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Casting a Wider Net for Giftedness


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Equity & Diversity Leader To Learn From


CASTING A WIDER NET FOR GIFTEDNESS

By Christina A. Samuels — February 22, 2017 8 min read
Casting a Wider Net for Giftedness
Superintendent Walt Griffin and school psychologist Jeanette Lukens are bringing
more diversity to the gifted student population in their Seminole County, Fla.,
school district. (February 22, 2017)


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Seminole County, Fla., schools Superintendent Walt Griffin, along with school
psychologist Jeanette Lukens, are scouting more broadly for talent and bringing
more diversity to the district’s gifted student population. The educators acted
on “alarming data” that showed them that black and Latino students and those
from low-income families were woefully underrepresented in the district’s gifted
education programs. “The greatest way for students to gain success is to be
challenged,” Griffin says. This video was produced as part of Education Week’s
Leaders To Learn From project, recognizing outstanding school district leaders
from around the country. More at http://leaders.edweek.org
Walt Griffin and Jeanette Lukens
Recognized for Leadership in Gifted Education
Expertise:
Gifted Education
Position:
Superintendent and Director, Project ELEVATE
Success District:
Seminole County Public Schools, Sanford, Fla.
Year:
2017
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One of Walt Griffin’s first tasks after he was appointed superintendent of
theSeminole County, Fla., school district in August 2012 was to comb through the
system’s statistics.
“I was going through every piece of data I could imagine,” says Griffin, 57, who
started as a middle school math teacher in Seminole in 1982 and rose through the
ranks of the central Florida district to the top job.

But there was still information on the 67,000-student school system for Griffin
to learn—and to worry him.


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“The gifted data for our district was very, very alarming,” Griffin says.

While the school system’s more affluent elementary schools could boast of dozens
of students who were identified as gifted, the gifted enrollment at some of
Seminole’s poorer schools could be counted on one hand, with fingers left over.


LESSONS FROM THE LEADER

 * Students’ Needs Are Paramount: Schools are frequently tied to student
   placement by their schedule. Build your master schedule around your students’
   needs, always.
 * Advocate for All Students: Look at the data, make the tough decisions, follow
   through, and follow up to ensure excellence and equity for all.
 * Inspect What You Expect: Monitor and address misconceptions and stereotypes
   about gifted students and how you deliver gifted services. Take corrective
   action if you drift off course.

Click here to download a PDF version of the Lessons From the Leader.



“We’re a district that prides ourselves on equity and excellence,” Griffin says.
“At the end of the day, we have to be advocates for all people.”

Less than a year after Griffin took the helm, the school system launched an
initiative to scout more broadly and bring more diversity to its gifted student
population. To lead the effort, he tapped Jeanette Lukens, a district school
psychologist with her own passion for identifying talent in underserved
populations.

In 2015, Seminole County, in partnership with the University of Central Florida,
was awarded a five-year, $2.4 million federal grant to support its work—dubbed
Project ELEVATE—to expand gifted education to a broader base of students.
ELEVATE, short for “English Learner Excellence eVolving through Advanced Teacher
Education,” reflects the program’s focus on training teachers to better
recognize potential giftedness.





Seminole was the only school district to receive a grant through the Jacob K.
Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Program in 2015; funds through the
program are more commonly awarded to university researchers. If funded for the
full five years, Project ELEVATE will expand in Seminole County to seven
additional schools, including two middle schools.

Walt Griffin and Jeanette Lukens
Eve Edelheit for Education Week



Too often, it’s easy to look at students in lower-performing schools and think
only of remediation, Griffin says.

“The greatest way for students to gain success is to be challenged,” Griffin
says. “You have to be very careful in remedial courses to make sure you’re not
lowering the bar.”

Making a Difference

So far, the district’s efforts to bring more underrepresented students into
gifted education have focused around five highly diverse Title I elementary
schools, says Lukens, 37. While the district’s population of black students
averages about 15 percent in its elementary schools, black student enrollment at
the five schools ranges from about 31 to 56 percent.

The district’s population of English-language learners in elementary schools is
around 8 percent, compared to 10 to 21 percent in the Project ELEVATE schools.
And the schools also have a high population of economically disadvantaged
students: 76 to 95 percent, compared to the district’s overall average of 52
percent in its elementaries.





At those five schools, gifted enrollment has risen from 62 students in September
2013 to 168 as of last June—hard evidence that the initiative is making a
difference, Lukens says. Across the district, the share of low-income and black
and Hispanic students who are identified as gifted has been trending upward.

The proportion of Hispanic students identified as gifted has risen from 10
percent of the overall gifted student enrollment to 14 percent. For black
students, the share has risen from 4 percent to 6 percent, while the proportion
of poor students who are identified grew from 22 percent to 34 percent between
2013 and 2016.

White students made up 66 percent of the gifted elementary student population in
2013 and 58 percent in 2016. Though the number of white gifted students
increased by nearly 200 students over that time frame, their share of the
overall gifted population decreased. Asian or Pacific Islander elementary gifted
students held relatively steady at 11 percent in 2013 and 10 percent in 2016.

The number of Asian gifted elementary students increased by more than 20 in that
three-year time span.

> The greatest way for students to gain success is to be challenged.






Wicklow Elementary, in Sanford, Fla., is one of the schools whose students are
benefitting from the extra attention of Project ELEVATE. When the initiative
began, Wicklow Elementary—highly diverse, with 85 percent of its students
eligible for free and reduced-price lunches—had just three out of about 700
students identified as gifted, says Principal Martina Herndon.

Now, more than 40 children have been identified.





“We try to exclude all of the other elements that often overshadow the
giftedness,” Herndon explains. That means looking beyond students who are the
hand-raisers or the straight-A earners.

“You have to be open-minded and have a panoramic view of a child,” Herndon says.
“Sometimes your view gets so crowded because of [students’] home lives. But that
doesn’t mean they’re not gifted.”

This kind of project would be expected from Griffin and Lukens.

In 1997, Griffin became principal of what was then Lakeview Middle School. The
school system was under a desegregation order from the U.S. Department of
Justice, and Lakeview Middle, with its high population of poor students, was
identified as having vestiges of inequity. “The Justice Department told the
district, ‘Fix it,’ ” Griffin says.

With the help of an “incredible team,” Griffin led the transformation of the
middle school into a pre-International Baccalaureate magnet school that offers
concentrations in fine arts and communications. He was able to hire the school
staff, and eventually oversaw construction of a new facility, now called
Millenium Middle School.

“I learned early on that if you give great teachers great opportunities and
great resources, students will be successful,” Griffin says. “When I put my very
strongest teachers with my most struggling students, those students thrived. And
in a very short time, a school of 900 students that people did not want to
attend had a waiting list.”

Walt Griffin and Jeanette Lukens
Eve Edelheit for Education Week



Lukens, as a school psychologist, had worked in several schools in the county,
and noticed disparities in who was being referred to her for evaluation for
gifted programs.

“One student really stands out in my mind,” Lukens says. It was the first year
of the Project ELEVATE initiative, and she was evaluating a shy 5th-grader at a
school with low gifted enrollment.

“She was remarkable. She had such a high IQ. And, it was bittersweet. That child
had been at that school since kindergarten, and we just missed all those years
servicing her,” Lukens says.

Multiple Pathways

Project ELEVATE’s primary focus is on making sure such children are not missed
any more. Empowering teachers with that knowledge is critical, Lukens says.

“We don’t want a child’s ZIP code to hinder potential recognition of traits,”
she says. And, while the district does screen all 2nd graders for gifted
traits—as many districts are starting to do—that screening still doesn’t capture
all students who may benefit from enriched education, she says.





That’s where teachers’ knowledge becomes so important, and that includes
knocking down stereotypes of what giftedness may look like, she says.

“Children who are gifted are not gifted every moment of the day,” Lukens says.
“They’re going to have strengths and weaknesses, just like everybody else.”

Once children are identified as potentially gifted, they go through additional
evaluation, including IQ testing and other assessments. A score of 130 or above
qualifies students for gifted education.

A “Plan B” pathway offers the district the option of using different criteria
for English-language-learners and students from low-income families. Lukens says
that many of the Project ELEVATE students are qualifying under the usual
pathways.

> Children who are gifted are not gifted every moment of the day. They’re going
> to have strengths and weaknesses, just like everybody else.






The district’s work is not about identifying those diamonds in the rough and
then separating them from their peers. Project ELEVATE has allowed each school
to have its own gifted education teacher who, in addition to working directly
with gifted students, is also in charge of creating schoolwide enrichment
programs.

That has led to activities such as after-school programs where students in the
gifted program, as well as those who have not been formally identified, can
explore academic subjects in depth.





“It’s a safe place for them to explore and ask questions,” Lukens says. “I think
it’s important for the students to see there are children who are bright and who
are from their community, and when we began this project it was few and far
between.”

Enrichment Opportunities

The district has also taken students to visit the University of Central Florida,
to get a taste of college life. “They’re seeing that this is an actual path for
them, something beyond high school is real, and they can see it and touch it,”
Lukens says.

The district has also paid for teachers throughout the county—not just those in
Project ELEVATE schools—to get an endorsement in gifted education.

The focus on elementary enrichment is a logical progression to other work the
district has undertaken at the middle and high school level, Griffin says.

For example, the district’s ePathways program allows middle and high school
students to create a customized learning plan that includes virtual courses,
traditional face-to-face classes and a wide range of options for acceleration.
“It’s all about students finding their passions,” Griffin says.





Griffin also sits down with each principal in the district yearly to talk about
academic enrichment opportunities for students.

He and his executive team also receive monthly status updates on the initiative.

“It’s become a ‘feel-good’ for us, because Jeanette is doing such a phenomenal
job,” he says of Lukens.

When he told Lukens what he wanted to see in gifted elementary identification,
“She started formulating within hours what needed to happen. She understands the
data, and she has the skill set to articulate changes as a result of the data
that she’s seeing.”

Says Lukens, “I feel really fortunate to work in a district that is really open
to trying for new things. If it’s best for kids, they’re open to that.”

Christina A. Samuels
Senior Writer/Editor,  Education Week
Christina Samuels formerly covered educational equity for Education Week.
Related Tags:
Equity Gifted Education District Leadership Superintendents

Coverage of leadership, expanded learning time, and arts learning is supported
in part by a grant from The Wallace Foundation, at www.wallacefoundation.org.
Education Week retains sole editorial control over the content of this coverage.
A version of this article appeared in the February 22, 2017 edition of Education
Week

Walt Griffin and Jeanette Lukens
Recognized for Leadership in Gifted Education
Expertise:
Gifted Education
Position:
Superintendent and Director, Project ELEVATE
Success District:
Seminole County Public Schools, Sanford, Fla.
Year:
2017



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