Honors program gets reprieve

An outcry from parents about the principals’ decision to drop the honors programs at Santa Barbara, La Colina and Goleta Valley junior highs has prompted the school board to put the item back on its agenda next week.

While La Cumbre Junior High will roll out a new curriculum in the fall — offering separate learning communities for Core Knowledge, Gifted and Talented Education (GATE)/ pre-advanced placement, liberal arts/college preparatory and intensive English development/newcomers — the other three principals have said they are raising the bar for all students by putting average and above-average students in class together. Some parents believe that the decision will have a negative effect on the roughly 15 percent to 20 percent of students who have been on the honors track, a group that performs well but doesn’t qualify for GATE.

With affluent Montecito parents talking about forming a charter junior high school and others considering moves to private school, many fear that the elimination of honors will make it more difficult to for the schools to remain socioeconomically and ethnically diverse, particularly Santa Barbara Junior High.

“The Honors Track is an attractive option that influenced our decision to leave private school,” wrote SBJH parent George Gonzales in a letter to the board. “While we can’t fault the outstanding level of instruction provided by the district, the general environment causes many parents from different ethnic backgrounds to proceed cautiously. Continuation of the Honors Track will reassure many of us that sending our children to public school is the right decision.”

Indeed the percent of Anglo students at SBJH has shrunk from 41 to 31 percent, since the 2002-2003 school year, according to Lanny Ebenstein, a former board member who has contracted with the district to create enrollment projections.

“To eliminate honors programs at Santa Barbara Junior High would intensify this detrimental trend,” he said.

SAGE (Supporters of Advanced and Gifted Education), a new group formed to advocate for high achieving students, has also come out in support of continuing the honors programs.

“Every taxpayer wants value for their money. Tracking, or segmentation, enables instruction to be geared, paced and outcomes evaluated appropriately making the highest and best use of both time and money,” wrote SAGE president Denice Adams in a letter to the board.

The trustees are expected make a decision on the honors program at its next meeting at 7 p.m. July 12, 720 Santa Barbara St.

Originally published in South Coast Beacon on July 7, 2005.

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