Parents Campaigning for a High School for Brainy Students

Parents of highly gifted students at two San Fernando Valley schools on Tuesday started a campaign to persuade Los Angeles school district officials to create a high school for students with high IQs.

Such a school would cater to highly gifted students with IQs of least 145 and to gifted children with IQs of at least 130 but would also accept minority students who demonstrate potential for high achievement, the parents said at a Studio City meeting.

The parents said that a “high school for advanced studies” could continue programs for highly gifted students begun at elementary and junior high school levels. Carpenter Avenue Elementary School in Studio City and Walter Reed Junior High School in North Hollywood have such programs.

“These kids are going to be penalized when they get to high school,” said Robert Claire, a Studio City physician whose daughter attends Carpenter. “When they’ve already done the work, it’s boring for them.”

Students at Carpenter and Reed must be certified by school psychologists as having IQs of at least 145 to be admitted to the program for highly gifted students there. About 1% or less of the general population have IQs that high.

Dan M. Isaacs, district superintendent in charge of high schools, said that highly intelligent students already can participate in programs at district high schools. Through the district’s advanced placement program, college credit can be earned in such courses as calculus and physics, he said.

Isaacs said that gifted and highly gifted students can take courses at area colleges and universities while still in high school.

But Claire said that many highly gifted students have already taken advanced placement courses by the time they reach high school. The only option left for those students is to earn college credit, he said.

“Most of them are too young for college,” Claire said. “We want them to be able to be kids, to participate in athletic teams, drama and band.”

Claire said the group is seeking corporate donations to help finance the school, which would be open to students districtwide.

The district, in cooperation with the Los Angeles County Board of Education, studied a similar proposal several years ago, said Lorna Round, the district’s associate superintendent for instruction. The idea was dropped in 1986 because such a school would be too expensive, she said.