million. dollars during the first three years.
One teacher said she was concerned that the new curriculum would make it more difficult to teach math to students with diverse abilities, and that the whole-class approach would not adequately prepare students for math lessons and of science at the Advanced Placement level.
Parents have also expressed concerns that the new model could lead to children being neglected.
“It seems to me that kids on both extremes may be underserved,” Erika Ruberry told the Seattle Times.
Karen Stukovsky, who has three children in the gifted program, added that each teacher “can’t do a lot of differentiation.”
“There are kids who can barely read and others who read ‘Harry Potter’ in first grade or kindergarten,” she said.
“How are you going to not only get these kids up to grade level, but also challenge those who are already above grade level?” »
Some parents of black students participating in the program even opposed ending it.
“My request is that you consider the disservice you would be doing to minorities who are already in the HCC program,” one father said at the school board meeting to approve the new program in 2020, according to The Stranger.
“The program does more for black children, particularly black boys, than for their peers. »
But Chandra Hampson, then the school board’s vice president, countered: “It’s a pretty masterful job of symbolizing a very small community of color within the existing cohort.” »
However, in recent years, more and more minority students have joined the ranks of the highly proficient cohort.
In the 2022-23 school year, 52% of students were white, 16% Asian and 3.4% black, according to the Seattle Times.
Supporters of the new program say it will create a stronger sense of community because all students come from the same geographic area.
“They bring their home experience and their culture, and that’s really unique,” Rina Geoghagan, principal of View Ridge Elementary School, told the Seattle Times.
“Is it going to be perfect?” No, but every time there is a change, it’s not perfect.
New York Post
