Highly Capable program board Work session

1. Highly Capable program board Work session March 5, 2014 Division of Academics and Innovation Dr. Kendra Johnson, Chief Academic and Innovation Officer Vicki Bates, Executive Director, Standards-based Instruction

2. purpose • Review previous Board priorities for Highly Capable Program and resulting actions • Update the Board on new guidelines • Recommend next steps in program development • Secure the Board’s support for recommended next steps Board Strategic Goals: High Student Achievement Highly Effective Staff Maximized Resources

3. agenda • Current Context • Previous Board Direction and Resulting Actions & Impacts • Identification Changes • Program Models • Impacts on Program and Ethnicity Demographics • Assessment Results • Professional Development Progress • A new context: • Evolving construct of giftedness • New Washington Administrative Code (WAC), Chapter 392-170 • Recommended next steps • Board Feedback

4. Current context Elementary • 598 students, Grades 3 – 6 • Seven self-contained program sites (23 classrooms): Grass Lake, Kent, Lake Youngs, Meridian, Pine Tree, Ridgewood, Sunrise • Three cluster program sites (6 classrooms): Fairwood, Neely O’Brien, Panther Lake Middle School • 227 students, grades 7-8 • Served in Honors classes, advanced mathematics $254,729 State Grant • District Program Specialist, Admin Staff • Professional Development

5. Previous board direction Comply with WACs and best-practice recommendations for student identification Be more inclusive and equitable • Move services to students’ home schools/communities • Promote more inclusion and equity in nomination and participation Strengthen program content • Respond to students’ strengths and needs in order to prepare all students for their futures • Provide teacher training aligned to quality programs

6. Programmatic shifts based on Board Priorities • Identification changes • Expanded elementary program models • Professional development

7. Identification changes HiCapvideo

8. Expanded Elementary Program Models

9. 2013-14 3rd Grade ELL: 5%

16. Professional development • Summer 2013: Differentiating Instruction for Highly Capable Students – Elementary & Middle School Sessions • Summer 2013: Developing Elementary Curriculum for Highly Capable Program Students • 2013/14 Elementary release grade-band work sessions: • CCSS Alignment • Model Units • Critical & Creating Thinking • Social-emotional development • Curriculum Center Resources

17. Looking ahead: a new context

18. What is giftedness? The quick response is that there is, as yet, no universally agreed upon answer to this question. Giftedness, intelligence, and talent are fluid concepts and may look different in different contexts and cultures… NAGC does not subscribe to any one theory of the nature of human abilities or their origins. We assert that there are children who demonstrate high performance, or who have the potential to do so, and that we have a responsibility to provide optimal educational experiences for talents to flourish in as many children as possible, for the benefit of the individual and the community.

19. What’s in a norm?… an evolving construct… “Inferences about academic talent are most defensible when made by comparing a student’s behavior to the behavior of other students who have had similar opportunities to acquire the knowledge and skills measured by the test” • Dr. David Lohman, 2006 “Giftedness is a relative, not an absolute, concept. Whether a particular score is considered unusual depends on the norm group… Decisions about acceleration are best made by local norms.” - JannLeppien, Ph. D. Margo Long Endowed Chair for Gifted Education, Whitworth University

20. Changes to Washington State Law: WAC 392-170 • For highly capable students, access to accelerated learning and enhanced instruction is access to a basic education • Districts shall make a variety of appropriate program servicesavailable to students who participate in the district's highly capable program • A continuum of services shall be provided for students from K-12

21. Definition of Highly Capable Students • Students who perform or show potential for performing at significantly advanced academic levels compared with others of their age, experiences, or environments • Outstanding abilities are seen within students' general intellectual aptitudes, specific academic abilities, and/or creative productivities within a specific domain

22. Identification • Districts shall identify through the use of multiple, objective criteria those students most highly capable and eligible to receive accelerated learning and enhanced instruction in the program offered by the district • Districts must develop an identification system that includes nomination/referral, assessments, and selection at each grade level(Grades K-12) each year

23. The New Context: Our Proposed Next steps

24. Input from Stakeholders • Reconceived K – 12 HiCap Steering Committee • 9 Teachers, General Ed and HiCap • 4 Principals – Elem, Middle, High • 5 Parents – Elem, Middle, High • 1 Counselor • 1 KEA Representative • 10 District Staff • Meetings • First meeting: November 19, 2013 • Next meeting: March 13, 2013

25. Previous board direction Comply with WACs and best-practice recommendations for student identification Be more inclusive and equitable • Move services to students’ home schools/communities • Promote more inclusion and equity in nomination and participation Strengthen program content • Provide teacher training aligned to quality programs

26. Next steps proposals

27. BOARD feedback Comply with WACs and best-practice recommendations for student identification Be more inclusive and equitable • Move services to students’ home schools/communities • Promote more inclusion and equity in nomination and participation Strengthen program content • Respond to students’ strengths and needs • Provide teacher training aligned to quality programs Are we on track? Can the Board continue to support these next steps?