School District Looks to Compromise on Gifted Program Changes

Though the school board has yet to approve it, Three Village school superintendent Cheryl Pedisich on Thursday discussed a compromise on the intellectually gifted and Pi programs that she said takes into account parent suggestions the district received at the recent meeting regarding the future of those programs.

"We are coming up with an alternative proposal," Pedisich said. "That would give the students in the current fourth- and fifth-grade IG program at Mount an opportunity to continue in that program so that we would not disrupt those children. Pi [students] would be given opportunity to continue in that program."

Whereas the district was originally planning to relocate current fourth- and fifth-grade IG students back to their own neighborhood schools and create blended Pi/IG classrooms, under the new proposal, those students would remain at Mount Elementary.

Also under the new proposal, a fourth-grade IG/Pi program will be initiated at each neighborhood elementary school in the new school year so those students won't need to be transported to Mount Elementary.

Pedisich said "very consistent and uniform criteria" would be developed for students' selection into the enriched class.

"Those students would be given an enriched curriculum by a teacher who is trained in working with students who are very able learners," she said. "It would have to follow the common core as would be required by state education. ... It would be a highly enriched curriculum."

School board vice president Jonathan Kornreich asked whether the administration has laid out a specific plan for how the program would look in its final iteration, but Pedisich said the district hasn't developed that yet.

"We will certainly do that," she said. "At this point we would be working with all of the teachers who would be delivering the program."

Kornreich said he is "not comfortable with initiating phase out without the idea of what we’re phasing into."

However, board president Dr. Jeff Kerman summed it up this way: "Any change is going to engender some working out to make it better."