Oversight Work Session - Advanced Learning

Board Policy 1010, Board Oversight of Management, requires the School Board to conduct oversight work sessions. Among these, they are required to review Highly Capable Services at least once every three years. The last time they did an oversight meeting for advanced learning was about three years ago, on April 24, 2013, so it is time for another.

The oversight meeting was scheduled for yesterday but it was deferred. That's fine.

The District has cultivated a high degree of skepticism around these programs and has consistently failed to meet commitments made to this community. The common belief is that HCC has been diffused, that Spectrum has been dismantled, and that ALOs never really existed in the first place. The District has not been able to effectively disprove those beliefs and has, in fact, confirmed them to a disturbing degree.

Here are some questions that the Board can ask when they finally get the opportunity. You may want to suggest some questions as well.

1. Where is the program evaluation that was promised at the first Management Oversight meeting of this department on April 24, 2013? When the Board last reviewed Advanced Learning three years ago, one of the identified weaknesses was the absence of a program evaluation. A program evaluation was promised at that meeting but never delivered. It has been three years. Where is it? What is the timeline for its delivery?
2. How can the advanced learning program manager's performance be reviewed in the absence of a program evaluation? Isn't the quality and efficacy of the programs the primary measure of the program manager's performance?
3. When families ask about the nature of Advanced Learning programs in their child's school they are told that the programs are described in the schools' CSIP. This isn't true. Almost none of the schools that claim to offer an advanced learning program or service have a description of that program or service in the CSIP. Where can families find a documented description of the Advanced Learning program in their child's school? Written descriptions of advanced learning programs have been promised for over a decade. Why aren't they available? What is the obstacle to keeping this promise? When will they be available?
4. While it is good that the District staff have promised to include descriptions of advanced learning programs in the CSIPs, this promise has been made and unfulfilled for over a decade. Why will it be different this time? Should the Board withhold approval of CSIPs that fail to include this element?
5. The Superintendent's Procedure SP2190 makes reference to the HC curriculum. A written, taught, and tested curriculum was promised in January 2009 when middle school APP was first split. Where is the written curriculum? It was supposed to be in place by September 2009, so it is six years overdue. What is the timeline for delivering it?
6. At the time of the split the community was also promised that the District would provide ample opportunity for collaboration among the HCC sites. Please provide a report of the meeting times and attendance when teachers from various HCC sites have been brought together to collaborate since the split in September 2010.
7. The Superintendent's Procedure SP2190 makes reference to an advanced curriculum in reading and mathematics for Spectrum and Advanced Learning Opportunities. Where are those curricula written down? What guidance are teachers given when they are made responsible for delivering these advanced curricula?
8. What effort is made to confirm that the teachers are delivering the advanced curricula required by the policy and procedure?
9. What is Spectrum? It is not described in the Superintendent's Procedure SP3190. What is it? How is it different from the instruction that a child would otherwise receive? What are the hallmarks of a Spectrum curriculum? How can a student's family know that their child is getting a Spectrum curriculum? To be candid, there are a number of families who are telling us that although their child has been identified as an Advanced Learner and is enrolled in a Spectrum program or ALO, they cannot distinguish any difference between the instruction provided to their child and the instruction provided to all of the other children who share the general education classroom. Is there a difference? What tool can you offer them to make the distinction? What tool do you use to confirm that schools are providing the advanced learning program that they claim to be providing? Who in the District is responsible for confirming the existence of advanced learning programs and assuring their quality and efficacy?
10. When the New Assignment Plan was adopted in 2003, the District committed to preserving space in schools for existing programs. When right-sizing the attendance area for a Spectrum elementary school, how many seats in the school are set aside for Spectrum-eligible students from outside the school's attendance area?
11. How many Spectrum-eligible elementary students were denied access to a program due to capacity issues? If elementary students who do not live in the attendance area of the designated Spectrum school for their middle school service area cannot access Spectrum, doesn't that constitute inequitable access? What is being done to address this inequity? How are these students' need for an advanced curricula met at their neighborhood schools?
12. What evidence do we have that neighborhood schools without advanced learning programs are meeting the academic needs of advanced learners?
13. If the neighborhood school can address the needs of the advanced learners so easily and without any special program in place, why bother to have Spectrum or Advanced Learning Opportunities? Isn't Spectrum or an ALO supposed to represent something more than what a school would otherwise do to support the academic needs of advanced learners?
14. What evidence do we have that schools with advanced learning programs are meeting the academic needs of advanced learners?
15. In fact, what evidence do we have that advanced learning programs even exist?
16. The Superintendent's Procedure SP2190 says that for Spectrum, classes can be self-contained or students can be grouped within classrooms. How is the grouping of students within classrooms done? Are the students evenly distributed across the classrooms or are they clustered in some of the classrooms? How do we know how the Spectrum-eligible students are distributed in these schools? What research supports the various distribution methods used?
17. What is the nature and extent of the community and family engagement for Spectrum and Advanced Learning Opportunities? There is no reference to it in the procedure. Is there any effort at all to communicate and solicit input from families with children enrolled in these programs? Compare this effort to the effort to communicate and solicit input from HCC families. Is this equitable?