Audit: Too Many District 68 Students in Enrichment Programs

About 20 percent of students are included in the district’s “enrichment” programs, from the literacy enrichment program in the elementary schools to more advanced levels of math, science and social studies at .

That number is too high, and it suggests the district’s curriculum isn’t challenging enough, according to Carolyn M. Callahan, who presented her 36-page audit of the district’s gifted programming at Monday night’s board meeting.

Callahan is the president of the Association for the Gifted and the National Association for Gifted Children and was the director of the University of Virginia Naitonal Research Center on the Gifted and Talented.

“If truly that many kids need advanced and enriched instruction, she said, that should be occurring in the regular classroom,” said Greg Wolcott, assistant superintendent for teaching and learning.

Callahan presented several recommendations for the district in crafting its gifted program. The most basic: for District 68 to define what “gifted” means.

A true gifted program would involve 5 to 8 percent of the district’s students, she said. To address individual skill levels, all students should work in clusters of no more than 10 students on various levels of work.

Wolcott said the upcoming Common Core standards to be put in place will naturally make the district’s curriculum more challenging. In the meantime, the district will try to modify the enrichment programs for the next school year, he said. The “meat” of the changes will be seen in the 2013-2014 school year.

The district authorized the audit to assess its enrichment program, which has been in place for five years. “In order for us to be a world-class school, we need to see where we’re at,” Wolcott said. 

Callahan started the audit in October, holding focus groups with students, parents and faculty, interviewing the administration and reviewing programs, demographics and performance data.

The district’s enrichment programs

Students are currently chosen for enrichment services through multiple criteria, including teacher recommendations, a student ability index score and national percentile scores.

Only literacy enrichment is offered from third grade through sixth grade. In junior high, students can then be placed into “enriched” language arts, social studies, science and math classes.

During literacy enrichment, students are pulled out of the regular classroom to delve into more advanced works for their 90-minute literacy blocks. However, no other advanced programming exists for elementary school students. 

The district has been aware of the issues with its enrichment program, Wolcott said. Some students in the literacy enrichment program aren’t challenged enough in other subjects. Some, he said, aren’t even challenged by the enriched programs.

“Although the students are getting a more differentiated instruction than in the regular classroom, we’re still not zeroing in on their needs as well as we should be,” Wolcott said.

What is “gifted?” 

For District 68, developing a better gifted program will start with defining what “gifted” means.

“What type of children is this program for?” Wolcott said. “What are the goals for the students in this program?”

A gifted committee will be assembled to define what “gifted” means to the district by May. The 14 to 16 member task force will include two members of the District 68 Board of Education, two district administrators, three current gifted/enrichment teachers, parents and other district staff.

A timeline for program design, development and implementation will be made in the “early spring” of 2012.

Other recommendations

Callahan suggested addressing racial and socio-economic diversity in the district’s gifted program. The district should assemble a task force representative for the various demographics of the district, including ethnicity and income level, she said.

Gifted education should start younger. Callahan said the district should develop a talent development program for students in kindergarten through second grade. An investment will be made into this program, Wolcott said.

The district should also have a program for students who don’t have the same level of pre-school opportunities as their peers, Callahan suggested. This could be from not attending pre-school, not traveling or by being exposed to the same things other students are. Wolcott said this recommendation would be considered. 

Besides these recommendations, a 36-hour Gifted Education Seminar will be offered to staff during the summer of 2012. 

Editor's note: Kristen Kuchar contributed to this report.