CalendarDear Lawton Staff and Families,
I wish you all a joyous holiday season and a much deserved vacation from school! Our kids have worked hard and they deserve to play hard over the next two weeks. I will be traveling to Boston for Christmas to visit my family and I look forward to playing with my niece and nephews and just hanging out with high school friends!
On Monday, December 13th we had a Lawton Community meeting to discuss Spectrum class placements and how Lawton challenges every student. I was very pleased with the turnout of the meeting and with the respectful dialogue that was initiated. Fifteen Lawton Staff members attended the meeting and they read the attached Spectrum Delivery Model at Lawton paper to a group of approximately 60 parents. Handouts included:
a) The letter sent out to our community on November 18th outlining the history of Spectrum at Lawton
b) A staff petition presented to Bob Vaughan and Dr. Susan Enfield last spring proposing that Lawton revert back to a model for class placements that was implemented during the 2007/2008 school year called healthy groupings (I do not have an electronic copy of this petition)
c) An email response from Bob Vaughan acknowledging that Lawton could revert back to the previous model
d) A list of questions submitted by parents regarding class placements and the Spectrum program
Following the short staff presentation, Roger Daniels from the Seattle Public Schools Advanced Learning Department spoke briefly about a cluster grouping approach to class placements of gifted students that helps increase academic achievement for all students in a school.
Next Eric Nelson was introduced as the meeting facilitator and he engaged each table group to discuss and record responses to two questions:
1) What do you like about the plan?
2) What would you like to change about the plan?
Each table group had about 15 minutes to discuss these questions and a Lawton teacher was in each of the small groups to answer questions and share information with the parents, which seemed to be a very valuable exchange of honest and real information. Then one person from each table shared the discussion points out publically. All comments and questions were recorded on chart paper as well as the recording sheets at each table were collected. These recorded comments are attached to this letter, here and here. The meeting ended at approximately 7:45 PM.
Next steps:
- A subcommittee of district leaders, teachers, parents, and potentially students will meet to further discuss and define the implementation plan. Committee members will be selected after consultation with Lawton’s Building Leadership Team
- The committee will review the questions and comments collected from the Dec. 13th meeting
- A second Community Forum will be scheduled in February to communicate the progress of the work of the committee and any developments in the plan
- A goal of this committee will be to draft a detailed document explaining what Spectrum will look like at Lawton and how we will challenge the diverse range of abilities in every class. This committee will work with the BLT to finalize the Spectrum implementation plan at Lawton.
We have heard from you that we must improve our level of communication with our community. This is absolutely a top priority and we welcome your feedback and suggestions in how we can improve.
The topic of class placements of the Spectrum program has been discussed over the last few years at Lawton. It is my intention to better define the Spectrum program at Lawton and to continue refining our instructional practice to meet the needs of all students. The large number of attendees at the Monday night Community Meeting indicates the high level of passion and commitment on the parts of both parents and teachers for our children and our school. It is my strong desire that through honest solution-oriented conversations Lawton can be an even stronger community of thriving children and adults.
Have a fabulous holiday break from school and I look forward to a new year building a stronger more united Lawton community!
Sincerely,
Christine Helm
Principal of Lawton Elementary School
