Agenda - 02-02-1987 - Special Mtg.

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It was my understanding that the board, in recognizing the pitfalls of systemwide, standardized group testing, sought a method of finding "gifted" students who might be overlooked in lists of these test results. I thought the board was attempting to find these students and make up for the deficiencies it recognized in our group testing by going ahead and placing these students in the program. But I am not convinced this has been accomplished in the present program design. I believe there are many students, especially minorities and disadvantaged, who not only would be included in the program but who would be included by virtue of formal identification under state AG criteria if only the system used the two-step screening and evaluation process. If the two-step process was used, and a large pool of students was established through screening specifically designed to "catch" students with test score and performance discrepancies, the board's goal probably could be better met. That the goal had been met (or to what degree) certainly could be better measured. By failing to use the two-step screening and evaluation process, the board has foregone the state's built-in safeguards which protect students. Minority and disadvantaged "academically gifted" students may stand the most to gain ffom=-this'-protection• and I don't believe that is any accident. By the same token, it is these students who may stand to-lose the most when the double-safeguards aren't in place. The state's two-step process provides parents who feel the system has failed to evaluate "their child the opportunity to initiate the evaluation. Conversely, it allows the pycstem to initiate referral on behalf of the student whose parent is unlikely to do so. It provides due process for either the system or the parent in challenging evaluation criteria or in performing the evaluation. Parents could challenge biased or inappropriate testing; the system might challenge a parent's arbitrary refusal to give permission for evaluation. Ultimately, the formally-identified child winds up with the means (a Group Education Plan) for both parent and system to look concretely at what is being provided to appropriately meet the student's special needs. Through formal identification, this system is likely to find it has more minority and disadvantaged students who meet state AG criteria than it now realizes. Still, the system's only limit on continuing its present, or some other form, of "revolving door" program that allows other_ students into the program is the amount of money available to spend. The state puts limits on state money, not local money. The state does not say you can't spend local funds to serve more students than it requires you to serve.