Modesto Schools’ Gifted and Talented program struggles with diversity. No easy solution
It’s an experience many families share, said Modesto School Board President Adolfo Lopez — and his family is no exception.
As he was growing up in west Modesto, his mother faced a difficult decision: keep her children together, at the same local school, or send her daughter out of the neighborhood to attend a special program for high-achieving students at Alberta Martone Elementary.
Though a bus would have been provided to his sister, Lopez explained to the Modesto Board of Education this June, “Martone was far away.” Ultimately, his mother decided not to enroll her daughter in the program, known as Gifted and Talented Education (GATE).
Years later, Lopez sees how those decisions play out disproportionately across the different neighborhoods and demographics. Latinos make up more than 70% of the current Modesto City Schools student body, but in the GATE program, which enrolls kids in grades three through six, just 32% are Latino.
At a June board meeting, Modesto City Schools’ equity and intervention specialist, Fallon Ferris, presented another compounding problem: Even when Latino students qualify for the GATE program, they are more likely to opt out of the program than other demographics.
If those qualifying Latino students had opted into the program, GATE would be substantially more diverse and representative of the broader student population.
The question facing Ferris, Lopez and other school district leaders is how to convince those families to enroll.
No shortcut
“Transportation was the number one reason,” said Ferris. Like Lopez’s mother, many parents don’t want to send their children to school far from home. In phone interviews with parents, Ferris heard from many families that didn’t want to separate their children from friends and siblings.
Modesto City Schools (MCS) operates 22 elementary schools, but only three offer GATE programming. In other words, the majority of students who excel on the GATE qualifying exam must travel to a new school if they want to take advantage of the opportunity. MCS offers bus rides for any student who needs to switch schools.
But Latino students often travel the farthest. The three schools that offer GATE programming — Sonoma, Lakewood, and Martone — all are well north of downtown, and two are east of Oakdale Road. Students who live in predominately Latino neighborhoods like south and west Modesto have no choice but to travel miles if they want to enroll in GATE.
Overall, 45% of families that qualified for GATE opted out, but at four elementary schools in south and west Modesto, that rose to over 80%.
Lakewood Elementary, home to one of the three GATE sites, has sent the most students into the program over the past four years. In 2021, 36 Lakewood students qualified for GATE, with just one child opting out. According to the 2021 School Accountability Report Card, 33.4% of students at Lakewood are Latino.
By comparison, Bret Harte Elementary, located in south Modesto and miles away from the nearest GATE program, has more than twice the number of students than Lakewood, and almost 90% identify as Latino. Only five students from Bret Harte qualified for GATE last year. Of those, four opted out.
“It seems simple to just say we’re going to put it (GATE) across the district, but it’s so much more complex than that,” said Modesto City Schools Superintendent Sara Noguchi.
She pointed out, for example, that GATE program teachers require a distinct kind of training and certification.
While changes to the GATE structure may not be simple or happen soon, the issue is at the forefront of the city’s efforts to increase equity. This fall, Modesto City Schools formed a task force to brainstorm alternatives to the current GATE set-up.
One popular idea is to move toward a “cluster model,” said Laurie Hulin, a senior director of school leadership and a lead on the task force. Instead of asking students to travel to one of the three GATE sites, the cluster model would keep students in their neighborhood but move them into a cohort with other high-achieving children from that school. The cohort teacher would also receive professional development to support those students.
The task force plans to release its official recommendations on GATE in the spring.
Opening the GATE for racial equity
Even if those recommendations can improve the transportation barriers for GATE students in south and west Modesto, other challenges may prove harder to solve for students of color.
The Bee spoke with an 11-year-old who already was attending Sonoma Elementary when she received an offer to join its GATE program. The fact that it was the same building, with many of the same students, made their decision to join GATE much easier, said the little girl’s mother.
But after enrolling, the child — who is Black and Latina — soon realized she was the only Black student in her grade at GATE.
“I don’t have much people to relate to,” she said, and other students in the program have called her racial slurs. “They don’t necessarily know what stuff means,” she said, but added, later, “it’s not funny.”
The girl’s mother later said that these incidents aren’t common and that her daughter’s teachers have been quick to intervene when issues arise.
GATE is just one of many aspects of academic life where racial disparities persist. In the same June presentation to the board of trustees, Ferris said that Latino, Asian and socioeconomically disadvantaged students were underrepresented in the high school Advanced Placement (AP) programs and that Black students in junior high school see the highest rates of school suspension.
Still, Hulin noted a possible silver lining. Since its formation this fall, the GATE task force has heard from some parents who had their children opt out of the program because they preferred the academic opportunities at their neighborhood school.
For example, Fremont Elementary School, located near Modesto Junior College, offers a unique, hands-on model of instruction that lets students embark on projects to “build knowledge by doing.” Fremont is the only school outside of west and south Modesto where more than 80% of students opted out of GATE.
Bret Harte, in south Modesto, is the only elementary school in the district to offer Spanish-English dual language instruction.
“Sometimes it’s a matter of choosing something that’s the best fit for the family,” Hulin said.
This story was originally published November 10, 2022 at 7:00 AM.
