Hello supporters of the NSD Challenge program,
As you all may remember, 3 years ago a group of community members, parents and students successfully petitioned the School Board to keep the Challenge program intact in our Middle Schools/Jr. Highs. At the time we thought that would be the end of the struggle for student choice, but we were wrong.
Over the past few weeks, it has become apparent that the NSD Administration never gave up their quest to dismantle the Challenge program. At many (maybe all) of the NSD Middle Schools and at least one High School, the registration forms for the 2019/2020 school year show that instead of eliminating the Challenge version of core classes they have essentially eliminated the General Education version of those classes. Students who do not wish to take Challenge-For-All in 7th and 8th grades have to consult their counselor to start the humiliating process to opt-out of Challenge classes.
As we all know, Challenge for all is Challenge for none. If all students (except those who jump through hoops to opt out of the Challenge classes and get branded as such) are enrolled in Challenge classes then several things are true.
1. Students no longer have a REAL choice to take a more (or less) challenging version of core classes as all kids will now be lumped into the same classroom.
2. Those students who don't feel they are up to the rigor of Challenge classes have to go through the humiliation of opting out and talking to a counselor who may try to talk them out of their choice. These Opt-Out classes may be branded as the lesser version of classes and the students in them may be branded as such as well.
3. This sets up real Tracking in our schools. The AAP version of classes exists for those kids who have tested into them. Challenge-For-All is set up as the default, and kids who aren't ready for the rigor are tracked into the "Opt-out" class.
4. As we see in the Proposal to the NSD School Board from 3 years ago, heterogeneous classrooms do a disservice to both the advanced and the struggling learner. Lumping all kids into the same room will not lead to success in our classrooms as it is not a simple task to differentiate material across several learning abilities. https://saveourchallenge.blogspot.com/p/proposal-to-school-board.html
We urge all of you who are still interested in this topic to email the school board and the superintendent at the email addresses below expressing your displeasure at the removal of REAL choice in our middle schools AGAIN.
School board: SchoolBoard@nsd.org
Superintendent Michelle Reid: Superintendent@nsd.org
Thank you for reading,
-Save Our Challenge
We believe that Challenge/Honors classes are critical for all kids who choose a more rigorous educational path, and we also believe that children should be able to choose NOT to take Challenge classes if that is not the right path for them. Join us in our mission to Save the Self-Select Challenge Program.
