Parents question focus and speed of Madison’s gifted students program
The parents of exceptionally bright students in Madison schools waited 18 years for a plan to raise the academic bar for their children. But now, they’re really getting impatient.
Approved by the Madison school board in August, the district’s new three-year plan for talented and gifted (“TAG”) students already is raising questions from parents about focus and speed. The district’s TAG staff, they note, consists of only 8.5 positions in a district of 24,622 students – and three of those positions are vacant.
“Change of a large system takes time,” said Chris Gomez Schmidt, the mother of three young children who serves on the district’s advisory committee for talented and gifted students. “But I think there’s a lot of families within the system who are frustrated when they see that their students’ needs are not being met. I think that families don’t feel like they have a lot of time to wait.”
The district’s talented and gifted plan, which replaces a 1991 document, will be spelled out for the public Tuesday night in a community forum from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at Hamilton Middle School, 4801 Waukesha St. The forum is meant to make the reforms understandable and “transparent” to the public, said Lisa Wachtel, executive director for teaching and learning for the district.
