Northshore School District is respected for its emphasis on meeting “the unique strengths, backgrounds, readiness, and learning styles of each student.” Yet in May Superintendent Michael Tolley notified parents that this fall their children would be expelled from the Elementary Advanced Program (EAP). The Northshore school board meets tonight and sparks are likely to fly. One hundred and sixty parents have signed a petition opposing cancellation of this popular and successful program. Many who signed the petition are Asian families. Many white, black, Hispanic and low-income students also benefit from EAP. All these families are naturally upset to lose this learning opportunity.

The district website describes the EAP program as “giving highly capable students in grades 2-5 the opportunity to engage in rigorous, challenging, and enriched curriculum usually in a self-contained classroom with a cohort of highly capable peers.” 

This is no longer true. This fall students in the EAP program will be returned to general education classrooms for English and given separate math instruction, which may be phased out entirely over time. The new EAP model is a shadow of its former self.

Superintendent Tolley made this decision without consulting EAP parents.

This follows an ugly and controversial pattern. In 2020 Seattle Public School Superintendent Denise Juneau and the school board cancelled a popular and successful program for gifted students at Washington Middle School. The move was presented as part of school officials’ Strategic Plan to, as they put it, “undo the legacies of racism in our educational system” that they run. In 2022, Vancouver School District Superintendent Jeff Snell said he wanted to expel students from the district’s popular self-contained Highly Gifted classes and end the program permanently.

Superintendent Tolley and the Northshore school board appear determined to make a similar race-based decision to cancel the EAP program. Decisions like these are dividing school communities and violating state and federal law, and the equal protection clause of U.S Constitution. See Washington Policy Center’s Policy Brief “Know Your Rights,” accessible here: https://www.washingtonpolicy.org/publications/detail/know-your-rights-a-guide-to-critical-race-theory-anti-discrimination-law-and-civil-rights-protections-for-everyone. See also the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College.

In addition, it’s important for Northshore officials to know parents are pulling their children out of the public schools in large numbers, partially because of discriminatory, race-based decisions like these. Since 2019, Seattle has lost 4,433 students. Vancouver has lost 1,924 students. Lower enrollment numbers like these mean millions of dollars in reduced revenue for the schools.

If Northshore’s superintendent and school board members are determined to deny children learning opportunities because they belong to the wrong racial group, then maybe a discussion about potential revenue loss will clarify thinking.

Families have options. They can withdraw their children from the Northshore School District.  They can transfer their children to districts not discriminating against their children by race, and running truly inclusive gifted programs. They can take their money with them to those districts.

Cancelling the EAP program in Northshore will hurt the district’s reputation, and break its promise to “advocate for standards, practices and programs that engage every student in challenging work, regardless of their current level of performance.”  Building Block #1, Strategic Plan, Northshore School District.