Information from Director of Gifted Services at the Virginia Department of Education

[dpip...@cox.net]

This email has been sent to the school board, school administrators,
and the Virginia Pilot.

To All Concerns:

First, this morning I spoke with Dr. Donna Poland, Director of Gifted
Education with the Virginia Department of Education. I shared with her
administration’s concern regarding having the requirement that
teachers of gifted students will be endorsed or working on their
endorsement written into the proposed plan and the concern regarding
the technical review in 2016. Dr. Poland stated “that since this
requirement is not a state regulation there would be no negative
consequences. In fact, VDOE would applauded CPS for having such a
requirement in the plan since it goes above and beyond the minimum
requirements, even if all teachers are not endorsed by the deadline
for the technical review or the end of the five year plan. “ Working
on endorsement could be just taking one course or perhaps be on the HR
list to take a course. Teachers and cohorts could still take
endorsement classes as the budget allows and at a pace that works for
them. The current budget states that funds are designated for teacher
endorsement. As long as CPS commits some funds for endorsement the
division is keeping the philosophy of the commitment they made in
2008, albeit at a slower pace than was planned or expected. The issue
is for CPS to continue to support and ensure that progress in this
area is being made, as promise. Once you take the endorsement
requirement out of the plan then teacher participation will decrease
significantly and the quality of gifted services will diminish. Also,
I believe that having more teachers endorsed in gifted will strengthen
the education of all students in the building because those teachers,
in addition to the part-time specialist, will share their knowledge
with other non-endorsed teachers. So teachers with students who may
benefit, but not necessarily need gifted activities will have other
professionals to consult and be role models if the specialist is not
available. The proposed plan calls for a lead gifted teacher in each
school and this would be very helpful as well. As more teachers are
endorsed and become proficient over time, the gifted specialist should
have more time and opportunity to work with schools with very small
numbers of gifted, K-2 , and the high school population in years to
come. This is my vision for continuing to strengthen gifted services
in CPS. Again, I request that the requirement from the 2008 initiative
as stated above be written into the proposed plan!

Secondly, I have not received any explanation as to why the proposed
plan does not include the tiered, compact, grouping policy promised by
CPS in the 2008 initiative. As indicated in 2008 “best practice” is to
have the students as compactly grouped as possible. Although
instruction is the most critical element, grouping is also a vital
component and that is why it was placed in the initiative in 2008. Dr.
Poland stated that different schools systems group students
differently and this policy would be in alignment with best practices
in the field of gifted education given CPS’s resources. This policy
also helps to minimize the number of teachers requiring endorsement.
The grouping policy does not cost any additional funds and only about
50% of the gifted teachers are endorsed at this time, so this grouping
will also help to ensure the quality of services, while teachers are
being endorsed. I again request that the following specific grouping
options and policies stated in 2008 be written into the proposed plan.
Gifted students will be grouped either in homogeneous or cluster
classes, based on the gifted population of the school. First, if
applicable, students will be placed in homogeneous classes, second
clusters classes with at least 50% or higher gifted student with high
ability learners as recommended, and those classes with less than 50%
will receive weekly support from the gifted specialist. Initially Dr.
Nick stated daily instead of weekly, but the proposed plan states to
“research the possibility of providing monthly contact between
teachers and the specialist”. It appears by this objective that CPS is
having difficulty even providing monthly contact between the
specialist and the teachers, since it states to “research the
possibility”. This is another reason to have these endorsement and
grouping policies written in the plan!!!

Third, I have been requesting information regarding the implementation
of our gifted program to assist me in fulfilling my duties as an
advisory committee member. My main duty as a committee member is to
review the plan, the implementation, and make recommendation. However,
administration has refused to provide any of the requested information
for the past two months after numerous attempts and has stated to me
several time that I need the committee to vote on whether this
information is needed. I was told by Dr. Poland that I do not need to
have my request approved by the committee and there is no such
requirement in the committee bylaws!! Dr. Poland instructed me to make
a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request, but I would not be
allowed to request information regarding students’ personal
information. Nor am I requested information regarding specific school
names.

I am now making a formal FOIA request for the following information in
order for me to fulfill my duties as a committee member of the gifted
advisory committee( as required by the VDOE regulations):

1) How many elementary and middle school classroom teachers are
instructing gifted student?
2) How many middle school gifted classes are there?
3) How many middle school teams are being required for CPS’s 10 middle
schools?
4) How many middle school classes are homogenously grouped, how many
are cluster grouped, how many of the cluster classes fall below 50%
gifted?
5) How many elementary gifted classes are there?
6) How many elementary school classes are homogenously grouped, how
many are cluster grouped, how many of the cluster classes fall below
50% gifted?
7) Of the cluster groups falling below 50% , how often are specialist
making contact with those teachers? daily, weekly, monthly?

The gifted specialist should have knowledge of this information at
their assigned schools and be able to provide it to the gifted
director. The director could remove all school names and provide an
overview answering these questions, as I have suggested previously.
This information will help to determine more accurately where CPS is
in the number of teachers endorsed and need to be endorsed as well as
how efficiently the grouping policies have been implemented. This
information is vital for future planning and to assess and address any
issues that may need to be resolved.

If information is not provided to me, I will obtain further counsel in
regards to Chesapeake Public Schools prohibiting me from fulfilling my
duties as a member of the gifted advisory committee as stated in the
committees bylaws and the VDOE regulations.

I will try to be hopeful that the board, administration, the gifted
advisory committee, and parents of gifted students can work together
to ensure that CPS will do it’s best to provide a quality education
for all our students. I thank you for your time and consideration.

Here is a link to a website Dr. Poland suggested for information
regarding Common Myths of Gifted from the National Association for
Gifted Children: http://www.nagc.org/commonmyths.aspx.

Respectfully,

Deborah Piper, M.S.W.
Gifted Advisory Committee Member
Parent of Gifted Student