Thank you for visiting St. Johns Gifted. Please read our About page to understand the purpose of the site. If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

First Coast news just ran a story about the potential for the district to end out-of-zone busing. The link below will take you to the article, and from there you can watch the video.

District To Consider Not Busing Students Out of School Zones

The article provides a high-level summary of the background and issues, and profiles a CCE PACE student’s situation. If you’re unaware or have not involved yourself in this issue you can get a start at FCN.

We just discovered that Switzerland Point Middle School has a long-time blog, located on the district’s server: Raider Rap

It appears to be updated weekly and has the same content you would find in a school newsletter. Just an interesting resource if your child will be moving up to SPMS next year and you want to get a sense for the school’s culture.

There has been considerable e-mail traffic since last week’s post about gifted funding in Florida. The point of the article and report referenced was regarding the lack of tracking regarding gifted funding. Neither the article, the report, nor our post made any assertions regarding funding for gifted programs being allocated elsewhere. The key point was that there is no way to tell whether funds intended for gifted programs are being used for this purpose.

School districts receive a sum of money each year for ESE, gifted included. Although the legislature allocates a lump sum for gifted programs that gets included in this ESE funding, the funds are not designated for specific programs or exceptionalities when they are received by districts. Therefore, there is no requirement to track and report the spending at the detailed level.

If anyone has additional insight into this process, feel free to comment below. As we examine each of these issues together, greater understanding will emerge.

Taking a tour of the various web pages for gifted services in St. Johns County, and I’m struck by how several have improved. Here’s a quick review:

Cunningham Creek’s PACE website is really looking great! There are links to the teacher’s pages as well as the forms parents need to get their children into CCE’s full-time PACE classes, and it is being updated regularly (more frequently than this site!). Checking several of the teacher’s pages, they appear to be updated and should provide a glimpse into the daily curriculum of each class.

The St. Johns County School District Gifted website is providing a more detailed overview than it did a few months ago, about which we were critical. More information is always better, and more specific information with regard to standard curriculum by grade for PACE would solve the biggest need for information that we see in our search engine traffic.

The Webster School’s PACE website has always been an informative, and well-designed, website, also with links to teacher’s pages so parents can get a sense for what curriculum is like in PACE.

Wards Creek Elementary, Crookshank Elementary, Julington Creek Elementary, have posted a note about the gifted services that will be offered at the school next year. Liberty Pines Elementary (K-8) has also posted the same note, and included an expectation that more information about gifted services will be ready by March. Hoepfully we’ll see these schools, and especially the schools not listed, provide more information about their gifted programs as it is developed given the recent changes to provide gifted services in students’ home schools.

Brandee Eburn with the Cunningham Creek PACE PASS sent this article about the lack of transparency in gifted expenditures by school districts.

The editorial reports that auditors found widespread issues with school districts accounting for the funds received from the state for each gifted student. The state provides an additional $2,298 per gifted student, in addition to the basic funding for each student.

The full report can be read here.

“A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many bad measures.”

- Daniel Webster

Dr. Joyner, Superintendent of St. Johns County School District, was quoted in an article in the Orlando Sentinel regarding efforts to ease the class size amendment. The article reports that lawmakers are preparing to push for changes to ease the requirement in the coming year that each class has a maximum number of students, rather than allowing the schools to use average class size as the compliance metric.

Unintended Consequences: Class Size

It is fair to say that an unintended consequence of the class size amendment is the placement of emphasis on numbers versus effectiveness. Under the current requirements, an individual class can go below the class-size target and “make up” for another class that might be over the class-size amendment. This allows administrators to provide more individualized instruction for students - an 8th-grade remedial math class can have 18 students because an honors class has 26 students. If forced to achieve the class-size requirements in each class, students of differing abilities will be lumped together making individual instruction all but impossible.

A class-size requirement is necessary to prevent school boards and administrators from packing classes according to room size. As a student in Florida schools in the 70’s and 80’s, I distinctly remember high school classes of 35+ students and teachers unable to recall names, much less needs. But a balance is also required that allows today’s administrators the flexibility to configure class size and teacher assignments according the needs of the students. Today’s standard of allowing schools to calculate class size by average seems to achieve the best balance between size vs. needs.

Please contact your legislators to let them know you’d like to see Administrators retain this flexibility:

State Senate

State Senator - District 1
(904) 924-1646
Anthony Hill - DEM Election: 2008
5600 New Kings Rd. #5
Jacksonville, FL 32209
hill.anthony.web@flsenate.gov

State Senator - District 5
(904) 381-6000
Stephen R. Wise - REP Election: 2008
1460 Cassat Ave. Suite B
Jacksonville, FL 32205
wise.stephen.web@flsenate.gov

State Senator - District 8
(904) 727-3600
Jim King - REP Election: 2010
9485 Regency Square Blvd. #108
Jacksonville, FL 32225
king.james.web@flsenate.gov

State House

State Representative - District 18
(904) 247-4040
Don Davis - REP Election: 2008
2320 S. 3rd St. Suite #3
Jacksonville Bch, FL 32250
don.davis@myfloridahouse.gov

State Representative - District 19
(904) 213-3005
Dick Kravitz - REP Election: 2008
155 Blanding Blvd. #10
Orange Park, FL 32073
dick.kravitz@myfloridahouse.gov

State Representative - District 20
(904) 823-2550
Bill Proctor - REP Election: 2008
900 S.R. 16, Suite #2
St. Augustine, FL 32084
bill.proctor@myfloridahouse.gov

In case it was missed, there is a brochure for PACE put together by Janet Noack. The brochure will be sent home in the Tuesday folders for students at Cunningham Creek Elementary. While created for CCE, the process will be the same for all PACE-eligible students in the district so if you’d like a succinct roadmap for qualifying your child for the PACE program, this is an excellent resource.

We’ve made the brochure available through our download page.

As promised in yesterday’s post about potential changes to PACE in St. Johns County, we’ll provide an analysis of our efforts to communicate and promote gifted education in St. Johns County.

First, you will notice a pretty big change in the website - we decided to do an overhaul to bring to the home page the information and links visitors formerly had to navigate deeper into the site to find. Please let us know what you think.

Second, we believe in what in industry is called Integrated Market Communications, meaning the utilization of multiple communications channels working in support of a common objective. We regard this website as one piece of this strategy, and we try to support other channels by providing linkage and helping to spread the word about gifted education in St. Johns County. No two people access information in the same way, so it is important to have diverse channels such as brochures, fliers, message boards, word-of-mouth, teacher and school websites, and the district’s website. This is why we provide links to those sites we consider to be valuable, as well as re-publish the header and links for the CCE Yahoo Group messages - if you click through any message in the category “Asides”, you will find it takes you to the source at Yahoo. If other parent groups would like their message traffic available through this website, you will have to make an RSS feed available by making your group public.

Since publicly launching St. Johns Gifted in early October, we’ve seen the following traffic:

Unique Visitors: 415

Visits: 1688

Pageviews: 5933

Google was responsible for 133 of these visitors, a bit more than 30%, with the remainder coming from other search engines, incoming links, and referrals from emails. Given that the nature of the site has such a narrow audience (stakeholders in gifted education in St. Johns County), we’re surprised at the number of hits from search engines.

Digging deeper, we find stjohnsgifted.org ranked for some fairly predictable search terms, as follows:

st johns county pace resource - 1

st johns pace program - 1

st johns gifted information - 1

st johns gifted info - 1

florida st johns gifted programs - 1

cunningham creek pace - 1

cunningham creek gifted - 1

pace program st johns county schools - 2

st johns school district gifted - 2

st johns school district pace - 2

It appears that stjohnsgifted.org ranks ahead of the District and school websites unless the words “district” or “school” are included in the search query. While it is satisfying to see we’ve built a site that that is gaining in authority in the eyes of the search engines, the fact is that the District and each school’s websites SHOULD be the authority sites for all of these search terms. We are independent; while we are supportive of the district’s communication efforts with regard to gifted education, this will probably not be the case in every issue related to PACE. Fortunately for us, and unfortunately for the district and the schools, stjohnsgifted.org is likely to be the first stop of parents searching for information.

We are not web professionals; we are hobbyists, and this site receives a microscopic share of our attention. We did this because we worked smarter, not harder, and if the district is serious about its communication efforts, it will need to do the same. In examining the district site, we find a number of simple optimization techniques that are being ignored as well as a lack of regular updates, a key to maintaining a leading position in the search engines.

Parents are obviously looking for this information, as our analysis shows. Hopefully, the district will examine its communications strategy and make the necessary adjustments to provide the same leadership in promotion of PACE that it provides in the classroom. In the meantime, we’ll continue our efforts to communicate and promote gifted education in St. Johns County and urge you to promote gifted education to your neighbors and friends.

A meeting was held at Cunningham Creek Elementary, previously scheduled by the CCE PACE PASS group, to address rumors and concerns about upcoming changes to PACE in St. Johns County School District. Administrators from CCE and Ms. Martha Mickler, Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Learning were in attendance. Following are key points from the meeting:

Key Takeaways:

• No decisions have been made. Discussions are occurring amongst the principals regarding providing gifted services at students’ home schools.
• The superintendent has notified the school board of the possibility of canceling all “courtesy busing” of out-of-area students. Budget shortfalls and the prospect of further revenue decreases as a result of the proposed property tax amendment are being blamed.
• Ms. Wierda, CCE Learning Leader, committed to providing full-time gifted services to students currently in the full-time gifted classes. Gifted services would include a gifted-endorsed teacher and gifted students, supplemented by high-achieving students to make class-size minimums.
• Further meetings are planned and there is a commitment to an open process.

Key Parental Concerns:

• “Courtesy busing” is a misnomer.Transportation is necessary for students to have access to the educational services required in their IEP (Individual Education Plan), and should be the last service cut, not the first.
• If out-of-area students are forced to return to their home-zone schools, class-size minimums may not be met forcing cancellation of full-time gifted services.
• Communication, information, and promotion of PACE from the district has been inadequate. The district website has little specific information about PACE, and response times from district personnel are inconsistent.**
• While there is a commitment at CCE to provide full-time gifted services to those students already participating in a full-time gifted class, that commitment was not extended to students identified as gifted in the future.

Next Steps:

• More meetings are planned amongst the principals for more discussion of the matter.
• CCE PACE PASS planning next meeting for January to get updates on the process.

Not Covered:

• The role of FCAT/NCLB as a driver in the decision-making process (are principals seizing an opportunity to bring high-achieving students back to home schools for statistical reasons?)
• The role of parental input in the formal budget approval process - open meetings, public comment, etc.

**Note: We have not had this experience personally, and find school and district personnel generally responsive. Regarding the availability and promotion of gifted services in St. Johns County, we will present an analysis of our web-related efforts in our next post.

Those who are not members of the CCE PACE PASS message board may not be aware of the most recent issue associated with gifted education in St. Johns County.

The principals of the elementary schools have apparently made the decision that PACE will no longer be supported as a cluster program, and will instead move back to each neighborhood school. What is not clear at this point is why this decision has been made (desire to retain high-achieving students for FCAT/NCLB statistics?), and if the decision is final and binding. There are a number of issues associated with this decision:

1. Transportation will no longer be provided to students to continue to attend classes at their current out-of-area school.
2. Given that some grades have difficulty defining enough students to warrant full-time classes, what happens when students move back to their home schools and class sizes go below minimum requirements?
3. If this decision is final, why was the GAC not involved? There was no mention of this possibility in the minutes to the GAC meeting just last month.
4. If the decision is final, why wasn’t the school board involved? Beverly Slough had no knowledge of this matter until approached by parents.

While the idea of providing gifted services in every school is admirable, the reality is that there needs to be a critical mass of students identified as gifted in each grade in order to warrant a full time class in each grade. The elimination of clustering gifted services will make it much more difficult to achieve these minimum class size requirements and force gifted students back to classrooms that move at a slower pace.

Parents of PACE children can attend the next PACE PASS meeting on November 29 (Thursday) at 6:30 p.m. in the PACE portable at Cunningham Creek Elementary. Hopefully, administrators will attend to explain the impact of this decision and how it affects their commitment to full time gifted education.

We urge everyone to attend.