Goldberg Aids Parents’ Effort to Save Program for Gifted

An intense lobbying campaign by parents at Carpenter Avenue Elementary School paid dividends Wednesday when school board member Jackie Goldberg promised to give them a list identifying highly gifted students in the district.

Armed with the list, Carpenter parents believe they can recruit students to the Studio City school and save the district’s only program for highly gifted students in elementary schools that is not part of the specialized magnet school network.

Carpenter now has 78 highly gifted students in three classes. These students, who must have been tested by a district psychologist who confirms that they have a minimum IQ of 145, sometimes work on projects that are two or three grade levels above what typical students their age would tackle.

In June, 22 of Carpenter’s highly gifted students will graduate, leaving only enough students for two classes. The school must have 29 to 31 students per classroom in order to have the district allocate a teacher.

Rejected Magnet Program

Ten years ago when the Los Angeles Unified School District developed magnet schools as part of its voluntary integration program, district officials asked Carpenter to make its courses for the highly gifted part of the magnet program, but the school’s teachers and administrators declined.

Now, because Carpenter’s program is not part of the magnet program, it does not get the publicity that the four elementary magnet schools for the highly gifted do. Neither does the district allocate the special funds to Carpenter that magnet schools receive, nor does it provide bus transportation for highly gifted students who do not live within walking distance of the school.

All of these factors have combined to hold down the enrollment in Carpenter’s classes for the highly gifted.

The program for the highly gifted is one of the district’s most popular magnet school offerings, according to district officials. The demand is so high that there is a waiting list that is updated each year.

‘Panic and Fright’

But many parents who want to enroll their children in such classes have never heard of the Carpenter program. This lack of recognition, combined with what one parent called the annual “panic and fright” that not enough students will be enrolled to support a program for the highly gifted at the school, have created a group called Parents for Carpenter that has learned how to manipulate the system to its advantage.

The group went into action two weeks ago with a telephone campaign to find a school board member sympathetic to their plight.

Goldberg took an immediate interest. Students from her Central City district are bused to the school as part of the district’s program to reduce the number of students in crowded schools. Students from her district also attend Carpenter’s program for the highly gifted.

The parents realized that telephone calls alone would not get the results they wanted, so they began their campaign on a second front--they went to the media. Newspapers, radio and television stations were contacted and parents made themselves available to tell the story of the program for the highly gifted at Carpenter Avenue.

The plan worked. Goldberg appeared at the school on Wednesday to promise that the waiting list would be given to the parents.

“The parents wanted the waiting list and we are going to get them that waiting list. That’s only for this year. I can’t say whether they will get the list every year from now on,” Goldberg said.

The parents also got assurances from Goldberg that she will begin asking district staff members questions about why parents who want to enroll their children in classes for the highly gifted are not routinely told about Carpenter’s program.

“There is no one downtown who has the responsibility to see that Carpenter’s program works,” she continued. “We have to make sure that changes. We have to make sure there is someone who has responsibility for Carpenter.”