Changes In Gifted Education Program Raise Concerns

By Larissa Lytwyn

Assistant Superintendent of Schools Alice Jackson and Special Education Supervisor Jan Calabro provided an update on programming for the district’s intellectually gifted students to the Board of Education on March 1 — a program that has changed significantly in recent years. Some say for the worse.

Originally known as the Discovery program, Newtown’s gifted education services have gone through a budget cut, teacher turnover, and the forging of a new educational philosophy.

Since becoming assistant superintendent in 2001, Ms Jackson’s primary district goals have included developing and streamlining curriculum. In 2002, Ms Jackson assembled a group of educators including now-retired gifted education teachers John Vorous and Cheryl Coloras to document the district’s comprehensive gifted curriculum.

“I am very concerned about where this curriculum now is,” Mr Vorous, a 35-year teaching veteran, told board members at the March 1 meeting. Mr Vorous spent the first 17 years of his Newtown teaching career in the regular classroom. His final 18 were spent teaching the Discovery program.

Several parents of former and gifted students that attended the meeting expressed similar concerns that the now Gifted and Talented Education Services (GATES) program is far less challenging and exciting than it was as the Discovery program a few years ago.

Ms Jackson explained that this perception could be the result of several factors, including the effect of budget cuts during the 2003-04 school year.

In June 2003, as a result of the $1.2 million cut to the school board’s proposed 2003-04 budget, the gifted program’s two full-time teaching positions, held by Mr Vorous and Ms Coloras, were cut. Two existing full-time Newtown Middle School teachers, Ray Shupenis and Gail Seymour, then taught the program part-time. They were replaced for the 2004-05 school year with first-year gifted education teachers Jill Bontatibus Beaudry, who also teaches accelerated math, and Patrice Gans.

The curriculum Mr Vorous helped document in 2002, Ms Jackson explained, is now partially the basis of the program’s current “activities” at each grade level. Further, she suggested that what Ms Beaudry and Ms Gans could teach at their first-year experience level cannot compare to Mr Vorous’ experience and multiple certifications in education.

In differentiating between curriculum and activities, Ms Calabro said that curriculum provides teachers with what material to teach. Activities, she said, are various ways in which such curriculum can be utilized.

Mr Vorous, however, defines his “activities” as curriculum because it came from comprehensive gifted education curricular research.

 

Differentiation In The Classroom

This past fall, Ms Jackson developed a task force of gifted teachers, parents, and students to provide recommendations on how the gifted program could be improved.

At the same time, Ms Jackson worked to implement full in-school gifted instruction, instead of being conducted fully or partially before or after school.

Ms Jackson’s vision is to provide “differentiated” learning within the classroom, with some special provisions for intellectually gifted students that could accommodate students’ diverse academic needs. Theoretically, differentiation ensures that each student is challenged by a variety of instructional strategies suited to his or her achievement and ability levels, learning styles, and interests.

Differentiation, conceptually, provides instruction that meets students’ differing needs through such measures as providing multiple assignments within each unit that allows students advanced in reading, for example, to use material that is on the same topic but more complex.

Differentiation, according to proponents, also allows teachers to provide instruction aimed at a high level of understanding. All students are expected to achieve at optimal levels.

But some Newtown parents, such as Sarah Beier, feel that differentiation is wonderful theoretically, but not realistic for real-world utilization in the classroom.

Connecticut state laws mandate gifted student identification but not public education service. Without the mandated state government support, parents are concerned that the potential of gifted students is being severely compromised.

Another complex issue within gifted education research is the frequently controversial process of identification. Ms Calabro explained that identification standards go beyond IQ tests and Connecticut Mastery Test (CMT) scores.

“We also have to account for children with special needs and learning disabilities, and underachievers,” she said.

Parent Carla Seymer said her daughter, whom she described as a onetime over-achiever, opted out of the gifted education program this year because she felt unsupported by the teachers.

Several other parents said that there was a big drop-out problem in GATES. One said a neighboring district’s gifted program had experienced only one drop out “in 17 years.”

Ms Calabro said there had been five drop outs this year, largely due to medical problems and the feeling that their “plates were too full” with consideration to regular classroom requirements and extracurricular activities. There are about 144 students currently in GATES, which, Ms Jackson acknowledged, “still has a lot of problems.”

Ms Jackson stressed the need to improve communication between administrators and parents. She also said that she and Ms Calabro are working to implement more training workshops for all classroom teachers in gifted education to foster cross-curricular understanding.

“I would like to see [gifted education] happen all day, every day,” Ms Jackson said, ideally, in grades K–12.

While acknowledging Ms Jackson’s continuing efforts, School Board Chairman Elaine McClure concurred that the current program was “not quite hitting the mark.”

Alluding to work that had to be done to fully realize now-federally mandated special education public school programming, Ms Beaudry said it was “crucial” to meet the needs of intellectually gifted students in true fulfillment of the district’s philosophy that “all children can and will learn well.”