Advanced Learning to Change

 The Seattle School Board and the district are poised to change the Advanced Learning program in a major way. Interestingly, the BAR (Board Action Report) on this change has a fairly bland title - Rename and Amend Highly Capable Services and Advanced Learning.

I am NOT advocating for anyone to write to the Board because this was a done deal a long time ago. 

The district is going to have a new enactment of Highly Capable Services (kicking out the wording “Advanced Learning”) and having “building-based services” in General Education classrooms rather than separate cohort groupings. There may or may not be other eligible students in the class. There is a carve-out for “upper edge” students. (See below.)

To note, the wording “highly capable” comes from the state and it is a state mandate that comes to districts complete with funding for transportation.  

The district plans to enact this new programming over the next six years, to school year 2026-2027. They are currently piloting the program at one elementary school. Students in the current program will stay with their cohort until then 2026-2027. 

The district is paying at least three consultants to plan how to enact the new HCC. 

The district claims that the current program is “inaccessible” without explaining why. In the past, some schools with minority majority populations did NOT encourage those students and their parents to apply. And now, with the linking of test scores to give a grade to schools, there is pressure to keep gifted students at their home schools. 

The district also makes the outlandish claim that the HCC program, by itself, is “central to the systemic racism” in SPS. Please. 

My Take

A change was a long time coming. What I find so amusing is all this teeth-gnashing about the current program when it was created by the district itself and many Boards were fine with it. 

Those of us who wanted change saw incremental, sloth-like change. It was almost as if the district was embarrassed about students who had the academic ability to work faster and farther.  I am NOT negating the different skills that students bring to the classroom; I’m just talking about academics. 

But again, THE district allowed schools to put out Advanced Learning info in whatever form. I know for fact in the late ‘90s that some schools in the southend made the decision to NOT tell parents about the program and NOT put out information at the school. Then, when high-stakes testing came in and schools were being graded for their scores, many schools did NOT want their high-achieving kids to go away. 

And, of course, there is this glossing over of Asians and their numbers in Advanced Learning. I mean that, somehow, they are not minorities when they are in the program. Aren’t we seeing a rise in hostility towards Asians in the U.S. because of COVID insinuations? Yeah, the different Asian countries that have blessed this country with their people- be it India, Thailand, Vietnam, South Pacific, China, Japan, Indonesia - are minorities. 

I do applaud this six-year rollout but I suspect it is more about logistics than trying to ease students from one situation to another. But do I think this will work, providing benefit for all the students in a single Gen Ed classroom? I don’t and I’ll say one word - ALOs. How did that work out? Some schools only had them on paper in their CSIPs; ALOs were never anything genuine and real.

I mean, according to the BAR, the service can vary from school to school. So there will be no way to suss out in a broad way how the program is working. Word will get out which schools take it seriously and those that don’t. 

And the boundaries. And what happens to Cascadia? I think that will be the school for the “leading edge” students. 

Read on.

Glossary

ALO - Advanced Learning Opportunities, a part of Advanced Learning, enrichment services that were to be available at every school.

AP - Advanced Placement courses. Standalone courses of college-level curriculum available at all SPS comprehensive high schools.

BAR - Board Action Report

HCC - Highly Capable Cohort, the current upper tier program for Advanced Learning

HC - Highly Capable which appears to be the new name for all advanced learning services in SPS

IB - International Baccalaureate program is an international advanced program that starts in junior year of high school with separate courses based on the IB program.  It finishes in senior year with several tests. 

ISLP - Individual Student Learning Plan - a new requirement for students in Tier Three of the new Highly Capable Services plan.

JSCEE - John Stanford Center for Educational Excellence, the district’s headquarters south of Sodo

MDC - Multi-Disciplinary Committee at each school

What is Changing?

• The HC program will start in 2nd grade. In K and 1st grades, schools will be looking at students for a “talent pool” for possible service in Grade 2.  It is unclear if a student has to be in the talent pool to apply for HC. There is also a statement about the MDC that says they will “determine which students would most benefit from HC Services.” It is unclear if this is the “talent pool” mentioned in the BAR. 
• There will be universal testing at some grade level, probably K or 1st. 
• There will be NO outside testing allowed EXCEPT for students who are free/reduced lunch, have a documented disability, and students of color. This clearly doesn’t sound legal and the BAR reflects that saying, “to the extent allowable by law.”
• There will be a process for appeals but it is unclear what that will be.
• Teacher recommendations and/or report card grades will not be used to screen students but may be used as one of several criteria.
• It is also stated that “local norms” will be used including a cognitive assessment test or a student portfolio.
• There will be three tiers to the program. (To note, there were three tiers previously - HCC, Spectrum and ALO.  The district cut out the middle tier, Spectrum,over the last several years and then there is the bottom tier, ALO was an enrichment service to be offered at all schools for any student but was never enforced by the district.) 
• Tier One is basically an ALO offering for all students.
• Tier Two is identified HC kids who will stay at their neighborhood school to receive services in their General Education classroom.
• Tier Three will be students who are “upper-edge” students who may be sent to another school within their region and presumably in a cohort class.  Parents must apply for Tier Two and Tier Three services. 

Services

• JSCEE and schools will work together to decide the scope of offerings. It will vary from school to school as each school has a school-based Multi-Disciplinary Committee which will decide which offerings to provide.

• Tier 3 of the program sounds a lot like HCC. Schools with “upper edge” students have “to determine where a student’s needs are not met and cannot, realistically,  be met at a neighborhood school.” Each of those students will have an ISLP - individual student learning plan. 

• If a student is not meeting their ISLP, there will be an exit process (not yet clarified). 

Currently the program runs like this:

• Parents or teachers or community can nominate a student they believe will benefit from the program. A child then takes a standardized test via the district at no cost. The test is given in a group on a Saturday. The earliest testing is in kindergarten; there is no HCC in kindergarten.
• The district says that there are in-class services at every school like additional learning opportunities, project-based learning, flexible grouping, and/or acceleration. There is no standard for this teaching and it varies from class to class, school to school. Which services and how they are delivered are decided by the school. 
• If the child meets the testing standard, their parent/guardian can then choose to have their student in the program. 
• For 1-5, eligible students have several choices. One, if their school has the program, they can stay at that school. Two, move to a school linked to the program. Either of those choices means joining a cohort classroom of other identified students. Three, stay at their school for services but not be part of the program.
• For grades 6-8, there are pathway schools that offer HCC learning  in Language Arts, Social Studies and Math. 
• For high school, there is no HCC program. HCC 8th grade students are given a pathway high school. There are AP courses available at each comprehensive high school as well as the IB program at a couple of high schools. To note, AP courses and the IB program is available to ALL students, whether in HCC or not. There is also Running Start which allows high school students to take college-level classes at community colleges. Again, this program is open to all students.
• HCC is the exact same curriculum as every school. HCC does not provide teachers with any special training in teaching gifted learners. HCC classes run full at 32 in elementary and 35 in middle school.