Gilroy
– The Gilroy Unified School District has 586 Gifted and Talented
Education (GATE) students across the district, but only one
full-time GATE program. With limited state funding and the GUSD’s
switch to enrollment area schools, GATE parents are debating how to
expand the program without dismantling
it.
Rucker Elementary School is the only self-contained GATE program
in the district, meaning that the GATE students there primarily
take classes with other GATE identified students.
Gilroy – The Gilroy Unified School District has 586 Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) students across the district, but only one full-time GATE program. With limited state funding and the GUSD’s switch to enrollment area schools, GATE parents are debating how to expand the program without dismantling it.
Rucker Elementary School is the only self-contained GATE program in the district, meaning that the GATE students there primarily take classes with other GATE identified students. The benefit of separating students this way is that the teacher can instruct at a faster pace and reduce the amount of repetition in each lesson.
Because Rucker has a longstanding reputation for having a successful GATE program, some parents want to develop identical programs across the district.
“The parents really want to see a second full-time GATE program, replicate to the GATE program at Rucker,” said GATE parent Bill Hudson, who is also president of OpenGATE, a non-profit organization comprised of GATE parents and educators, devoted to fundraising and teacher training throughout the district. “But there is no political incentive to do that if Rucker’s (classes are) not full yet.”
There are three self-contained GATE classrooms at Rucker, however not all are limited to GATE identified students because not all are completely filled.
According to Hudson, the problem with expanding the GATE program to offer full-time programs at each school is that there aren’t enough GATE students at each of them. This year, schools like Glen View, Rod Kelley, Las Animas and El Roble had less than 10 GATE students in each grade level. Some grades had less than three, making clustering GATE students difficult.
Rucker and Luigi Aprea Elementary have the highest concentration of GATE students out of the GUSD elementary schools – both have about 60 students.
Three years ago, when the district operated on a magnet system, students were bused to their schools. Now, under the enrollment area system, parents are responsible for driving their children to school outside of their designated area.
“All of a sudden now we don’t have transportation,” Hudson said. “And other schools are leery about sending their high performance kids off now because of No Child Left Behind.”
With this switch, many parents want to develop GATE programs identical to Rucker’s at each of the schools in the district.
But with such a low GATE population at other schools outside of Luigi Aprea and Rucker, some GATE parents worry about the dissemination of GATE money.
“I think there are some misconceptions about what the program is at Rucker and what it does,” Hudson said. The biggest misconception is funding, he said. “The majority has gone to personnel costs. Part of the money goes to testing,” Hudson said. Rucker does not get any more money than anyone else, he said.
This year, GUSD was awarded $72,000 from the state for the GATE program, amounting to about $122.87 per student. But students never see a penny of it.
Current spending breakdown is as such: $12,662 for testing supplies and testing proctors; $12,445 for special teachers; $38,588 on classified and certified personnel; and the remaining $9,000 accounts for benefits for these employees.
“Basically that leaves nothing,” Hudson said. “Our five-year goal is to be raising at least as much money as the state is giving the district.”About one-third of the $72,000 goes towards paying the salary of the theater arts director at Rucker, however, individual GATE teachers at Rucker do not get paid more and are not given money for classroom materials or programs.
“I don’t get anything extra for the students,” said Curt Hentschke, or “Mr. H,” a fourth grade teacher at Rucker. “Everything that we get just basically goes to pay for that theater arts person, (money for supplies) mostly it just comes out of our own pockets.”
Marcia Brown, GUSD’s head of student services, is trying to get feedback from GATE parents to discover what their priorities are, before she sends report to the state requesting funding.
“Parents want to see increased opportunity for (GATE) students at all levels, at all schools,” said Brown.
After meeting with GATE parents Tuesday, she described two groups; those who wanted to keep the Rucker program self-contained and another who wanted to see the a similar GATE program expanded to schools across the district.
In the past, GUSD has received between $68,000 and $80,000 from the state for GATE programs.
“If you look at that kind of money, that’s not a lot to do a lot,” Brown said. “Historically, GATE has been underfunded by the state. The thought is, ‘They’re bright, they’ll get by.’ But that’s not always the case.”
According to Brown, parents also want the budget to be spent on student learning, such as enrichment classes and activities outside of the school day. However, these do not count to the state mandated requirements she said.
“What we would like to see is that for all schools, all grade levels across the district, depending on the total if appropriate, that they either be clustered or differentiated in groups based on level,” said GATE parent Robyn Houts. “This district tends to give lip service about differentiated service.”
Second grade students are currently undergoing GATE testing. Parents are invited to attend an open house Friday at 6pm where they can learn more about GATE programs from teachers and parents.
