CPS unveiled their new policy regarding Accelerated Placement yesterday at the first of 2 Parent Forums, followed by a Q and A and feedback/recommendation session from the audience. CPS stressed that they are going slowly to see how things go, before adding more acceleration components. Even though many may wish for more from CPS, this is a monumental change in the right direction and it is in everyone’s best interest to insure that at least this change passes the board this summer. If you have anything to say about this policy, the best time is NOW. Thursday is the second forum, and this may be it before the board meets to vote on the proposed policy in June.  Two events you need to know about:

CPS Parent Forum: 6PM, Thursday 4/25/2019, Lincoln Park High School, 2001 N. Orchard St.

CGCC Parent Discussion following Forum: 8PM,Thursday 4/25/2019, Gemini, 2075 N. Lincoln Ave., 

MAGE Admissions Coffee: 9AM Saturday 4/27/2019 - another chance to discuss impact of policy on public and non-public gifted education in the city.

Our understanding of the policy summary is below and touches 3 areas:

Early K/1 admissions: 

·       New early K admission for qualified children starting this year for children who turn 5 between September 2 and October 31 of the incoming academic year to start K early if the parents want to. Notifications in June to start process.

·       Children must have completed a year of preschool first (public or private)

·       No change to the current 1st grade admission policy.

·       Testing is a 2-system approach: needs to test in the top 2% IQ and 91% Academics to qualify, in addition to other factors. Student therefore has to be gifted + academically performing.

·       Testing administered by CPS psychologists.

·       Parent developmental survey part of assessment.

·       No early entry to Selective Enrollment Elementary Schools (SEES).

·       Testing is $25 or the fee is waived for qualified low-income families.  

Whole Grade Acceleration

• No acceleration this 2019-2020 school year. Applications for 2020 acceleration open in January 2020.

• Acceleration limited to a 1-year skip. Applicable to neighborhood and magnet programs.

• Only available for grades 3-6. No acceleration after 6.

• No grade acceleration in Selective Enrollment Elementary Schools (SEES)

• Illinois readiness assessment attainment of “exceeds”, Iowa Acceleration Scale used for determining acceleration, presumably with several components such as an IQ test, in addition to other factors: GPA 4.0 in the 4 core subjects for 2 consecutive years (need clarity around transfers), 3 consecutive NWEA MAP tests of 95% or above. 

• Have to be at least 2 years ahead on math AND reading in order to qualify for 1-year skip.

• Can reverse skip at the end of 1 quarter.

• Out of district/homeschooled students first have to be enrolled for a year at grade level that they are coming from before acceleration can take place. 

• A vague clause says that if a school already does any sort of acceleration/grouping, they don’t have to also skip students. This needs to be quantified: if a school does a math accelerated grouping once every 2 weeks for 1 hour, does that mean that no student in that school could be grade skipped?

• $250 fee.

Single Subject Acceleration

·       Acceleration limited to a 1-year skip. Applicable to neighborhood and magnet programs. 

·       Only available for grades 3-7. No single subject acceleration after 7.

·       No grade acceleration in Selective Enrollment Elementary Schools (SEES)

·       Illinois readiness assessment attainment of “exceeds”, Iowa Acceleration Scale used for determining acceleration, presumably with several components such as an IQ test, in addition to other factors: GPA 4.0 in either math or reading for 2 consecutive years (need clarity around transfers), 3 consecutive NWEA MAP tests of 95% or above. 

·       Have to be at least 1 year ahead on math OR reading in order to qualify for a skip in that subject.

·       Not applicable to Social Studies, Science, only math and reading.

·       Can reverse skip at the end of 1 quarter.

·       Out of district/homeschooled students first have to be enrolled for a year at grade level that they are coming from before acceleration can take place. 

·       No acceleration this 2019-2020 school year. Applications for 2020 acceleration open in January 2020.

·       $35 application fee.

The district presented a deck approximately 30 slides long, that explained the law, the current policy and the policy change, the workflow and timeline for the process, and research about some other districts in the state and their practices to meet the act. It is important to keep in mind that gifted ED hasn’t had a facelift in Chicago in ages. While this policy is probably not perfect, it’s still a gain and a win for some of the Chicago’s gifted and talented. It won’t help everyone or impact everyone. Not every gifted child even needs a skip. But it has the potential to help a lot of people and to create a second path to acceleration beyond the SEES program.

For background info about the act and its history with CPS, see our previous news coverage of this - Part 1 - CPS deferral and Part 2 - Forums.  Contact us to be put on our mailing list to not miss our opinions about this policy - Part 4 and other news.

Disclaimer: The above are all an opinion based on individual understanding of the information presented at a public forum from notes taken during the forum. Please contact us if you find any error so that we can make a correction.