City Schools May Expand Sessions for the Gifted

Pittsburgh Public Schools is thinking of changing the way it teaches its brightest students.

The city school board voted 7-0 Wednesday night to approve a proposal for an experiment in gifted education for students in grades K-8 at five schools: Colfax, Dilworth, Fort Pitt, Grandview and Northview Heights. Board members Randall Taylor and Mark Brentley abstained.

School spokeswoman Lisa Fischetti said the next step is for educators to meet with parents of gifted students in these schools to see if they support the plan. The board could reconsider if parental support is not there, she said.

The proposal came from a task force of two dozen members, one- third of whom are parents.

“The task force recommendation was every child who was entitled to a gifted program should have that five days a week,” said J. Kaye Cupples, executive director of student support services.

Gifted students are pulled out of their elementary and middle schools one day a week to get special instruction at Banksville School.

The task force questioned the quality of instruction for gifted students in the regular classroom the other four days a week.

“Some schools did a better job than others of doing enrichment,” Cupples said.

City schools Superintendent Mark Roosevelt created the task force after the Council of Great City Schools, a Washington, D.C.-based group, audited the district’s gifted program and questioned its practice of sending students to special schools one day a week.

Pittsburgh has 2,800 gifted students, about 10 percent of its enrollment.

Originally published by The Tribune-Review.

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