By Austina De Bonte

January 28, 2022 was a very good day for gifted advocates in Washington state. The legislation that we have been shepherding through the state legislative process for the past five years, in one form or another, finally appears to be on its way to passage. On this sunny Friday, our bill, HB 1611, passed unanimously out of the House Education committee, where similar bills have faltered in the past. There are still many steps left in the process to achieve final passage in the House and Senate, but we are feeling very optimistic.

HB 1611 requires public school districts to universally screen students for accelerated services, known as the “highly capable program” in Washington. All students in a grade level must be screened in or before second grade, and again in or before sixth grade. The bill also requires school districts to conduct any assessments during the school day, at the student’s regular school, thereby disallowing the common practice of testing students for accelerated programs on Saturdays or after school. HB 1611 also greatly enhances state reporting of enrolled highly capable students by demographic groups, improving accountability.

The goal of the bill is to dramatically improve equity of access to highly capable programs. While the Washington state legislature directed school districts to “prioritize equitable identification of low-income students” in 2017, the percentage of low-income students who are identified for highly capable programs has actually gone down slightly since 2014, not up. Other historically underrepresented groups in highly capable programs statewide include students with disabilities, English learners, and students of color. Legislation passed in 2018 mandated other best practices for equity, including using assessments in the student’s native language (or non-verbal tests), limiting the use of subjective data points such as report cards or teacher recommendations, clarifying that no single low test score can disqualify a student, and leveraging local norms, where students are compared to other students of similar backgrounds and experiences. However, despite mandating these important steps towards equity, most school districts are still not making visible progress.

Several districts in Washington have been using universal screening for years. The experience and learning from these districts has been instrumental in building consensus for this bill. For instance, Northshore school district has found over 5 years of universal screening that they are now identifying ten times more students for highly capable programs who are low-income students, English learners, or students with disabilities. Even more surprising is that Northshore has discovered that universal screening is almost 50% less expensive than prior methods, which had involved hiring many proctors to conduct assessment sessions on Saturdays. Quincy school district in eastern Washington found that moving to universal screening changed their majority White highly capable program to become majority Hispanic, which matches their overall district demographics. Similar experiences in other districts confirm that universal screening produces dramatically more equitable results, and at no more cost.

Watch for updates at https://facebook.com/wagifted for updates as this bill progresses through the legislature, or join the mailing list at http://tinyurl.com/joinWAcoalition.

Watch HIGHLY CAPABLE

In 2019, THE G WORD team visited Washington to talk to local experts about universal screening for giftedness as a key strategy for identifying underserved students for HIGHLY CAPABLE opportunities. This sort of practice has been celebrated in recent years as one possible way to address the overall inequities that have become so common in gifted and talented programs across the nation.

Austina De Bonte

Austina De Bonte

Austina De Bonte is a consultant at Smart Is Not Easy, LLC. Since 2012, Austina has also served as President and Past President of the Northwest Gifted Child Association, the Washington State support and advocacy non-profit for families with gifted children. She also serves as co-President of the Washington Coalition for Gifted Education. A dynamic and engaging presenter, Austina speaks regularly at conferences, as well as conducts parent education talks and professional development workshops for educators about the unique social and emotional development of highly capable (HiCap) or “gifted” children. She works with school district teams to develop and fine-tune their HiCap program models, especially concerning equitable identification strategies. Austina's signature style combines her experience as a parent and parent coach along with synthesized research, current district practices across Washington State, and cutting edge neuroscience. She specializes in helping families get to the root cause of their kids’ challenges. Austina has a Masters degree from MIT, and did her thesis work in the MIT Media Lab's Epistemology and Learning Group, where Lego Mindstorms was invented. Austina is a certified SENG Model Parent Group facilitator. Austina is currently a doctoral student at Bridges Graduate School. Contact Austina at austina@smartisnoteasy.com.

About SMART IS NOT EASY:

A Platinum level member of THE G WORD’s Global Partnership Network, Smart Is Not Easy believes that all humans have an inherent right to develop their full potential.

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