Present: Jane Fellner, Anne Ellis, Linda Carlson, Heather Holmback, Kim Kemp, Val Morris-Lent, Alex Ginn, David Hoppe, Judy Cochran, Stephanie Bower, Monica Rush, Jon Lamzer, Sylvia Chambers, Colleen Stump (central office), Dana Nelson, Karen Jensen, Marian Sussman, Joanna Cullen, Katherine Triandafilou

This extra meeting was called by Jane Fellner to help the central office (Colleen Stump, head of highly capable/special ed programs) get some answers to questions the new school board has about the APP and Spectrum programs.

Jane Fellner gave some background, both verbally and in a written summary:

The highly capable program has been under review for five years. The first time, in the Olchefske era, was in the fall of 2000. The review committee consisted of a relatively small committee of parents, teachers and administrators. That group made some recommendations which were not fully embraced by district personnel, including former chief academic officer June Rimmer, who reported to the board.

The school board sent the recommendations back to the committee for more work the following year, under the leadership of a new director, Dr. Edie Holcomb. There was more work, more recommendations that were neither adopted nor rejected. Dr. Holcomb left the district after one year.

Then Herb Packer came in as head of the program. That was the era of the development of the Advanced Learning Opportunities (A.L.O.s), efforts to serve kids who need challenge outside the existing programs. The review committee became the steering committee.

Then Packer’s job was eliminated in the budget cuts that were put in place after the discovery of the $31 million district-wide shortfall. The structure of the office was revamped – Michelle Corker-Curry, who oversees all special programs (highly capable, special ed, bilingual and others.) is at the top; Colleen Stump oversees special education and highly capable. Nancy Angello was working to develop standards for APP and Spectrum curriculums, but she decided to retire after a few months on the job. Now the office is trying to hire a “master teacher” who can work on the same standards and curriculum issues.

Now we also have a new superintendent, a largely reconstituted school board, and a new chief academic officer. This appears to be a critical time for the program, so participants at this meeting touched on a number of issues that the board is likely to have questions on.

Everyone agrees that making the highly capable programs more reflective of the diversity of the district is a top priority. Here are some points of concern:

The nomination process. It was suggested by several participants that a campaign is needed to help teachers learn to spot highly capable students and encourage them to nominate them for the program. There’s been a historical problem of principals and teachers wanting to keep their highly capable students in neighborhood schools.

Some see these students as potential peer role models, others need their high test scores to support their school averages, a need that has increased since the WASL became mandatory, and also because of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which attaches penalties to schools with low test scores.

This test score issue bleeds into where the programs are located. A middle school and high school devoted to highly capable programs has been an ongoing point of discussion, but just to use Washington Middle School as one example – moving both Spectrum and APP out of Washington would have a significant impact on the school’s test scores.

Jane said that Spectrum was originally created as an integration tool, a kind of magnet program to pull bright kids into buildings with high numbers of minority students. Ten years later, that hasn’t been the case – there are some very successful North End (mostly white) programs, but some not-so-successful (and smaller) South End programs (where most of the minority kids are).

The Spectrum programs are diffuse – there are lots of differences among them. Programs are a combination of self contained, blended (some Spectrum kids, some other bright kids pulled in) and other models.

Support for self contained programs, or the lack thereof: Spectrum’s diffuse quality makes it a more likely target for change. But Jane argued that the self-contained model for Spectrum needs support, both from the district and APP – for one thing, it makes a good way station for minority or English as a second language students who may eventually enter APP – other parents echoed this point.

Colleen Stump pointed out that there are Spectrum parents who want the self-contained model, and those who don’t. There are examples of both that work. She said the district needs a continuum of services that serves different learning styles, needs and choices.

She said it’s very clear that APP kids need special services, and APP kids can choose any model that works for them and their families. Jane said those choices are less clear for Spectrum kids – whether a kid gets an adequate education may depend on where they live (not an issue for APP, because the programs are all-district).

Need for a specific curriculum and standards for programs throughout the district: Colleen said that this is a high priority of hers. Right now, the highly capable office spends almost all its time testing kids for eligibility (3,000 this year). More time needs to be spent on developing curriculum and standards. She made it clear that there will be changes in the way the testing is conducted, though she didn’t discuss what changes were being considered.

Alex Ginn pointed out that, in reference to quality of the programs, curriculum and standards, the highly capable programs are centralized, but administered locally. Alex said that any principal can say, I don’t like this program, and “boom, it’s gone.” Colleen agreed that there’s been little oversight of building programs, but that that was going to change. “It’s a new day,” she said.

Joanna Cullen said that the issue of the quality of the South End Spectrum programs really needs to be addressed. Colleen agreed, and said that there’s a lot of “passion” around those programs. Some are working well – Kim Kemp cited the one at Leschi. John Lamzer said the notion of a continuum of services is very important. Others said it is very important to emphasize that APP students need the self contained model, not just for the advanced curriculum and but for the support of their peer group.

Kim Kemp, noting that Colleen seems well-versed in these issues, said that program adherents could really rally if they knew the district would support the programs, so parents aren’t constantly feeling that the programs are going to dissipate tomorrow.

APP at the middle school/high school level: Stephanie Bower wanted to know folks’ thoughts on APP at this level. Colleen Stump said she needed to talk to Ammon McWashington, the new head of high schools, to have a conversation with him about that topic. “We haven’t really embraced what high school means for these students,” Colleen said. Everyone agreed that the high principal turnover makes this a more complicated topic than it already was.

Other issues:

Volunteer opportunities: Dana Nelson said that parents would like to help the district to sort out some of these issues and volunteered her expertise in conducting research. Colleen said that volunteerism is complicated by confidentiality issues (non-staff seeing children’s test scores, for example), but that volunteers recently successfully fielded calls about appeals of APP/Spectrum eligibility, and that there should be other ways to take advantage of the help.

Jane said parent volunteers could serve as a kind of “speakers’ bank” to go out and talk to neighborhood schools about the program. Linda Carlson suggested going to minority churches to ask for their help in seeking out prospects.

Day care: both APP and Spectrum require a high degree of support. Many minority kids have single parents who work – it would be very helpful if schools could offer supplementary services such as after-school care, including help with homework.

The testing instruments: Colleen said they may need to be changed to capture more kids for Spectrum (not, she said, APP).

Measures of success for each program: Colleen is researching this. “How does a Spectrum-identified kid that’s in Spectrum do compared to a Spectrum kid who stays in his or her regular class? Right now, it doesn’t look that different.”

Socioeconomics as a measure of eligibility for the programs: Several parents questioned whether income level, rather than race, is the real determinant for who gets in and succeeds in these programs. Anne Ellis wondered if it would be helpful to reframe the question in those terms.

Respectfully submitted,

Mary Ann Gwinn