Dupage Policy Journal

Pleasantdale Schools is more concerned about the holistic picture of a student, their talent development and advanced learning director said.

Jennifer Van presented the changes and updates to the advanced and accelerated academic programs in the school district.

“We wanted to be more looking at the whole child, the whole picture, and who is the student and what is the best fit for that student academically. So instead of doing a matrix and rankings, we just now look at a student's complete learning profile and it's all the same measures. It's essentially all the same cut scores. But we just look at a holistic picture of a student and say, with the student benefit from this class and would the student be able to be successful in this class? And if all of those measures and the teacher input and everything else points to yes, then that student should have access to that class,” Van said.

The talent development and advanced learning program at Pleasantdale Schools has been under development and adjustments since 2018, before the pandemic altered the school year. They began because some of the policies and compliance factors were not going to be up to date with upcoming changes, and they hoped to expand the program to more kids and make it a better fit for all students, according to a meeting held in May.

The district changed its gifted educator position and program into a learning enrichment specialist and program to be more inclusive and accurate to the needs of students. The advanced learning program does not identify students until after third grade in the district anymore, whereas before test scores and other numbers would be put into a spreadsheet, and the top 25 students were automatically “gifted.”

The district offers multiple accelerated or advanced programs. They have above grade level ELA and math courses, they offer single subject acceleration and whole grade acceleration for students who are not being challenged at their current grade level. Parents can request the acceleration or the student can be recommended for the acceleration by the teachers and administrators who watch their test scores and efforts in the classroom.