Seattle Public Schools phasing out ‘highly capable cohort’ program

SEATTLE – Several parents within Seattle Public Schools are flabbergasted by the district’s decision to shut down 11 schools dedicated to the teaching of advanced students, or “highly-capable cohorts.”

These hundreds of students are learning at these schools, far above their grade level.

According to their website, starting this fall, all neighborhood schools will start to incorporate highly-capable students.

They will not be separated into “cohorts” and will start going to their neighborhood schools in order to address “historical inequity.” Typically, these schools have more white and Asian students, and other races are underrepresented.

Fox News previously reported that the school district’s gifted program was among the least diverse in the country.

“All teachers will provide teaching and learning that is delivered with universal design for learning (UDL) and differentiated to meet the needs of students within their grade level,” the website said of the decision. 

However, parents of students in these highly-capable schools are upset that the schools will be phased out and worry that their children’s educational needs will be overlooked. 

“They are thriving, they are learning so much. They are curious and they are being pushed” said Cascadia Elementary parent Simrin Parmar.

“If they do this, it will be the bell curve getting ignored and watering down the teaching,” parent Eric Feeny said.

He said parents are waiting for clear instructions on how one teacher within the public school system will be able to address “drastically different needs” of these students in a classroom of up to 30 kids. 

“I think the district consistently under-communicates most of its initiative, partially because they don’t have the bandwidth,” Feeny said.

The district’s plan is to completely phase out “cohorts” by the 2027-2028 school year.

From a budget perspective, parents also say the consolidations don’t make sense. It costs the district around $7,000 per Cascadia Elementary student, which is about 50% less than many neighboring schools.

“It will not help those kids to just cut the program wholesale. We weren’t servicing enough of them. You don’t help by cutting the program. What we should be doing is identifying more children from underrepresented groups that aren’t getting a fair shake in the testing and doing more to fix that and providing these services to more kids across the city,” Parmar said.

“SPS is scrapping all HC programming and replacing it with empty promises, zero plan, and zero funding. I’m sad to watch so many families leave the public school system, but I can’t blame them,” Kiley Riffell said on social media. 

Unless there are significant resources pumped into every classroom, parents say teachers will be overwhelmed and highly-capable kids could be overlooked in neighborhood schools.

“Until you have a better system, don’t give out a fake system or half solution,” Feeny said.

FOX 13’s request for an interview with Superintendent Dr. Brent Jones or anyone else with the district has gone unanswered.

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