How well is Wake schools serving gifted students? It depends on who you ask.
Wake County is promoting the accomplishments of its gifted students, even as some parents and advocates say the school district is falling short on serving those children.
In a presentation Tuesday, school administrators promoted how Wake has expanded its services for academically and intellectually gifted students to reach a larger and more diverse population. This performance, Wake said, is reflected as well in higher academic achievement for gifted students on state exams.
The presentation comes as Wake is in the process of developing a new plan to show the state how it will serve academically and intellectually gifted students through 2028.
“We want to make sure Wake County’s plan is the best it possibly can be to support our gifted learners,” La’ Kesha Spruill-Roberts, Wake’s director of advanced learning services, told the school board’s student achievement committee.
Are gifted children being identified?
Schools are supposed to identify students who perform or show the potential to perform at substantially high levels compared with peers of their age. These students are supposed to receive differentiated educational services to help them reach their academic potential.
Historically though, Black, Hispanic and low-income students are under-represented nationally when it comes to receiving academically gifted services.
A News & Observer and Charlotte Observer series in 2017 showed that thousands of bright, low-income North Carolina students were being excluded from advanced classes.
State AIG funding not keeping up
Wake in recent years has increased screening opportunities for students to be identified as gifted. This includes looking at more than just test scores to consider things such as a portfolio of student work.
Under this new format, Wake has seen a 15% increase in the past five years in the number of students identified as academically gifted. This school year, 30,531 students were AIG identified, or 19% of the district’s enrollment.
“These initiatives have resulted in a significant increase in identified students, mirroring our diverse WCPSS population,” Wake said in the presentation.
Statewide, 11% of students are identified as academically gifted. But the state only provides AIG funding equal to up to 4% of a district’s enrollment.
Gifted students showing academic growth
Last school year, 91% of Wake’s gifted students scored high enough on state exams to be considered career and college ready. That’s higher than the statewide mark of 86% for gifted students.
College and career ready is a higher benchmark than being proficient on state exams.
“Our AIG students in Wake County performed as well or better than most districts, including our large district peers across the state of North Carolina,” said Drew Cook, assistant superintendent for academics.
Only 85% of Wake’s gifted students were college and career ready in 2021 when schools were offering a limited amount of in-person instruction during the pandemic.
In addition, Wake’s gifted students exceeded academic growth targets on state end-of-grade exams last school year. Wake’s gifted students had not met growth targets in 2022 and only met the goals in 2023.
‘Bright flight’ of gifted students?
Wake’s presentation stands in contrast to the comments made at the March 4 board meeting by Lisa Johnson, executive director of BRIGHTLinks, a group that works with gifted students.
Johnson told the board that Wake parents have expressed frustration with barriers and policy limitations with getting access to services for gifted students. She warned that “bright flight is on the rise.”
Johnson said some families of gifted students don’t enroll their children because the barriers in Wake are too great. She said some families leave district schools.
“Parents shouldn’t have to watch their child’s academic and developmental growth stagnate,” Johnson said. “Every child deserves to grow every day in their education, including highly gifted and twice exceptional students.”
Twice exceptional children are identified as being both gifted and having a learning disability. Spruill-Roberts told the board that teachers have received training in how to identify twice exceptional students.
‘World-class opportunities’ in Wake schools
Board members pointed to the concerns raised by BRIGHTLinks during Tuesday’s presentation. The board was told that BRIGHTLinks is one of the groups that’s been invited to attend sessions on getting ideas for the new AIG plan.
“We’re always happy to engage with individual parents, others who have input or thoughts based on their own experiences, positive or negative or anything in between,” Cook said.
Johnson said Tuesday that Wake is already making some changes based on feedback. She said this includes improving access to single subject acceleration, which allows elementary and middle school students to take advanced courses.
Cook said they are providing students with the ability to take advanced coursework.
“We’re pretty confident that if a student in the Wake County school system needs access to accelerative coursework they have world-class opportunities to do so that are difficult to match up with in any other (school districts) across North Carolina,” Cook said.
