On Wednesday, June 26th, during the first meeting of the new, Mayor Lightfoot appointed Chicago Public School Board, Chicago Public Schools passed the Accelerated Placement Act. First of all, a huge thanks to IAGC Policy Committee and the whole organization, CGCC, Midwest Gifted, and all the advocates across the state for making this happen. Thanks to the new board, for listening. And thanks to CPS administration, for doing a huge amount of work to make this happen.

The meeting was in a first of its kind format where the issues are presented and discussed by the board in front of the constituents in the board room before public comment could be made. And, there was a bit of drama. They didn’t seem to like the Accelerated Placement Policy. But because of the format, we were able to have a chance to respond to the board comments as well and rework our advocacy speech to address those concerns. As the only representation from the public for the Accelerated Placement Act, we felt it had better be a good one, and it worked. Some quick notes that we know you want:

Accelerated Placement Guidelines are coming between tonight and Monday.
Starting on Monday, eligible families that will be notified via email, will be able to fill out a paper application for early K, if the child turns 5 before December 31, at multiple locations.
We learned (and updated our previous post) that the K IQ requirement is dropped to 120 or 91%. Now, 2,000 - 2,500 potential students are eligible for evaluation for early K, data previously not available about the change’s scope. Slides below show the scope by district. However, if we look at the CPS numbers provided in the forums for how many children choose early 1st grade, the number for submitted applications is actually tiny - 21 last year and 37 the year before and there are no numbers as to how many were actually granted - again, the numbers in the slides are applications not acceptances. So, in our humble opinion, the new policy will help about 40 kids a year or less, and to CPS it is a wash - they are then going to be done already and not apply in 1st instead. So, the net number of served children may actually be close to 0 in 2 years.

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Below are the slides from today’s presentation, as well as videos, containing the latest policy, which will hopefully be documented in the guideline and available online in the next 72 hours. We will link to it here once it’s posted.

Photos of slides at board meeting: You can see our Final Draft CPS AP Policy for details - nothing changed there in the last 48 hours. That link, Final Draft CPS AP Policy also has more detail, and we will share the official guide once it is posted. Videos of the entire presentation, discussion, and advocacy are below the photos.

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Videos:

Presentation of the final draft of the Accelerated Placement Act by Dr. Alvarado, head of teaching and learning, to the newly appointed CPS Board. 14 minutes.

Board Discusses Accelerated Placement Act and asks questions. 10 scary minutes.

30 seconds in, we hear that CPS felt that the Act was passed as a surprise by the outgoing governor/as if CPS was blindsided. States CPS needs more guidelines from the state but the nature of what’s desired is unclear.
2 min in, we hear that CPS lobbied against this legislation.
4:23 min in, someone calls the law an unfunded mandate. It isn’t. The cost benefit analysis yields about a 25K savings (infrastructure+instructional per pupil allocation per year) because the pupil will attend school for 1 year less.
minute 6, they explain only 100 kids would qualify in grades 3-6 for acceleration and it’s unclear as to why this would be deferred to 2020 if the number is so small.

Our presentation in support of the Accelerated Placement Policy. 2 minutes.

Whoa, isn’t MAGE a private school? First and foremost, we are a parent and teacher founded, not for profit community for gifted children and their families in the City of Chicago. We advocate, because we know gifted. If we don’t advocate, who will? Did you show up to this meeting to do it and give up your day? We sure did. We sat through the board’s first, break-less, food-less 8 hour board meeting to get this done. Is it perfect? No. But it passed, and that’s the most important thing. Something is better than nothing and now there is a chance that 2500 children will be served this year. Just about 10 thousand more to go. Much work to do especially around equity. We will be posting something in the next few weeks about equity.

But, in the meantime, this is a huge step for the children of Chicago. Even the OTHER private schools may have to copy this one. As for us, grade skipping is the bottom of the barrel when it comes to acceleration. Gifted kids learn 18-21 months OR MORE per 12 months. We telescope, compact, etc. We don’t even look at it that way. We simply meet your child where they are, and take them to the next level, at their pace, full differentiation, in a very small student/teacher ratio. So, if they are behind in reading by 1 year and ahead in math by 5, or at grade level, or 2 years ahead globally, that’s where we start, at their pace, with you as our equal decision making partner when it comes to your child’s learning speed. Kids learn through 1:1 or 1:small group instruction, with lots of project based, experiential, and real life connection learning. And have plenty of play time and time outside. Our teachers are well qualified to teach your gifted child. And we don’t do social and emotional learning as a little burst. It’s always on. It’s in fact our top priority. Is your child happy, engaged, and invested in their own learning? Can you send all your kids to the same CPS gifted school for K12? See, we are here for all those reasons and more. If CPS and the surrounding suburbs ever put us out of business, we will be quite glad. Because that would be an amazing win for all. Besides, we could never fit the thousands and thousands of the city’s gifted in our small school. We love as many options as possible for all the gifted in the greater metro area. They are underserved.

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