Schools struggle to serve their gifted students

As Sisters educators struggle to serve each student with shrinking resources, some parents are concerned that the district's best and brightest are getting short shrift.

Oregon schools identify students as "Talented and Gifted" (TAG) starting as early as kindergarten, based mainly on performance on tests. Those students are supposed to get enhanced programs to keep them challenged and to allow them to pursue interests on a more intensive level.

There are currently 126 TAG students in the Sisters School District, evenly divided between the elementary, middle and high schools.

While the schools do offer program enhancement, some parents of TAG students think it's not enough.

Merry Ann Moore, the parent of two elementary school TAG students, volunteers to help with advanced programs. She believes the school district -- like the educational establishment throughout the state and the nation -- focuses far more attention on "special education" students than on TAG kids.

"Special education gets all the money and attention," she said. "The TAG students are left on their own. They really do deserve the same resources and attention as a special-needs student and they don't get it."

The school district received $154,739 in federal money directly targeted for special education students in 2003-04 (serving approximately 114 students). The district also received some $583,452 in additional per-student state funding.

That money goes into the general fund and can be used in ways that help special needs students but also benefit general education (for example, reducing class sizes).

In the same year, $117,000 went to TAG, all from the school district's general fund, not from targeted state or federal funds.

Those funds cover part-time TAG coordinator positions at all three schools; pays some administrative costs; funds enrichment programs; and supports teacher salaries for honors classes at Sisters High School.

Everyone involved with TAG acknowledges that those funds don't go very far and represent far less financial support than that given to special education.

For Moore and some other TAG parents, it's a question of equity. She says she doesn't want to see anything taken away from special education; she wants more resources for all students to be educated to the highest level possible.

Moore noted that TAG kids are not just the "good kids" who will do well regardless of the program that's offered them. TAG students are "special needs" students too, Moore argues, and failing to serve them adequately can put them at risk.

The students can get bored and disengage from school, looking for their stimulation elsewhere -- sometimes in dangerous places, getting involved with drugs and alcohol or risky behavior.

"Many of them don't just muddle through," Moore said.

There is little argument on the subject from educators. Those most intimately involved in Sisters' TAG program acknowledge that more could be done -- if the district had more resources.

Elementary school Principal Tim Comfort, who serves as TAG coordinator for the district, said the most difficult commodity to come by is time for teachers to plan work for each TAG student.

Teachers, especially at the elementary school and middle school, work with diverse classrooms filled with individual students with specific needs.

And Sisters School District is philosophically committed to meeting all those needs.

"Our first mission is to serve all kids," Comfort said.

At the elementary school, a part-time TAG coordinator provides some instructional assistance and coordinates an enrichment lab that allows students to delve deeply into areas in which they have special interests and passions.

TAG coordinators across the district monitor TAG students and help steer them into the right academic programs.

But Comfort acknowledges that a full-time TAG coordinator at each school could make a big difference. A full-time TAG coordinator could tailor a complete curriculum for students, leaving busy teachers free to apply it. A full-time coordinator could also spend more time connecting students with mentors in the community -- a program that is underway on a limited scale in the district.

However, those ambitions founder on the hard rock of budget reality.

According to Comfort, creating a full-time TAG coordinator position at each of Sisters' three schools would cost the district an additional $105,000 -- $35,000 for each school -- almost doubling the budget.

In a time of budget cuts, when the school board and administrators are contemplating lopping days off the calendar and cutting staff and programs, more money is just not available.

That leaves the nitty-gritty work of TAG enrichment dependent on volunteers.

"The TAG program at the elementary school is only as good as the parent volunteers are -- and as willing as they are," Moore said.

TAG parents and school administrators met Monday night, April 19, to try to figure out how to improve TAG service on a shoestring that is going to be cut shorter next year.

Some of the ideas Moore and others have been pursuing include political activism to try to secure more state and federal resources for TAG; possibly developing a privately funded, tuition program; and increasing the number of volunteers available to help.

Moore believes lack of emphasis on TAG programs is a national problem and a symptom of a system that sets the educational bar way too low.

"Where are our priorities as a nation?" she asks. "It's very apparent it's the middle and below."