The HiCap parents council supports the self select challenge program in our middle schools, and recommend the school board select option 3.
Now putting back on my parent hat, I've been hearing a lot of rhetoric about growth mindset, but I'm having trouble reconciling that idea with the way our district communicates about the current challenge program.
We have heard stories about how teachers, principals, and counselors have stressed how difficult challenge courses are, and ask students to think really hard whether they should select a challenge course.
there used to be a letter that goes out to incoming 6th grade students with achievement scores, and providing guidance for which students should enroll in challenge. This letter did not go out this year. This letter is a key way to encourage kids from all populations to enroll in challenge if they were academically ready.
Furthermore let's look at how we talk about these courses in the course catalog. Here is the one for challenge English 7.
Skills: Challenge English 7 is an intensive, accelerated course, requiring a commitment to schoolwork outside of the classroom. Students taking this course must exhibit strong writing skills, have excellent reading comprehension, and be self-motivated.
Note: Students who enroll by choice in an advanced English class do so with the understanding that novels will be more sophisticated and will be read at a higher level of maturity than novels in the general education English course. Alternate reading assignments are not provided for students enrolled in these choice English courses.
Here is another one:
CHALLENGE UNITED STATES HISTORY
This course requires participation in at least one major performance based project that will require outside research and work time. A summer reading will be required. This course requires high-level reading, writing, and listening, discussing and critical thinking skills. Students must be self-motivated to meet the high expectations of this class.
Those course descriptions sure make it sound like challenge courses are only for the very most capable students, who are ready to do tons of homework and extensive extra reading, and they are stuck with it with no way out for the whole year. In fact, we hear about plenty of families who really thought twice about signing their kid up for challenge courses, or for as many Challenge courses, even for very bright, motivated kids. It wouldn't surprise me at all that underrepresented populations would read and hear these messages and feel completely intimidated by these course descriptions.
All of this communication does not align with the growth mindset that I keep hearing about. It is hard to reconcile the desire to put all students and challenge course, with the messaging that already exists about these courses. It just doesn't add up
And we wonder why some of our most vulnerable populations aren't signing up for challenge courses? It's easy to see how they would be intimidated.
This is another key way that underrepresented populations could be more encouraged to sign up for a challenge course, for a child that is academically ready. But it isn't happening any more
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