THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 26, 1995 TAG: 9503240200
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 04 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ELIZABETH THIEL, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 140 lines
Superintendent Sidney L. Faucette last week proposed a package of programs designed to challenge academically gifted children and to help children at risk of failing.
Among the proposals are a magnet school for gifted middle school students, a math and science magnet school for high schoolers and an extended day school for low-achieving students who need more resources than they get during the regular day. The School Board unanimously gave Faucette permission to draft plans in more detail.
``There are some needs out there in the school system instructionally - needs that must be met,'' Faucette said.
Faucette has included some of the costs for his proposed programs in the school system's budget - an action criticized by one board member, Ulysses Van Spiva.
``I've got some problems with how you're carrying this out,'' Spiva said. He said board members should have been given more specifics on the proposals, with cost-benefit analyses, so they could vote them up or down before Faucette presented the budget.
The board approved the budget Tuesday night, its last opportunity to do so before the March 31 deadline for getting it to City Council.
Faucette's proposals reopen a longstanding debate about how best to educate children at the extremes of the intellectual spectrum.
A popular concept among educators now is to group students of all abilities into classrooms together, so they can learn from each other. Theoretically, gifted children act as teachers and mentors for lower achievers and force teachers to raise standards for all students. The theory also holds that lower achievers can help teach gifted children social skills.
Many parents, however, fear that their children's special needs are neglected in classrooms where teachers must divide their time among students of often widely divergent abilities.
Teachers say it is possible simultaneously to challenge gifted children and to help students with learning problems, but they must be taught strategies for doing it.
Much depends on school administrators, who traditionally have not spent the money necessary to train classroom teachers for such complex tasks.
In Virginia Beach, gifted elementary school students have the option of attending Old Donation Center, a special program to challenge them. High school students can take college-level courses.
At the middle school level, however, individual schools have been left with the responsibility for taking care of gifted children. Faucette said that has left a gap in programs for those children.
Faucette's answer is a magnet school for sixth- through eighth-graders, to be housed in the old Kemps Landing building on Kempsville Road, closed since last fall. Faucette said it would cost about $300,000 to refurbish the school to house the program. He expects it to serve 600 students.
The program was endorsed unanimously earlier this month by the Community Advisory Committee for Gifted Education.
But one parent raised concerns at Tuesday's board meeting.
``Not all kids will find it appropriate to be bused to one central magnet school,'' said Susan M. Leichtman, 44, who has three academically gifted children in city schools. Leichtman urged the School Board to consider offering special programs to gifted students instead of a magnet school.
``These are your best and brightest,'' she said. ``Don't give them a one-size-fits-all education.''
Faucette said crowding in the middle schools makes that approach impossible. The magnet school will help draw students out of the cramped middle schools.
``We need very, very badly in this city to provide a challenging program for intellectually gifted children at the middle school level,'' he said. ``It's a weakness in our program.''
Deputy Superintendent James L. Pughsley, who is preparing a position paper on education for gifted middle school students, said school administrators do plan to offer programs for children who want to remain in their home schools rather than attend the magnet school. The plan is to ``cluster'' those students in high-level academic classes, while mainstreaming them for other classes and school activities, Pughsley said.
But Stephen F. Carozza, a seventh-grade life science teacher at Independence Middle School, said he had concerns about such an approach. Clustering will suck high achievers out of regular classes, leaving only lower achievers. The children will no longer have role models, and teachers will no longer have as much of an incentive to keep standards high, Carozza said.
``We are going back to tracking,'' a method of grouping students by ability that has come into disfavor among education experts, he said.
Pughsley said he and other administrators have no intention of tracking students.
But some School Board members also said they were concerned that clustering smacked of tracking.
``Call it what you want, but it's going to be hard to avoid tracking if three of the four core classes you have in middle school are advanced,'' said Joseph D. Taylor.
``I think we need a lot more communication on this issue,'' he said.
The board asked Faucette to provide more information on the magnet school and his other proposals, which include:
A math and science magnet program for high school students at Ocean Lakes High.
Faucette had considered locating the program at the Kemps Landing facility, but it would have cost $6 million to renovate the 53-year-old building to accommodate it.
Ocean Lakes, which opened last fall, has the technological capability and the space to handle the 400-student magnet program, Faucette said.
A magnet school for visual arts, to be located at the Virginia Beach Center for the Arts beginning this fall.
Some parents and students say they are concerned, fearing the school would lessen Virginia Beach's commitment to the regional Governor's School for the Arts. The school system sends students and resources to the program.
Faucette said in his proposal, however, that the new magnet school would be designed to augment the regional program's offerings. The magnet school, for example, would be geared toward visual arts, rather than the performing arts that the governor's school offers.
Faucette also proposed programs for interested principals or school improvement councils, including:
A ``traditional'' elementary school, with emphasis on a method for teaching reading called phonics, other core academic subjects, citizenship, character development, mandatory parental involvement and ``traditional'' discipline.
School Board member Elsie M. Barnes said she was surprised by the proposal because she believed that all city elementary schools already focused on those things.
Faucette offered few specifics on how his proposal differed from what schools are doing now. He said, however, that most elementary school teachers find it difficult to focus blocks of time on the academic subjects, even though research shows that young students need uninterrupted time for concentration. Faucette said elementary school schedules now create many interruptions in teachers' instructional time.
He wants those interruptions to be eliminated in the ``traditional'' school.
A year-round magnet school, if there is enough parental interest to start one.
Faucette said it could offer a model for reducing crowding in city schools, a chronic problem.
An extended day magnet school for disadvantaged students.
In this program, students at risk of failing academically would have a longer school day. They would be offered tutoring, help with homework and access to library and computer materials. Transportation and child care would be provided.
KEYWORDS: VIRGINIA BEACH SCHOOL BOARD MAGNET SCHOOLS BUDGET by CNB