School board approves gifted/talented program
Lakeville’s school district was a place gifted learners left, but that could change with a new program
by Derrick Williams
Kim Scheponik’s four children, from left, Jenna, 5, Luke, 4, Jacob, 9, and Sarah, 7, sit around their dining room table reading. None of Scheponik’s children go to a Lakeville school currently. Instead, they attend gifted magnet schools in other districts. That could change in 2011 with a new program approved by the Lakeville School Board on April 27. Photo by Derrick Williams
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It’s a goal of Lakeville’s School Board to “provide opportunities for all students to reach their potential.”
But the Lakeville Area Public School District is the 10th largest in the state, and pleasing every student group is a tough job.
It’s even tougher when the school board has been making cuts to programming and its budget for the better part of a decade.
Yet for the past nine years, the Lakeville Council for Gifted and Talented, a local group made of parents of gifted learners, has been advocating for programming that can meet the challenge and rigor some of Lakeville’s brightest students need.
From elementary to middle school, children have been leaving the district for gifted programs in other communities, said Lisa Saathoff, co-president of the LCGT.
“Nobody wants to move their kids out of the school district, away from their friends,” Saathoff said. “But their needs haven’t been being met. We have made it known, the quantity of kids leaving the district was significant.”
And when children leave the district, so does state local levy funding to the tune of more than $8,000 per child.
But on April 27, Lakeville’s gifted learners were given a reason to stay, and in many cases, come back.
In what some board members have called a re-calibration of district resources, the school board approved the framework to create a full-time program for highly gifted elementary students and an expanded honors program at the district’s three middle schools starting the 2010-11 school year.
Because the district is short on funding, the plan is cost-neutral.
According to Catherine Gillach, principal at Century Middle School, the program will be rolled out over three years with 7.5 full-time equivalency positions being reshuffled within the district to accommodate the program’s needs.
Specifics of the plan have yet to be hammered out, Gillach said, but starting next year, new honors classes will be available in the middle schools and by 2011, a full-time program for highly gifted elementary students would launch in one classroom at a building yet to be determined.
When the unanimous final vote was cast for the new programming, a small group of parents applauded, including Saathoff, who said the gifted and talented program is a long time coming.
“It’s a good start. This is going to fill a huge gap,” she said.
Saathoff has two children, both of whom left Lakeville’s school system to pursue schooling at Paideia Academy in Apple Valley. Her oldest, Ally, is now at Lakeville South High School, but her youngest daughter, Addie, is a fifth-grader at the charter school.
“I never wanted them to leave the district,” Saathoff said. “But gifted kids – they have an innate need to learn. Their minds run fast and deep and when that need is not met, they deal with issues.”
According to the National Association for Gifted Children, gifted learners who aren’t in proper programs can experience more than boredom in school. They can experience depression, anxiety, and even social issues.
For those learners, it’s about too much repetition of topics, or covering lessons they already know.
For Kim Scheponik, her son, Jacob, was one such case.
After spending kindergarten and first grade at a Lakeville elementary school, Jacob was miserable, Scheponik said.
“He was always a curious and inquisitive child, but not long after being in a normal classroom setting, that all changed,” she said. “I volunteered and saw the Jacob at home and the Jacob in the classroom. There was something wrong.”
After being tested, it was recommended that he get more rigor, but there just wasn’t anything Lakeville could do for him, Scheponik said.
Scheponik decided to move Jacob to the Atheneum Gifted Magnet Program located at Salem Hills Elementary School in Inver Grove Heights.
The results, she said, were surprising.
“In first grade, (Jacob) was begging not to go to school. It was obvious to us this was stressful for him,” Scheponik said. “He’s not like that now. At the last teacher conference, he was described as a model student. He’s interested. He’s responsible for his work. He’s engaged and in first grade, he was disengaged.”
Now, Scheponik said her daughter Sarah, 7, is joining Jacob at Atheneum, and her daughter, Jenna, 5, is attending the gifted magnet program at Harriet Bishop Elementary in Savage.
But shuttling children to different schools in different cities is hard, Scheponik said.
Rachel Lord has two children who are in gifted magnet programs in other districts.
“It’s a lot of work. I’d love for them to go to school in Lakeville, and I’m optimistic and thrilled that Lakeville found this is important,” Lord said.
Lord’s son, Ethan, is in the fourth grade at Prior Lake’s gifted magnet at WestWood Elementary.
Her daughter, Olivia, is in kindergarten at Harriet Bishop.
“I’d love for my kids to ride the bus. We pay our tax dollars to have busing, but Ethan can’t use it,” she said. “And for the kids to go to school with other kids from their neighborhood, that would be amazing.”
Lakeville’s programming, especially the elementary program, would be for the profoundly gifted, Gillach said. For those who don’t qualify for it, the district would continue to offer gifted programs such as Discover Seminars.
Next year, a coordinator will be hired to plan the class and, in 2011, a classroom teacher to teach it. To pay for a half-time coordinator next year, they plan to reduce gifted staffing at the Orchard Lake and Christina Huddleston elementary schools.
In the fall of 2011, each middle school would drop from a full-time to a half-time gifted specialist, which would enable the district to pay for the classroom teacher and make the coordinator position full-time, Gillach said.
For some board members, the program is a profound step in serving an underserved student population.
“The piece we’re trying to do here is service the needs of the students we have, both ones here and those who left,” said Lakeville School Board Chair Judy Keliher.
Saathoff said the LCGT will continue to collaborate with the district as more details are nailed down about how the program will function.
She also said the group is available to help parents who don’t know where to turn after learning they child is a gifted learner.
“People figure out their kids are gifted and they don’t know where to go or what to do,” she said. “The LCGT is a place to get resources and connections and learn from other parents because we’ve all been there.”
For more information about LCGT, visit www. lcgt.org.
E-mail Derrick Williams at:
lakeville.thisweek@ecm-inc.com
This a great news for gifted kids in Lakeville. So their potentials can be utilized. One of my kids benefit to some degree in the part-time gifted programs: discover, Humanity, etc. At 8th grade, he was kind of bored. At 7th grade, his humanity teacher, signed up kids to History day in state of MN. That kept him busy for a while. He was at the state competition. But at 8th grade, his teacher never sign up with kids with History day event. So he was kind of idle around: I even noticed he played more games on computer. Good thing he was at Science Olympiad. Thanks science teachers at Kenwood Trail middle school, give some kids more opportunity for learning. I am wondering why other 2 middle school science teachers not organize science olympiad clubs. Some potential scientists maybe buried under.
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But I want to mention here about the other extreme: special education kids. I used to be the substitute teacher in special ed classes in south metro school districts: like 191, 192, 194, etc.
I feel special ed curriculum is so simple. Most special ed students wasted lot of time. They seem to have too much rest time, not engage in learning. I understand most special ed kids are kind of slow learners or with various special needs. They cannot concentrate for longer period as regular students. But they need to be offered more frequent learning at shorter class time.
Except those severe retarded students, they (kids of EBD, ADHD,etc)need to be taught with longer period of class time overall: shorter class period each time, repeat with more frequent class times. These kids should be offered before and after-school class time too to compensate what they need to catch up.
Otherwise they will never catch up with the mainstream classes.
Federal has “No child left behind” policy. Should we let these special ed students, except those severely retarded, left behind? Most of them are just naughty kids. They grow up in the families where lack of appropriate parental skills.
We should enrich some of the special ed curriculum too, while we try to utilize gifted students’ potentials. I know it is not easy to take care of both ends.
Thanks,
Yi Li You
Parent in Lakevile school district
To have them leave their friends and go to another school or to stay? That is a question parents of gifted students are asking themselves about their children. I think it is a good idea they are starting a new gifted program in Lakeville schools. I believe it is good because the kids do need to be challenged if the level they are at is not challenging them enough. The kids also don’t want to leave their friends they have already made in school or go to a different school then the other kids in their neighborhood. By having these programs in their school they are already enrolled in will also be easier on the parents. Then the parents don’t have to drive them to another school in a different city. Also they are already paying the Lakeville taxes, which go towards paying for the bus system, so now they can take the buses they are paying for if they start these programs in the school district.
Cali Miller
Bethel University