Seattle Schools Community Forum

I'll list what did/did not happen at the meeting and then go into specifics. 

I'll just start by saying that I'm not surprised. You cannot have a district policy and/or a procedure about a program that does NOT clearly define all the elements/parts of that program.  If you are going to have ill-defined parts of a program, then at least the policy and/or procedure should say, "At this time and place, we are allowing principals to define the Spectrum program and/or ALO program at their school as they see fit for their community." Because that seems to be exactly what is happening.  Advanced Learning, as an office, seems now to only exist to test.  That's it.

Update : interesting comment thread from the Community Forum for HCC (APP).

APP just grows and grows.  Now some of that may be better outreach, some may be parents seeing the writing on the wall and fleeing Spectrum but APP seems to be growing.  There are six classes of second graders at Cascadia.  It does beg the question of how all these students will fit into the new elementary at Wilson-Pacific.  The short answer would be that they probably won't but where would half of them go?

The APP Advisory Group will have its first meeting of the year next Tuesday, October 6   at the library of Washington Middle School,  6:30-8:00 pm. Our agenda will include an Advanced Learning report from Stephen Martin, who heads up Advanced Learning Programs for SPS, and an overview of topics for the year ahead. To join the Advisory Committee's email list serve (and to see previous posted emails) go to  https://groups.google.com/d/forum/sps-hcs-ac  and click the Join Group button. You can use that link for removals too.  If that link doesn't work for you, you can email the groups communications Director at  add2hcsemails@gmail.com  and they will get you set up or removed. Two stories were on NPR this morning on what they call "gifted and talented" education.  They pretty much mirror what we see here in Seattle Schools.

I'm not complaining about changing the name; I think people were forever getting APP and AP mixed up.  But why is Spectrum now "Advanced Learner or Spectrum."   Pick a name.  Uh, I see this about the webpage: "... remove unnecessarily repetitive or outdated material,.."   Meaning, we got rid of a lot of historical information that might have explained many things.  Don't worry, we're still here at SSCF. From SPS Communications: SEATTLE-As school begins and the nomination window for Advanced Learning services opens, the Advanced Learning Office has initiated several enhancements to benefit Seattle Public Schools families: changing some service and program names and streamlining its series of web pages. These changes are designed to help the Advanced Learning Office more effectively communicate with families of current and potential advanced learners. Strengthening school, family and community engagement is the third goal of the District...

Advanced Learning Task Forces Report  &  Recommendations                    August 2014 The Advanced Learning Task Force s  met  for  more than 50 hours  during the 2013- 2014  school  year   to study identification and  service delivery model s for Highly C apable students.  They  found  that many aspects of our Highly Capable/ Accelerated Progress Program work well and do not require changes.  The task forces believe  the current delivery model should remain in place with the recommendations below providing additional opportunities and direction to enhance equity of access to  Highly Capable  services . This task force was not asked to address Advanced Learning programs beyond those for Highly Capable students. The task force recognizes, however, that Spectrum and ALOs are a valued aspect of Advanced Learning, and the District should c...

Just kidding. There are no recs in the handout at the C&I meeting.  Apparently they will be in the Friday memo sent out by the Superintendent.  So unless someone who is on the Committee wants to let us know about them, I have no idea what they are. There was a funny moment when it was pointed out how old the Board's policy is (from 1993). They will be working with secondary counselors on what 9-12 students ,per the new WAC will receive as they had been getting "nothing in particular." First Stephen Martin said the vote on the recs was unanimous and later on, said it was the majority (he and Shauna Heath, head of C&I, exchanged glances on that one).  No idea what the real story is. They are hiring a couple of curriculum specialists (a good thing). Marty McLaren praised staff for this "sweet moment" to get this done.  I'm glad she's happy but I see no clarity here yet. Again, I see the end of Spectrum because they so clearly don't...

On another thread, nitpicker referenced the Highly Capable Program Requirements for All Districts document produced by OSPI. The 2013-2014 school year was the transition year, so everything is supposed to be implemented and up and running at the opening of school in a few short weeks. We're likely to be missing some required elements here in Seattle. And that's saying something because the OSPI has set the bar really, really low. Here's what's required:

I came across two articles recently on gifted students.  One is quite good, the other somewhat useful but over the top (and the tone is distracting from the content, in my opinion). NOW, to start, if you don't agree that there are gifted students or the need for gifted education, please don't comment.   Because many readers here already know that conversation. Tomorrow we will find out what the Advanced Learning Taskforce has to say about how Seattle Public Schools might view these students and their programs.  This work may or may not guide what changes the Board approves district staff to do. I offer these articles as both educational and thought-provoking. Nearly every "gift" that a child has can come with/have a double-edge to it.  For example, athletes are only as good as their health/lack of injury.  Gifted kids have the ability to go faster and farther but often have behaviors that backfire on them from this ability. No one has a better child o...

March and Rally to Gates Foundation To note: there is the march and rally to protest the ed reform work of the Gates Foundation today, starting at 5 pm at Westlake Park.  The march will then go to the Gates Foundation on Mercer at 5th.  There will be speeches and some kind of flash mob dance. The police are warning of possible traffic issues.   From Diane Ravitch: Speakers: Anthony Cody (prolific education leader from CA) & Kshama Sawant (speaking as a teacher & city council member) will engage the crowd by connecting public education issues to larger issues of democracy vs. oligarchy. Morna McDermott & other education heroes will also make the case for school transformation, not corporate reformation. (Editor's note: Cody is a former teacher and writer at Education Week.) Anthony Cody will be speaking at 10:30 on Friday June 27th at the University of Washington HUB Room 332. His talk about the education ‘reform’ movement and how to recla...

Update:  AL Supervisor Stephen Martin provided the grant application to me but I can't seem to create a link.  He said this: As you may know, the final guidance from OSPI will not be available until Tuesday June 17, so the iGrant application is very much a work in progress and likely to change before submission. OSPI understands that districts may need to make revisions as local plans are finalized for this first year of implementation of the new WACs. From the SPS webpage: - Summer Testing: For students who moved to Seattle after October 2013 and were not able to test for Advanced Learning eligibility, a summer testing opportunity is available. Information and Application Form . Applications are due by August 1, 2014. - For students found eligible for Advanced Learning programs, a School Choice Form must be completed in order to enroll. Forms are available from the Enrollment office (www.seattleschools.org/enrollment or call 252-0760). You can still apply for a ...

The New York Times has an excellent series of articles called Room for Debate where they have various experts write an essay for or against a subject.  Their latest is about gifted education .  I didn't read each article thoroughly but two things did stand out. Professor Bruce Sacerdote had this to say: My paper with fellow economists James West and Scott Carrell examines peer effects among students at the Air Force Academy. We found that students benefit from their peers, but that these peer effects disappear if the group is comprised of the highest ability and lowest ability cadets. My work with economists Scott Imberman and Adriana Kugler examines peer effects from the arrival of Hurricane Katrina refugees in receiving schools. We discovered that high ability students benefit the most from high ability peers. And an experiment in primary schools in Kenya, researchers found that grouping students into classrooms based on prior achievement benefits al...

There is a joint meeting of the Advanced Learning Taskforces tomorrow, Thursday the 29th from 4-8 pm in the JSCEE auditorium.  They will be discussing their recommendations with an eye to presenting a combined recommendation plan to the Superintendent and Board in the future.  The public is invited to attend but no questions or feedback will be happening as this is purely a meeting for the committees.  There's a very interesting report of "recommendations" that is a compilation of various members of the Taskforce at the Advanced Learning Taskforce page .  However, this is NOT official.  (What is interesting is apparently the first eight-and-a-half pages are from two students at Ingraham.) It makes for tough reading as it is a large volume of very specific ideas.   You find yourself trying to figure out, "if this, then that? or "what would happen with X,Y,Z." I think it great that these people have put forth a plethora of ideas because it he...

A reader sent in this letter - from View Ridge's principal, Terri Skjei - and frankly, it's all I need to believe that Spectrum is dead. But the letter also makes me wonder about this slow death. What is the point? A few thoughts on the contents: 1) quite calm and thoughtful, almost the epitome of "we want your input" except that there really is no need to give any. The fix is in. 2) The principal is either misleading families or has been mislead herself because in the third paragraph she states, "With the support of Shauna Health (sic), the Ex Director of Curriculum and Instruction, and direction of task forces specifically working on recommendations for Advanced Learning..." No, none of those task forces worked on "AL" - they all worked on APP and only APP. In fact the charge of the last two did not include Spectrum or ALOs. The district should disabuse any principal of this thought so that they do NOT pass it along to parents. It's ...

Sometimes it's not the explosion but the slow burn. After attending the Wilson-Pacific BEX meeting last night, that slow burn on this project may be the fuse that ignites voters to say no to the next capital levy measure.  (That would be BTA IV in Feb. 2016.)  I know.  February 2016 seems like a long way off and voters forget, move on, etc. Except that Wilson-Pacific is an extra-ordinary project that if not done well, could have severe outcomes for the district for BTA IV.  Because, by then, this project will be well underway.  The project was slated for $110M and - big surprise - is now up to $116M (that's the number I heard tossed out last night).  I would put up highlights from the meeting but there were very few (except for the good humor of BEX spokesman Tom Redman who managed to interject some laughs into the crowd of about 140).   Sadly, staff did not seem to anticipate such a crowd and did not have nearly enough chairs out.  ...

Remember that Leonardo DiCaprio movie, What's Eating Gilbert Grape?  The SPS version is, "What's Going on with Advanced Learning?"   What appears -to me - to be happening is that Michael Tolley and Shauna Heath are quietly making a lot of decisions behind closed doors and quietly spreading them out through the schools.  Spectrum principals, either on their own or thru Tolley and Heath, seem to be dismantling every single Spectrum program, whether popular and/or working well. It is now late April and at the time of year that staff loves because the end of the school year is nigh, you parents get distracted and the staff has the entire summer to continue to roll out whatever they are doing. That much of this is happening all the while the district has not one, but two AL taskforces, both dedicated only to APP makes it quite clear what is happening.  (The Taskforce that Charlie and I served on?  All APP, all the time.)  This district does not care f...

There was a reader comment about wanting to opt an APP student out of MAP testing but the parent seemed to think that the child would lose eligibility if he/she did not take the MAP.  Here's what I learned from speaking with Stephen Martin, head of the Advanced Learning department. The MAP is the gatekeeper to finding out if your child is eligible for AL testing. However, once you are enrolled, your child does not lose eligibility in AL programs if he/she does not take MAP.  What is a problem is maintaining your eligibility if you qualify but then do not access a program.  (Let me say that, on the surface, I think this policy is good because I used to hear many parents say they were just testing their children "to see how they do" with zero intention of enrolling them in an AL program.  That's just a waste of time and money for the district and it should not be happening.) BUT, the issue is does your child have access to an AL program even if he/she qualif...

A reader sent in the latest info from the AL webpage :

Some updates: - according to the AL webpage, as of yesterday, 1,637 eligibility letters were sent (out of a possible 4024).  So if you were looking for one, it may be in the mail.  They started mailing them out on Jan. 31st.  Scores and eligibility decisions are NOT available by phone or e-mail.  - testing is continuing thru early Feb. - all eligibility decisions, including appeals , will be done before Open Enrollment ends on March 7th - E-mails sent to the Advanced Learning e-mail (advlearn@seattleschools.org) are answered in the order they are received.  Responses to e-mails will be faster than phone calls. - the next scheduled meeting of the Advanced Learning Task Force was postponed to Feb. 13th at 9:30am in Room 2776 at JSCEE.   The last meeting they had was December 17th so nearly two months have gone by.  You can see the lack of urgency for the district in this.  The minutes from that last meeting are not available. - I note ...