Hello, my
name is Angie Hancock and I have 2 children in the district. I worked with the HiCap Parent Advisory Board to
analyze the data they received from their June 2015 HiCap Parent Satisfaction
Survey. The purpose of this survey was to better understand the experience of
parents in the current HiCap programs across the district, including EAP, AAP, and
HiCap in the neighborhood school. EAP and AAP are the district’s full time
HiCap Classrooms. Conversely, students who qualified for HiCap services in only
one subject or who wanted to stay in their home schools to received HiCap
services are said to be receiving HiCap in the neighborhood school.
The survey received
201 full responses plus 62 partial responses. As you will see when you study
the graphs included in this survey, the EAP/AAP self-contained HiCap classroom
model had a much higher satisfaction rating than the HiCap in the neighborhood
school model. Parents of HiCap students being served in their mixed-ability neighborhood
schools were very dissatisfied with the differentiated education their child
received. In fact, only 2% of HiCap in the neighborhood elementary respondents
strongly agreed with the statement “My child received in-class math instruction
that was differentiated from the standard grade level curriculum”.
In answer to
the question “Please rate your level of satisfaction with the HiCap programs
offered to your child this year.” 87% of the EAP parents answered Satisfied or
Very Satisfied, while only 11% of the HiCap in the neighborhood elementary
respondents answered Satisfied, 0% answered Very Satisfied.
The Hi-Cap in the neighborhood
elementary school program from this past school
year is an excellent indicator of how difficult it is to effectively serve
students in a mixed-ability classroom where some are not as motivated to learn
as others. Gen Ed teachers in the elementary schools were offered training on
how to teach these mixed-ability classrooms. These elementary teachers have the
same students all day every day and have a unique opportunity to get to know
these kids’ educational needs very well. The survey results tell us that even in
classrooms with teachers trained in working with mixed-ability groups, student were
rarely given differentiated instruction and were 9 times as likely to feel the
other students in their classroom were not engaged and motivated to learn.
In the Middle schools, the teachers have numerous classes of students
coming and going throughout the day. These middle school teachers can have 100
or more students in their classrooms daily. Understanding the unique
educational needs of each child and being able to differentiate instruction for
an even wider range of abilieies and motivate all of them would be a
daunting task. The current Challenge classes are filled with students who have
chosen a more rigorous path and want to learn at a faster pace. Given this recentdata from our own district, we need to seriously rethink the notion of mixing
these self-select Challenge students with the students who have not chosen
this more rigorous path.
I am here to
ask the members of the school board to learn from this data, and then please
recommend to the Middle School Task Force that we keep the current self-select Challenge
program.
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