30 minute read
MASKING
from Issue 1 2021-22
A community member stands outside an August board meeting before going to sit in the Plains Junior cafeteria with 161 others to watch the board members on livestream.
MASKING CONTROVERSY
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After mandating masks for this fall, the Lakota district has been met with an even split of support and protests.
story, infographic, and photography mary barone
Nearly 200 concerned parents and community members cram into the dimly-lit cafeteria of Plains Junior. A broadcast of the Lakota School Board meeting in a nearby classroom is projected over the stage. All eyes glued on the screen, the charged-up crowd replied with cheers or boos as the board discusses the recently-announced mask mandate.
Following the announcement on that masks would be required for Lakota students and staff for the fall, debate surrounding mandated masking spread throughout the community.
THE DECISION
On Aug. 16, 2021, Lakota Superintendent Matt Miller announced that the district would require masks for all in-person students and staff. The announcement was delivered by email two days before students returned to school on Aug. 18, 2021.
“The information that we are receiving is changing, almost daily,” Miller told Spark. “The piece of information that pushed me over the edge in terms of mandating masks was the letter from 350 [Southwest Ohio] doctors and that came in two days before we announced our decision.”
As superintendent, Miller has the authority to make emergency decisions on the daily operations of Lakota schools without seeking the board’s approval first. This authority includes his decision to require face masks instead of strongly recommending them prior to the start of school.
On Aug. 5, the district issued a survey to Lakota staff, parents, and students via email enquiring whether they felt masks should be required in the upcoming school year. Of the 7,700 surveyed, 49% voted no and 45% voted yes, while 6% were indifferent. A third of those
who voted yes thought that masks should only be mandated for grades K-6, and two-thirds voted for mandatory masks among all students and staff.
When issuing the survey, the district clarified that it was one data point among several that would be taken into consideration and the decision would not be made based on the results. Miller was not surprised by the community’s mixed reactions to the mandate.
“The speakers at our board meetings, emails [we have received], and the [staff and parent] survey all seem to be 50-50 now,” Miller said. “Some people understand and some people don’t. I have emphasized that this is more about keeping kids in school rather than masks or no masks because it comes down to quarantines.”
According to Miller, the Lakota Board of Education has been looking towards maskoptional districts to predict the results if Lakota were to do the same. For instance, Hamilton County Schools’ percentage of positive COVID-19 cases is three times Lakota’s. Princeton Schools’ percentage of positive cases is six times that of Lakota. Additionally, Mason City Schools requires K-6 students to wear masks and their positive rate is 3.5 times more than Lakota.
“We’re educators, not public health experts,” Miller said. “These decisions are made based on facts and observing the consequences that non[mask] mandatory districts deal with.”
QUARANTINES
According to the Lakota website, in the first semester of the 2020-2021 school year, 5,493 quarantines were issued to students and staff due to COVID-19 exposure. The quarantine process, determined by the Butler County Health Department and the Ohio Department of Health, takes in a variety of factors including vaccination status, the proper wearing of masks, and distance between students.
“If everyone is masked in a classroom setting and someone tests positive, no one has to be quarantined,” Executive Director of Community Relations Betsy Fuller told Spark. “The procedures get messy when masks are not mandated, so we had to take that into consideration.”
The district will be required to comply with House Bill 244 starting Oct. 1, 2020. Due to the Delta-8 variant, schools will no longer be able to take vaccination status into consideration when issuing quarantines. Released on July 27, 2021, this state legislation follows the Center for Disease Control’s updated guide for students to wear masks in close-contact public places, even if they are fully vaccinated.
Fuller explained that while this bill lessens the divide between vaccinated and unvaccinated students, it also ensures a higher number of quarantines if students do not wear masks at
The Mask Impact
A comparison of Lakota school district’s mask-mandatory versus maskoptional quarantine procedures. Quarantine procedures were put in place by the Butler County Health Department.
According to stats from Lakota, the district has had 483 student quarantines between Aug. 18 and Sept. 13 following mask-mandatory procedures. Had masks not been mandated, an estimated 1,100 more students would have been quarantined.
Mask Mandatory
Continue wearing face covering
Quarantine No
No Were + case and contact within 3 feet for 15 minutes?
Is contact fully vaccinated? Yes
No
Yes
Mask Reccomended
Were + case and contact properly wearing masks?
Yes
Wear face covering and self monitor for 14 days
Go into COVID isolation, consider testing Yes Is contact showing symptoms?
No
Yes No quarantine as long as contact has no symptoms
Were + case and contact within three feet for 15 minutes? Does contact have COVID antibodies or the vaccine?
Was the exposure in a classroom or on a bus?
Were + case and contact properly wearing masks?
Were they within 6 feet for 15 or more minutes?
Yes
Quarantine
Yes
No
No No
No No
Yes
Yes
source butler county health department
“The core competency of this district is to educate children. We’re not trying to be divisive; what we’re trying to do is keep our children in school so they can learn. I want the masks to go away too, but right now they’re necessary for us to carry out our responsibility as a district.”-Board Member Brad Lovell
all times.
Refusal to wear a mask properly will result in a case of insubordination according to Lakota’s website. However, students may still be exempt from wearing a mask for a medical or religious reason. The district has a two page waiver that the student’s parent must fill out to qualify for exemption. As of Aug. 20 the district has received 119 mask waivers for the entire district, meaning .68% of the student population is dismissed from wearing a mask.
COMMUNITY RESPONSE
East’s demographic reflected the community’s mixed feelings towards the mandate. In a recent Spark survey of 168 East students, 49% of students believe masks should be mandatory compared to the other 51% who do not. Additionally, 56% of students surveyed feel safer in schools with mandated masks and only 29% of students wear masks in public places where they are not required.
East senior August Whitton falls under the 49% of students in support of the mandate.
“It’s not that big of a deal to wear a mask in my opinion. They’re pretty inexpensive, and you only wear them for a few hours of the day,” Whitton told Spark. “I was in-person and wore a mask all year. I’m used to it at this point.”
Upon hearing of the mandate, Woodland parent Alisia Davis was disappointed by the district’s decision to announce it at the last minute. Davis says that she would have made arrangements for her son to attend a maskoptional private school if she had more warning.
“[The district] took the opportunity from us to make another decision,” Davis told Spark. “It felt very strategic and spineless, and that’s what pissed me off the most.”
Following the announcement, Davis and her husband created an online petition titled “nomasklakota”. As of Sept. 16, the petition had accumulated more than 1,058 signatures. The site also urged parents to attend a 9am protest at the Lakota Local School District Offices, proclaiming that children have the right to say “Our Body, Our Choice” to the mask mandate.
The protests lasted three days: the first took place on Aug. 17 with an attendance of over 70 community members. They held up anti-mask signs to cars driving by: they read things such as ‘parent choice not yours’ and ‘let us choose’. Protests went on for four days with each protest consisting of less participants than the last.
BOARD RULING
On Aug. 23 the school board met at Plains Jr. to discuss the topic of mandatory masks. 161 parents and community members showed up to speak on the topic, 12 of whom were masked.
Board Member Lynda O’Connor motioned to strongly encourage masks rather than enforce them, but was not seconded in her request. O’Connor then motioned for the board to reconsider the mandate at its meeting on Sept. 27.
“There’s absolutely no clear path, but I still move toward parent choice in the process,” O’Connor said. “Parents need to be able to make decisions for their children’s health and we have moved away from that.”
The board passed O’Connor’s amended motion unanimously after board member Julie Schaffer emphasized the impact that unmasked students have on others.
“When one child comes in unmasked and brings in COVID based on their parent’s decision, it impacts another child and whether they get COVID,” Schaffer said. “We are not operating in individual biomes, we are operating together.”
Lakota Board Member Brad Lovell acknowledged all sides of the argument, but reminded the community of the board’s main priority.
“The core competency of this district is to educate children. We’re not trying to be divisive; what we’re trying to do is keep our children in school so they can learn,” Lovell said. “I want the masks to go away too, but right now they’re necessary for us to carry out our responsibility as a district.” •
At a board meeting, a Lakota mom protests the decision to require masks.
East students Kaleb Flood, Erin Cooney, and Mia Kamphuis use their school-issued chromebooks in their fitness evaluation class. 46% of Lakota’s COVID-19 expenses were related to technology.
FUNDING OUR FUTURE
The recent of the implementation of the Fair School Funding Plan means more money for Lakota schools.
The Ohio legislature approved the Fair School Funding Plan, a $75 billion comprehensive overhaul of Ohio school funding on Jun. 28, 2021. Lawmakers approved the first two years of the six-year plan, leaving it’s future uncertain. Future general assemblies hold the power to continue to fund it.
“[The Fair School Funding Plan] is the largest commitment of state resources for K-12 education in the history of the state [of Ohio],” Ohio State Board of Education President Laura Kohler said.
FORMULA
One of the most significant changes within the Fair School Funding Plan is the alteration of the base cost, the amount per-pupil the state pays. Before the Fair School Funding Plan, the base cost was $6,020. Now, this cost is based on the expenses individual districts are facing, including transportation, teacher salaries, and direct classroom instruction, making it a unique calculation for every district.
“Local costs are now included in the base cost methodology,” Lakota Treasurer Jenni Logan told Spark. “It’s not just some number that’s based on something that somebody came up with in Columbus.”
According to Deputy Director of Legislative Services for the Ohio School Boards Association Will Schwartz, the previous formula had a host of shortcomings, including not using the income of residents in the distinct or changes in enrollment to determine the base cost.
“The formula the General Assembly decided to enact [before the Fair School Funding Plan] was a frozen formula that didn’t recognize any changes at the local level,” Schwartz said. “We weren’t using a base dollar amount that was derived from any sort of data. It was a base perpupil amount that we just picked out of thin air.”
A legislative analysis concluded more than 80% of Ohio’s districts would receive between $7,000 and $8,000 in per-pupil base funding under this new formula. In the past, the formula relied heavily on property values to calculate this base number, but now property values and resident income are put into consideration to calculate the local contribution.
“The Fair School Funding Plan uses a more stable and predictable method of determining what the split between state and local funds looks like,” Kohler said. “Relying on both property values and resident income is really important for rural communities where farmers might have high property values, but their income may not be all that high. In the past, in rural communities, the local residents were expected to make up more money.”
Teacher salaries are part of determining
the base cost, but according to Vice President for Ohio Policy at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute Chad Aldis, this is a flaw on multiple levels. The teacher salary data used is from 2018, already making it outdated, and the use of teacher salaries in this calculation could become unsustainable over time.
“If districts around the state use these dollars to increase teacher salaries, it would say that the average teacher salary is much higher, because everybody raised their teacher salaries,” Aldis told Spark. “That would then require a lot more state dollars. Most of us think they probably need higher teacher salaries, but whether they need it or not, local decisions will drive state costs, and that likely is unsustainable over time.”
The Lakota Educator’s Association (LEA) declined to comment at this time.
FUNDING
One big question surrounding the future of the Fair School Funding Plan is where the funds will eventually come from. The Department of Education’s General Revenue Fund and the profits from the Ohio Lottery are what finance Ohio’s 612 public school districts, 49 joint vocational school districts, 319 public community schools and seven Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) schools. In addition, they fund the activities of the Ohio Department of Education, which includes funding for early childhood education, pre-school, special education, assessments, and the A-F report card.
Public schools in Ohio are funded by state funds, local sources like property taxes, federal funds, and, in select cases, income taxes.
“Funding has always been a partnership between the state of Ohio and the local school district,” Kohler said. “[The Fair School Funding Plan] works to equalize funding and provide additional state resources for schools and districts who do not have that local capacity and wealth to raise their revenues locally.”
Through property tax levies and other means for gaining funds, some districts are willing and able to spend more money, and nothing in Ohio law prohibits that.
“Many districts go to their voters and ask for additional resources and property tax levies, and those districts bring in significantly more resources,” Aldis said. “It’s really difficult for the state to figure out a way to get everybody the same amount of money as districts who tax themselves at extremely high rates that other communities are either unable or unwilling to pay.”
Mason City Schools passed a levy for the first time since 2005 in April, 2020 by nearly 70%, allowing the district to lean on local funds. Mason, like many suburban districts, is often subjected to flat funding, meaning there will be no cuts in state funding levels. Despite this, costs for school operations are increasing, forcing many districts to increase property taxes.
“In Mason, we’ve gotten used to [Ohio] stepping away from its responsibility to suburban school districts like ours,” Public Information Officer of Mason City Schools Tracey Carson said. “We tend to plan for flat funding. There’s a lot of emphasis on local communities to fill in the gap from the state budget.”
The Fair School Funding Plan adds $1.28 billion in new state fund spending in the 20222023 biennium for primary and secondary education compared to fiscal year 2021. The budget also increases state spending by $534.7 million, which is an increase of 5.6% in fiscal year 2022, before adding $203 million, another 2%, in fiscal year 2023.
While many are pleased with this increase in funding, some, like Schwartz, are fearful for its future, due to the fact only two of six years were approved.
“If you’re not concerned about the future of the Fair School Funding Plan then you’re not paying attention,” Schwartz said. “This is only two years of the six-year plan. That means it’s going to require not only one, but two general assembly budget processes to continue funding and building upon the formula. It means working with a new house speaker in the legislative session. The work is before us, and we know the challenges that lie ahead.”
Aldis feels similarly and explains that the plan greatly increases spending, but no new taxes were created to fund it.
“Over the next four or five years, the system may not get the resources it needs. If you found the plan that works, I think it makes sense to fund it, not to expect future legislators to fund it,” Aldis said. “I think the reason they didn’t do that is because they didn’t find the source of money to pay for it. Where does the money come from eventually?”
In addition, the Fair School Funding plan explicitly states funds must be used for their intended purpose.
“It’s put into law that we have to report on how we’re spending those funds,” Logan said. “With gifted specifically, if we don’t spend those funds on gifted kids, we have to send the money back.”
Even though Logan is pleased overall with the passing of the Fair School Funding Plan, she also sees this gap in its future success.
“I would have liked to have seen the sixyear phasing that we had recommended to have stayed intact,” Logan said. “Specifically with poverty funds, we had recommended that that be fully phased in. It was phased in at a much slower rate than we recommended.”
Although there is criticism, Aldis thinks the Fair School Funding Plan has made strides in creating an equitable system to fund Ohio Schools.
“There’s not one particular magical formula that is the right way to fund schools,” Aldis said. “Many people will say it should be a state responsibility, but at the end of the day, the state is made up of the state funding sources that come from Ohioans paying taxes.”
CHARTER SCHOOLS AND STATE VOUCHERS
Within the Fair School Funding Plan, the language around charter schools was altered. Now, charter schools and Ed-choice scholarships are funded directly from the state.
“If you’re not concerned about the future of the Fair School Funding Plan then you’re not paying attention. This is only two years of the six-year plan. The work is before us, and we know the challenges that lie ahead.”-Deputy Director of Legislative Services for the Ohio School Boards Association Will Schwartz
Any student entering grades K-12 whose family’s income is at or below 250% of the Federal Poverty Guidelines is eligible to apply for EdChoice scholarships in which the state pays for that child to attend a private school. Alternatively, charter schools, more commonly known as community schools in Ohio, are privately-run entities operating on public funds.
According to the Public School Review, there are five public charter schools serving 893 students in Butler County, with the topranked school being Middletown Prepatory and Fitness Academy. Even at the number one spot, this school earned two out of 10 in the Public School Review’s ranking.
In the past, money was filtered through the district in which the student attended, meaning the district would obtain additional funds that would then be sent to the appropriate charter or private school.
“It will simplify the budgeting process for our school treasurers in both charter schools and public schools,” Schwartz said. “It’s going to remove the adversarial relationship that’s existed between those two entities.”
Besides attending the public school assigned by location, Ohio students have the option to participate in Ed-choice scholarships or interdistrict open enrollment. About 80% of public districts in Ohio offer open enrollment; however, In Lakota, the Board of Education re-evaluates interdistrict open enrollment each year. Open enrollment is currently closed for the 2021-22 school year.
“For many years, students were funded [based on] where they lived, and then the funds were transferred if students and families did choose education options like schools scholarships, vouchers, or through open enrollment,” Kohler said. “Money won’t have to be transferred, therefore reducing animosity.”
Under the Fair School Funding Plan, EdChoice scholarships will increase $5,000 per student in grades K-eighth and $7,500 per student in grades nine-12. Charter schools are also now allowed to open in any district in the state.
Having “school choice,” according to Aldis, allows students to get the highest quality of education no matter socioeconomic status or location.
“Many times people in high wealth districts pay huge premiums to be able to live in those school districts. If they’re unhappy with the quality of the education, they’re better able to lobby for changes within the district to change district policy, or, if that fails, they can sell their house and move,” Aldis said. “It’s a bigger challenge for lower income families who don’t have all of the same resources, and for whom moving simply wouldn’t be an option.”
While charter schools and the subsequent state funds that accompany them give families greater options, Carson sees some issues with the increasing accessibility of charter schools.
“Some of the charter schools in the state are an entire other system of schools that are funded through the state’s taxpayer dollars but aren’t accountable to a local board of education and don’t have the same accountability measures,” Carson said. “It’s just a pipeline of money.”
According to a review conducted by the Akron Beacon Journal of 4,263 audits by State Auditor Dave Yost’s office, charter schools misspend public money nearly four times more often than any other type of taxpayer-funded agency.
“When you look at some of the charter schools in the past that Ohio has funded, their results have not been good for kids, and in many cases, there’s a lot of documentation about fraud,” Carson said. “Some of those charter schools have kids enrolled and not even attending. They’ve had issues with families being dissatisfied when they come back to their public school being farther behind.”
COVID MONEY
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, schools in Ohio were awarded additional funds in the form of grants, some of which include Coronavirus Relief Funds (CRF) and the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER). According to Logan, Lakota will be using the $19.6 million in federal grants to continue to fund the following: the Virtual Learning Option (VLO), online curriculum, expanding 1:1 technology down to the third grade, nurses, and Lakota’s Learning Loss Recovery Plan. The Lakota District used 46% of these funds on technology, with the next highest usage being classroom supplies at 17%.
“Th ere were so many additional costs associated with procuring buildings to safely educate students during a pandemic,” Kohler said. “The costs of really developing online learning applications and opportunities for students overnight were necessary but expensive.”
COVID-19 procured unheard of costs, meaning additional money necessary in order to continue educating students to the fullest capacity, according to Schwartz.
“Grants have provided a lifeboat to many schools and students, particularly in a time where Ohio’s school districts have suffered historic cuts,” Schwartz said. “What the federal pandemic emergency aid did was help shore up that lost revenue, and help provide more support to school districts to help address these acute issues brought on by COVID-19.” •
Flow of State Funds to Private and Charter Schools
Public Schools
Charter Schools Private School Vouchers
Charter Schools Private School Vouchers Public Schools
source Fair School Funding Plan
Average Ohio Proficiency Scores
Math Reading
Charter Schools
35% 43%
Public Schools
63% 64%
source public school review
Gifted Specialist Amy Alexander works with students at Union Elementary.
GAINING IN GIFTED
Lakota implements new model for teaching gifted curriculum to the elementary school levels.
On her break, Amy Alexander sits in a room full of teachers. She is attempting to help educators reach gifted students. Those teachers need to challenge their gifted students to use their brains in ways that encourage complex thinking. After offering new projects and tasks for the teachers to use, Alexander feels excited to start off the year with an eager community surrounding her.
Prior to the 2021-2022 school year, Lakota invested in eight Gifted Intervention Specialists (GIS) that supported advanced math for grades three through five at different elementary school buildings. Now, the district will cut GIS’s in favor of an alternative plan. Lakota has cut the number of GIS’s to four but looks to change methodology. It will incorporate classroom teachers into the mix.
“[Lakota] has a whole bunch of students that never were able to access gifted services. That was what sparked the change. We want to do better and do more for our kids,” Assistant Director of Gifted Services Lauren Webb said. “With personalized learning, it opened this pathway and allowed us to build capacity in our teachers to reach more of our gifted students.”
The new plan requires the four GIS’s to serve two elementary schools each, but because there are fewer specialists, the focus is switching to the teachers. Now, GIS’s will be supporting and training all classroom teachers to teach advanced math and language arts curriculum.
“One of the reasons we knew it could be successful was because we had many gifted students in VLO, but we didn’t have enough GIS’s to try to support both in person and VLO,” Webb said. “We found this model that we’re using now, where we’re supporting it in different capacities, and it works. It’s awesome to lean on the teachers who already know how to teach amazing things to our kids and recognize that they can do it with the support of personalized learning.”
Lakota’s Instructor for Curriculum Christina French and her team focused on making “data driven decisions” to determine steps for the gifted program.
“We’re taking a look at all of our students’ data and then making decisions around
GIFTED PROGRAM PART 1
Part one analyzes the new gifted program from an administrative perspective. The story will be followed by a part two reporting teacher experience and opinion.
assignments and learning for kids,” French told Spark. “If you are a gifted level learner, you will have specialized lessons and resources to meet your needs. It’s really the next level of that personalized learning approach.”
One of the four current GIS’s, Alexander, has extensive experience with gifted curriculum in her years at Lakota. Four years ago, she switched from teaching 6th grade math at Hopewell Elementary to working with teachers at Liberty Junior School covering advanced curriculum. The next year, she did the same while also working with teachers at Plains Junior School. In 2019 she became one of eight gifted specialists at the time for elementary students at Union Elementary. Alexander now supports all the third, fourth, and fifth grade math students at Union and Hopewell Elementary, while also supporting gifted students in sixth grade in all four subjects as the program expands.
“This role is very much like an instructional coach, which is the job that I used to do at Liberty Junior and Plains,” Alexander said. “My role is supporting teachers as they’re making that transition from teaching typically developing students in math, to teaching those same kids in addition toe this cluster of gifted students. They have to create new lessons and learn to differentiate kids who are higher than grade level.”
While there has been confusion amongst parents regarding having gifted and regular paced learners in the same class, Webb explains the change as having a classroom with students at varying levels.
“There isn’t really a direction where [teachers have] to spend 50% [of their time] with gifted [students] and 50% with non gifted students,” Webb said. “However, with our Language Arts Plus classes, there are gifted clusters in some buildings, and in others, it’s a dedicated class that depends on the ability of the building with teachers, coverage, and how many students.”
Alexander believes that figuring out the different abilities of students in their classrooms is not necessarily a new skill set for teachers. Now, to help determine where students are at different points in the curriculum, teachers are utilizing pretests.
“[Teachers] are thinking; ‘Who are the ones that really need the focus?’, ‘Who needs a retaught lesson?’, and ‘Who needs to just practice the lesson?’,” Alexander said. “[Teachers are] using pretests before the units and lessons to help them pick out the kids that have already mastered [the topic]. It helps them put the kids into groups, and then spend the right amount of time with the groups that need a little extra practice.”
Since the start of the school year, Alexander’s main responsibility has been preparing teachers for a new routine and discussing how their classroom dynamics will change to suit the needs of the students in their class. As part of this preparation, she gives teachers strategies for how to work with kids of all different ability levels.
“I taught [teachers] this strategy that’s called ‘most difficult first’, where you pick out the three or four most challenging problems [in math] and the kids that can show mastery with just those three or four, do those [problems] first and move onto other activities because they’ve already got it,” Alexander told Spark. “I provide stations and group work for teachers to give really challenging, rigorous activities to kids [who have] mastered the
Gifted Identification Types
source education.ohio.gov
Specific Academic Ability Visual or Performing Arts Ability
Expanded Emotions
Lakota adds new special for the elementary schools.
•story megan miranda
In addition to the establishment of a gifted program for Language Arts, a new special focusing on Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) has been implemented for students in kindergarten through sixth grade. By cutting the number of GIS’s, Lakota has added positions for seven different SEL instructors.
The implementation of this new special was initiated following the state of Ohio’s announcement of a new state standard, that the K-12 schools needed a stronger focus on social emotional learning. Now, Lakota is making an effort to fulfill this standard beyond what has already been included in the required health curriculum.
“We revamped the [health] special over the summer to highlight SEL more. It’s allowed us to [see] the consistency of how those standards are applied across the district,” Director of Student Services Lori Brown said. “I’ve been in the classrooms a couple of times already this year and love seeing the kids learning about themselves and all the strengths that help them as they go through their academic careers.”
According to Brown, part of Lakota’s goal with each graduating class is ensuring they are college and career ready. Brown believes that SEL will play a role in this preparedness.
“Any teacher in the district would tell you that social emotional learning is a big part of their classroom,” Brown said. “It’s those skills that help build confidence, self esteem, college and career readiness, and all those things that help kids be successful after high school.”.
Current gifted specialist for grades seven through twelve at Lakota, Ron Henrich believes that the Gifted Program adjustments will not create a large burden for teachers and that the changes allowing for SEL will help student-teacher relationships.
“As far as the social emotional learning part, I think it’s going to allow the students to know that their teachers care,” Henrich said. “Then [students are] going to want to talk about other things too and be able to get into the lessons because they know that [teachers] care.” •
grade level content for that day or for the whole unit.”
Alexander says one of the primary benefits of developing the gifted program this way, is that there may be some students with proficiencies in certain lessons and not in others. This allows students to get what she refers to as an “enriched education.”
“For the longest time, it was the highest kids, the ones that tested very high, that were pulled [for gifted education],” Alexander said. “Now we can serve the kids that the teachers have always thought are still very capable [of learning this gifted curriculum] and can grow their skills.”
Former middle school advanced social studies teacher and the current gifted specialist for grades seven through twelve at Lakota, Ron Henrich, took the gifted support advisor role four years ago. He divides his week accordingly: Monday at Plains Junior, Tuesday at Liberty Junior, Wednesday at Hopewell Junior, Thursday at Ridge Junior Schools, and his Friday is alternated between the East and West high schools.
“[Teachers] want to inspire in every way that they can,” Henrich told Spark. “Every now and then, teachers can bounce ideas off one another and be able to explore if you want to do something different, or you want to keep doing the same thing. That’s really exciting and I’ve had the pleasure of working with about 40 different teachers in that capacity.”
While Alexander deems the definition of gifted as more flexible as a result of the changing program, the state still reports testing data. Students are still being tested and deemed gifted if they place in the 95th percentile in each of the four major academic areas (math, language arts, social studies, and science) or if they are deemed gifted in just subject. Students are also evaluated as cognitively gifted which is determined by IQ.
“We still use the same tools we always use. Like [with] map testing, students score a certain level on testing and they are identified as gifted in that area,” Alexander said. “However, there’s several tests that teachers can use throughout the elementary years to determine giftedness and progress.”
Henrich has been able to see the changes in education as students get older and notes that every grade prepares students for their future and highschool education.
“Each grade is a building block. As you get from elementary to junior high, you hope that they have [certain] skills. You hope the kids are at [a certain] level,” Henrich said. “Most of that comes from your elementary background. The more that you have a solid base, the easier it is to build upon it. When those that don’t have that base are coming into junior high, it makes it more difficult for them to catch up because you’re trying to figure out where the gaps are.”
One complication Alexander acknowledges is the higher demand for gifted specialists.
“It might be a complication moving between two buildings but I think that will settle down after school gets going,” Alexander said. “Right now, it’s just so new. People are desperate for information and resources, so it’s super busy.”
Henrich has faith in Lakota’s teachers’ ability to adapt to the changes being made in the gifted program.
“From my perspective, I think it’s worked really well at the junior high level,” Henrich said. “It’s not like the teachers aren’t good. They’re excellent. They know what they’re doing, and then [Gifted Advisors] are bringing their expertise to [the classroom] and having those conversations.”
Alexander is looking forward to seeing this new program in action this school year.
“Lakota teachers have never, ever failed to astound me. They want to grow and learn,” Alexander said. “Teachers already give 100% and the fact that they can continue to keep their hearts completely open, I just love that. That’s one of the reasons I love being a teacher. I love working with this community of people that just really want to keep learning. It’s really inspiring.”•
STAY TUNED FOR PART 2
