News-Record.com

Hopefully, Ms. Fellers takes Deena Hayes to task for her despicable comments.

Actually, the editorial focuses more on whether there's validity to Hayes' complaints about interaction and diversity.

Good for Tracie Fellers. Spending half a day at Lincoln is more than Deena has EVER done. And I hope Tracie is black. Deena doesn't hear or read anything from white folk.

I have changed my mind about the VSN program. My son is also a very strong student. He has to sit next to children who are not as strong as him so why should the privelidged few of the VSN sit in their segregated haven? They need diversity.

Allen,

I applaude Ms. Fellers ability to look beyond the numbers at the impact the VSN program has on the kids both in and out of the program. She echoes what the VSN parents try to convey to the BOE and administration every couple of years when an attempt is made to change the VSN program for reasons other than improving academic rigor.

Now, we get to wait for the outcome of Dr. Zhang's study on the effectiveness and costs of the VSN program. Anyone taking bets?

Dear Deenasrite:

The school system should do better by your son and should challenge him more. Every student should have the opportunity to reach his or her maximum potential. It's hard to see, however, how eliminating the VSN program would benefit your son or anyone else. The solution seems to be to provide more opportunities like this, not fewer.

As today's editorial indicates, the VSN program may also have positive spillovers for other students. If it benefits the children who are in it AND benefits those around them, why eliminate it? This seems like a win-win program and one of the bright spots on the GCS educational landscape.

Dear Deenasrite: If your child has very strong academice needs (as defined by GCS) than he qualifies and can attend the VSN program at Lincoln, provided he is in grades 4-8. VSN is open to any GCS student who qualifies regardless of race or ethnicity. As the numbers published in today's article indicate, there is racial diversity in the VSN program.

If you choose not to participate in the VSN program at Lincoln than your districted school is obligated to provide your child with services as part of the Advanced Learner program, however your child would receive pull-out services only 1-2 times per week in a given subject. For most VSN students, this is inadequate to fully challenge them. Also, my personal findings are that the level of services varies greatly depending on the school and the AL facilitator at that school. If you're very lucky, your child will be placed with a teacher who can provide additional differentiated services to your child, but again there is a wide range of inconsistency from classroom to classroom as teachers may not have any experience or training in gifted edcuation. We were very fortunate to have a first grade teacher at our districted school who did just that for our daughter. Unfortunately, her second grade teacher was not able to provide that differentiation which is why we were very thankful to learn about the VSN level of service.

VSN provides an economy of scale by taking the top academic students from across GCS and placing them in one location thereby centralizing services and staff. At other schools, services may be limited because there aren't enough students to form a class or the principal and staff may not be as knowledgeable or supportive of these services. Differentiated means that these students learn differently and require different (not better) methods of teaching (just as students labeled "special needs" require differentiated services. This requires experience and training by staff and a lot of support from the local and county staff and board members. Unfortunately this support is spotty at best since decisions seem to place a higher priority on "racial balancing" rather than academic needs of students. If GCS spent half the time they do focusing on real educational issues rather than these periphery issues I am confident that every student would benefit. (This is one of the reasons I encourage every student to be labeled "multi-racial")

Our VSN children are exposed to a wide range of diverse students, teachers, and experiences. I would ask that anyone visit Lincoln to see what is happening prior to making a judgement.

I also encourage you to question why any student at any level of academic performance should be placed in an environment where he or she is kept from reaching his or her full potential.

Allen,

From what I read of the report, Ms. Sellers seems to debunk Deena Hayes' concept of the VSN program and how it fits in at Lincoln. Apparently, the mingling is beneficial to all students, and all students benefit from having the VSN program there. We will await Deena's apology for her uninformed and inappropriate remarks addressed to those parents and students of VSN. Looks like Deena stepped into it again without looking.

Perhaps, next time she will do her job as a member of the BOE, for which she was elected, rather than one of a racial activist.

Allen,

Thank you for listening to the VSN parents and doing your own investigation to confirm that the VSN program at Lincoln is not a separate "school within a school" but rather a well functioning school which seems to be a positive learning environment for all students. We ought to be examining the reasons why this school seems to function so well and recapitulate what we learn into other schools and programs. The true tragedy here is that time and effort has to be spent refuting Ms. Hayes incorrect statements shrouded in racially charged language. This tactic keeps everyone from asking what is Ms. Hayes doing to help the three low performing schools in her district?

Biotekboy

PS- If I can work a carpool for soccer practice, I will meet you for a glass of wine at The Press on the ides of March.

Hope you can work out the carpool, Biotek. There'll be plenty of room.
Question now is how we ID ourselves. Maybe we can have name tags.

I, too, applaud the article. It's nice to see statements born from fact & eyewitness vs. clouded speculation & racist hearsay. GCS can and should be proud of its VSN program in its current undiluted form.

Congratulations & thank you, Tracie Fellers!

Michael Pope

P.S. jwg, I hope we're pleasantly surprised by the effectiveness / costs study!

Allen,

The fact that Lincoln has the VSN program, several Magnet Programs (Global Studies & Performing Arts) and districted children all getting the education they need and deserve along with positive interactions is not surprising if you know anything about Mr. Boone, the Principal, and the teaching staff. With the wrong person at the helm, Ms. Hayes' worst nightmares would become a dismal reality; with the right person running the show and the proper staffing, Lincoln is a model of how seemingly disparate programs can work for the betterment of all the students. Instead of running it down or working to dismantle it, the powers that be might better examine what is happening at Lincoln so it can be emulated elsewhere in the county.

My congratulations to both Mr. Boone and his teachers for making Lincoln a good place.

Come on, The VSN is a school within a school. Math, English, Science and Social studies are all taught seperately. So what if band is taught together.

In other schools the kids sit together in more subjests. That means a moderate 8th grader can be sitting in a class with a 4th grade reader level kid.

How can a teacher teach in that situation? Thats what goes on in some of our troubled schools. That why ALL kids get affected and end up not learning. Its only allowed to seperate kids like this in the VSN. I think the all classes should be seperated out by "needs" as in the VSN. As it is many schools are heading down the drain. The dumbing down is taking many kids with it.

Nolies,

First, the initial debate centered on Ms. Hayes statements that the VSN was a “school within a school” and that any “mingling” that occurred was exploitive to other students in the school. Many seemed to echo this statement with no data in hand. When challenged if the N&R had actually visited the school to observe not only the VSN program but Lincoln as a whole, Allen Johnson stepped up and sent a reporter to investigate. The results of this investigation were summarized in Sunday’s (2/18) editorial. They found that not only was the VSN program not a school within a school but that the interactions between the VSN program, the Performing Arts program, the Global Studies program and the neighborhood students were beneficial to all and should be examined as to why it is working so well and how can it be emulated in other schools. Your statement, “so what if band is taught together”, is without merit. Yes, the core courses of Language Arts, Math, Science/Social Studies (one or the other depending if it is an A or B day) are separate but in addition to band, foreign language, PE, homeroom and all extracurricular activities involve the entire student body. As I stated previously on this blog and others, when a field trip occurs the entire grade goes not just the VSN classes at that grade. This allows for additional positive interactions to occur among the student population. In addition, certain class projects cut across programs, as pointed out in the editorial, again allowing for positive cooperative learning to occur. Furthermore, if my child was at their districted school, core classes are separated based on academic performance with interactions among other students in the encore and extracurricular activities just like Lincoln.

Second, the question we should all be asking is why do we have a kid in the eighth grade reading at the fourth grade level? The school system in part has failed that kid and a better job needs to be done early on to make sure that child is engaged to learn. I agree with you about the need for more differentiation based on academic strengths and needs. Part of the current problem is a one size fits all mentality where students with different needs are lumped together in one grade level. Not all of these students are at the same educational levels (material already learned and rate of learning) or emotional levels. The current paradigm does not allow for a positive learning environment and as a result a student who is struggling to learn the basics (goal of an EOG 3 or 4) at a particular grade level becomes disengaged and often becomes a behavior issue due to the emotional turmoil that ensues from not “keeping up” with his or her peers.

Finally, unlike our BOE you have correctly pointed out that test scores at many schools in Guilford County are dismally low. Various members of the BOE will often say things like, “Our principals and administrators at (fill in the blank) school are working very hard”, or “We have great teachers at (same school)” or the ever popular, “ I’ve been to (fill in the blank) and it’s a fine school”. Meanwhile, the data shows that half of the kids attending this same school are not passing their EOGs in reading or math. This is not to lay blame with teachers or school administrations however, the first step to retooling our educational system is the BOE admitting that we have a massive problem.

Biotekboy

If only Allen had visted Southwest before passing judgement it might be in a different position.
He might of left the school alone as he seems to be doing with the VSN program. Southwest was already diverse and now it and the rest of High Point become day by day more and more segregated.
Its because we have situations like Nolies states above and the end result is that more people are leaving. Its an impossible situation that any responsible parent finds difficult to stand by and let happen. There are no resources at that school to help the kids that cannot read at grade level. Its sad. Meanwhile many more kids are suffering.

Maybe Allen learned his lesson not to meddle.

Excellent points, very well written, Biotekboy!!

Though I was certainly pleased to see the article supporting the VSN program at Lincoln, I believe Allen's failure to publicly denounce Hayes' harsh & incorrect statements is a conspicuous absence.

Michael Pope

I too applaud biotechboy! You make many valid points and I agree that a good first step for our BOE is for them to get out of denial.

I must also agree with Truth about school visits. Many of our thrown-together-in-the-middle-of-the-night-programs/maps would not be necessary if the BOE stopped trying to fix something that isn't broke and just made a visit to a school.

I must mention Southwest High in that example. If board members had just gone over there BEFORE they voted for a map to gerrymander, they would have realized there was no need.

Now, Andrews sits empty. What now?--that's the ginormous elephant that stands in the room at every board meeting.

The only minor fault I found with the editorial was Ms. Fellers characterization of Ms. Hayes analogy as "unfortunate". I would have used Ms. Hayes own characterization of "deliberate" instead (I believe that she later said "I knew what I was saying when I said it" or words to that effect).

I, too, am still waiting for Allen to render his opinion (although, in his opening blog comment he does state that the editorial reflects the views of the editorial board - as do all unattributed editorials - and gives all credit for the editorial to Ms. Fellers).

OK, Lincoln has diversity. Now prey tell me what does it do for the kids in the rest of the school? How will improve their test scores.

This is one example of many Magnets programs across the County. The ultimate aim is to improve the dis-adavantaged kids education/scores. Somebody tell me how it is going to work. I am stupid, I dont understand.

Can Allen the Counties expert in diversity explain it to me?