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KINGSTON — A group of parents peppered the Wyoming Valley West School Board with questions about the fate of the Chester Street Elementary School gifted program during Wednesday’s meeting, but board members repeatedly reassured them no decision has been made, and none will be, without getting their input.
For the last few years the board has bandied ideas about what to do with aging schools, including the possibility of changing how gifted education is handled in grades one through five. For decades gifted students were brought to Chester Street for a stand-alone program, even as that practice disappeared elsewhere. WVW is the only district in the state to still have such a stand-alone gifted school; other schools deliver gifted programs in the student’s home school.
Parents voiced concerns that the board would make a decision without talking to them, something Board President Joe Mazur and other members repeatedly said will not happen. Parents also suggested that declining enrollment in the gifted program may be the district’s fault for not publicizing it, or for relying too heavily on results of gifted tests. They noted state law allows considering other factors in making the decision.
Pressed for a meeting with the parents, Mazur said the board will try to arrange something in the next few weeks, and promised letters would be sent to all parents of gifted students.
After the meeting, Superintendent Irv DeRemer offered the enrollment numbers for the gifted students by grade at Chester Street, and the number of regular education students in the same grade at the school. The gap is widest in first grade: DeRemer said there were only six gifted students in one classroom, while “across the hall” there were 24 regular education first grade students.
The smallest gap was in fifth grade with 12 gifted and 19 regular education students. All told, the school has 52 gifted students in five grades.
There was a time years ago, DeRemer added, there were as many as 40 students in each grade, broken up by state law to no more than 20 gifted students in a room.
DeRemer also said the gifted class teachers did sit down “about a year ago” and design a brochure to explain the program to parents, and that a student can get tested for the gifted program any time a teacher or guidance counselor recommends it. He noted that if a student doesn’t pass the district test, a parent can get an outside test and still get in as long as it’s not the same test the district used.
DeRemer said that while the fate of Chester Street is on the table, it is not a high priority. Other issues with buildings require more immediate attention, including a new roof on the middle school that could cost about $1 million, according to one rough estimate..
Ultimately, he said, the gifted education question is not about providing the service, which he said will always be done, but “about the delivery.”