Parents in Seattle furious over program for gifted children being terminated simply because “it had too many White students”
Parents in Seattle are furious over the termination of a program for the gifted and talented children simply because “it had too many White students.”
The Seattle Public Schools (SPS) has a program called Highly Capable Cohort (HCC), which designates classrooms and sometimes entire schools as reserved for kids who can skip ahead and learn above their grade.
Katie McAllister, who’s son has ADHD, said that the HCC program “was a real lifesaver” for her son who spoke in full sentences before he was two and learned to read by age four. “I don’t know what would have happened if he was in a neighborhood school,” she added. “Because he can be really frustrating [to the teachers around him] if he’s not challenged.”
In total, another 11 HHC schools dedicated to highly capable learners will be phased out in the fall semester. The phase-out is expected to be completed by the 2027 to 2028 school year.
Of the students enrolled in HCC for the 2022 to 2023 school year, 52 percent were White, 16 percent were Asian and only 3.4 percent were Black.
During a January 22, 2020, school board meeting, parents of Black students in HCC asked the board to consider finding ways to incorporate more Black students into the gifted program rather than shut it down.
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“My request is that you please consider the disservice you would be doing to the minorities that are already in the HCC program,” one father said at the meeting. “The program does more for Black children, particularly Black boys, than it does for their peers.”
Simrin Parmar, who spoke with Fox 13, told the outlet that the decision “will not help those kids to just cut the program wholesale.”
She added: “We weren’t servicing enough of them. You don’t help by cutting the program. What we should be doing is identifying more children from underrepresented groups that aren’t getting a fair shake in the testing and doing more to fix that and providing these services to more kids across the city.”
Seattle to replace HCC with highly criticized program
The gifted and talented program has been replaced with the Highly Capable Neighborhood School Model, which requires teachers to come up with individualized learning programs for all of their students. The school district claims the new model will “be more inclusive, equitable and culturally sensitive.”
Parents in the district are not happy with the new model. McAllister believes the new model will not work because teachers in neighborhood schools will not know how to teach gifted kids and might overlook them, causing them to turn disruptive or otherwise have their academic progress slowed.
“SPS is scrapping all [HCC] programming and replacing it with empty promises, zero plan and zero funding,” said Kiley Riffe, another mom in the school district. “I’m sad to watch so many families leave the public school system, but I can’t blame them.”
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