GILROY
– School board trustees adopted a new middle school curriculum
Thursday, after tweaking the academic and extracurricular plan so
it can include more elective options as well as ensure gifted
students get teachers trained to meet their special needs.
GILROY – School board trustees adopted a new middle school curriculum Thursday, after tweaking the academic and extracurricular plan so it can include more elective options as well as ensure gifted students get teachers trained to meet their special needs.
Starting next year, all middle school students will receive 45 minutes of instruction across seven periods during the regular school day. Before-school and after-school classes will also be offered to sixth- through eighth-grade students in 2003-04 and beyond. For core subjects like math and reading, students will be separated into three sections based on their ability.
The curriculum proposal has received express scrutiny in recent weeks from parents of gifted students. They worry the district will not have the money or resources to carry out its goals for creating effective accelerated classes.
Also, the move to a sixth- through eighth-grade middle school format district-wide is especially troubling for a set of parents from Rucker Elementary School, which offers the district’s only full-time Gifted And Talented Education (GATE) program.
The Rucker parents are uneasy that their current fifth-grade students will lose out on one year of GATE instruction by one of the district’s top teachers, Sue Gamm. Rucker is one of six elementary schools that still use a kindergarten through sixth-grade format.
Gamm has concerns, too, and in recent days has gone public with them. Gamm says her students were promised third- through sixth-grade GATE instruction.
Also, Gamm and other parents say the plan to move all sixth-graders into middle schools was recommended by a special task force only if a full middle school program could be implemented.
“I’m upset the district chose not to honor our recommendation,” said GUSD parent Jacki Stevens, who sat on the task force.
Stevens and others contend that Solorsano, by the district’s own definition, is not a middle school since it won’t house seventh- through eighth-grade until 2005-06.
“There never was a plan to start Solorsano with a sixth, seventh and eighth grade,” Assistant Superintendent Linda Piceno said. “If we put seventh- and eighth-graders into Solorsano in its first year, we’d be ripping them out of South Valley and Brownell. That was never our intention.”
Nonetheless, Rucker parents want the district to allow current GATE students to remain at the elementary school until they complete sixth-grade. Trustee David McRae has said he would support keeping Rucker’s GATE kids at the school, but he was absent from Thursday’s session due to prior commitments with his daughter and her school.
“I’ve expressed my opinions to board members in some e-mails. I hope they’ll consider them, but I will support whatever the board approves,” McRae said.
Trustees pressed district staff to conduct a thorough implementation process for the new curriculum. They are requiring staff to:
• Report on the status of the hiring and placing middle school teachers by May.
• Report on teacher training plans for each student- ability level.
• Hold a special study session by October regarding the new curriculum’s implementation.
• Form a study group of parents, teachers and administrators to monitor implementation of the new curriculum.
