If your child qualifies for the HCC (“Highly Capable Cohort”, previously known as APP) program at the Lincoln School in Wallingford, you have just a few weeks to sign up for a tour to see if it’s a good fit: there are tours next Wednesday 2/25 and Monday 3/2. You can sign-up here.
According to the Seattle Public Schools Advanced Learning page, the HCC program:
- Serves students identified through district testing as Highly Capable, which typically includes cognitive scores at or above the 98th percentile and achievement scores at or above the 95th.
- Offers deep, complex and/or accelerated curricula.
- Offers the Highly Capable Cohort — self-contained classrooms in core subjects for students.
Admission to the program starts with cognitive testing through the school or a private tester, but the school notes that a particular score is not an absolute qualifier or disqualifier from the program, and that teacher evaluation is an “important consideration” as well.
What’s surprising to me, given the nominal 98th percentile cut-off for the program, is the claim made here that “Per Rachel Cassidy, the District demographer, [11%] of Seattle Public School students in grades 6 to 8 living in the McClure, Whitman, Hamilton, and Eckstein attendance areas are enrolled in middle school APP.”
That number is a bit of a head-scratcher: how can 11% of the kids be in the top 2%, even given the consideration of teacher evaluations?
Now, maybe the kids in the districts around these attendance areas are smarter than the kids in Seattle in general, but that would surprise me. Maybe they test better. That wouldn’t surprise me.
Or maybe the parents in these areas are more aggressive about pursuing testing, and pushing the school district when they’re on the cusp. That also wouldn’t surprise me.
Whatever, don’t try asking the school district about it. A simple phone call to find out when tours are were met with rude, shouting responses by their staff.
All the children are above average?
Sigh, everytime this stat comes up, someone raises that issue. The top 2% is from all children across the country — not the top 2% of those in Seattle. Seattle has a very high rate of phds. I guess it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that children of smart people might also be smart. And maybe, we have more kids above average than some town in the middle of the country. The claim about parents gaming the system, I guess might be right, though I know plenty of parents who had their kids privately tested and they did not get in.
The John Stanford principal mentioned in an email last week that John Stanford is now qualified to offer HCC services. So far as I know John Stanford is not offering these services this year, so I don’t know how this will work. But, it should reduce the dilemma some JSIS parents face of deciding between HC and language immersion.
You asked: “How can 11% of the [Seattle Public Schools] kids be in the top 2% [Statewide]…?”
If you look at the demographics statewide it actually isn’t surprising that 11% of kids in Seattle might score in the top 2% statewide.