&sidateIn its review of the WW-P middle school program for gifted students, a consultant said the district should improve many aspects of the program. The district says some of those will be implemented as early as next year.##M:[more]##
At the presentation to the school board on June 12, the program review committee presented the results of its year-long analysis of the current program. The Summer Institute for the Gifted (SIG) was hired by the district to work with an in-house committee to make recommendations on how to improve the program.(a href=””https://www.wwpinfo.com/default.asp?sourceid=&smenu=71&twindow=&mad=&sdetail=2539&wpage=1&skeyword==&ccat=&ccatm=&restate=&restatus=&reoption=&retype=&repmin=&repmax=&rebed=&rebath=&subname=&pform=&sc=1108&hn=wwpinfo&he=.com””>View Complete Text of the report)
Based on three evaluators observing 65 hours of classes and conducting interviews with teachers, parents, and students, SIG said, “Overall it seems to us that teachers believe they are doing more for gifted students than they actually are. They could benefit from an extensive professional development program in meeting the needs of exceptionally able students in their classes.”
The SIG report — available at the WW-P News’ website, www.wwpinfo.com — said the district is currently too informal in terms of identifying its gifted students. “We found that the current identification of students is not sufficiently described in writing at the middle school level. The identification appears to be overly informal with self-selection being the main method of identification for the program.”
Superintendent of Curriculum Victoria Kniewel will be made Superintendent of Schools before next fall. She says the district’s first priority in response to the report is to take action on better preparing the program’s teachers. “We can start working on their recommendation for professional development,” said Kniewel. “This is something we had already begun working on. We are looking into professional development in the area of differentiating instruction, and trying to decide how best to design instruction so we better meet the needs of the high end students.”
Kniewel said other aspects of the plan will be addressed by the in-house program review committee. “We have an internal committee charged with the review process, and now to implement any changes, they are drilling down to understand what the recommendations were getting at.”
The institute also recommends that the district cluster the top 10 percent of its students in each subject area in accelerated classes. School board member Patricia Bocarsley said the change could be made by next fall.
Bocarsley was the school board liaison to the program review committee. The committee also included Grover Middle School principal Steve Mayer, Community Middle School principal Arthur Downs, teachers, parents, and students.
The school board will hear a report on the program review for the World Languages program on Tuesday, June 26.
