Родители протестуют против сокращения поддержки одаренных первоклассников в школах Фарго

Fargo Public Schools scales back gifted services for youngest learners, parents push back FARGO, N.D. (Valley News Live) - A planned overhaul of Fargo Public Schools’ Gifted and Talented program has some parents worried the district’s youngest advanced learners could soon have far less support in the classroom. Under the updated model, Fargo Public Schools has reduced Gifted and Talented (GT) staff, with plans to phase out informal gifted services for first-graders, while offering limited informal support for second-graders. Formal GT classes are planned for 3rd through 5th grade. Sam Robinson, a mom of two GT-identified children in the district — a fourth-grader and a first-grader — said those changes leave younger advanced learners with far less time with specialists, especially as teachers are split between buildings. “When you’re also doing curriculum lessons, you’re spending a lot of time doing that,” Robinson said. “So really, when you’re doing that between different schools, you don’t have a whole lot of time to meet with first and second grade.” According to the district’s most recent Gifted Services handbook, gifted students make up roughly 10% to 12% of the school’s population. The handbook calls the early grades “critical” for developing higher-level thinking skills and recommends at least 60 minutes per week of informal gifted services for first and second-graders. It also highlights practices such as cluster grouping and enrichment clusters — identifying small groups of academically talented or intellectually gifted students and placing them together with a teacher trained to differentiate curriculum and instruction — as core parts of the program. Robinson worries that as informal minutes are reduced, the youngest advanced learners will lose the individualized contact that once kept them engaged, including “twice exceptional” students whose giftedness exists alongside conditions such as ADHD or anxiety. “In these early years, it’s pretty critical to have contact with these students because that’s when they start developing these higher level thinking skills,” she said. “When you don’t have that contact, they become disengaged from wanting to go to school.” She said she is already seeing early signs of that in her first-grader. “Today is our second day of school and he’s already told me, ‘I don’t want to go to school today,’ and it’s because he already knows a lot of the material,” Robinson said. The mom of two added, “Honestly, I have no idea what my plan is moving forward. I might just have to do extra enrichment at home with him.” Robinson first raised her concerns in a Facebook post addressed to Fargo Public Schools Gifted and Talented parents. In it, she wrote that GT teachers had been reduced from 10 to seven, that teachers are now split between two schools, and that early programming was being “significantly reduced.” She said her first-grader reads around a sixth-grade level and is advanced in math, and she worries he and others will go two key years without the enrichment they previously received. She wrote that the issue is not about giving gifted kids “more,” but about giving them “work appropriate to their ability.” Dozens of parents and former GT students responded, saying they have seen services shrink over the past several years. “Unfortunately we are also affected by this,” one parent wrote. “They have been slowly cutting back on services for the past couple years and now it’s going to be much more apparent this year. My husband and other parents met with the superintendent this spring and was given a too bad so sad answer basically. Things need to be ‘fair’ I guess even though our kids won’t be getting the education they need.” Another parent said their family decided to leave the district. “We started homeschooling because our kindergartner was advanced/gifted,” the parent wrote. “He is a third grader now doing fifth grade work. We were disappointed they didn’t have anything then, can’t imagine how bad it will be for families now.” A third parent said the new structure is already affecting her daughter. “This is also affecting my daughter, which is so unfortunate,” she wrote. “GT wasn’t an option in K in our school, only the monthly. Kindergarten was a struggle for her due to being ahead with her knowledge. I ended up emailing the Director over the summer about it.” Other former GT students commented the program is what made school bearable for them and said they worry about how school will feel for advanced learners with fewer services. District officials say the adjustments are part of a broader reorganization tied to financial pressures and an effort to make access to gifted services more consistent across schools. Fargo Public Schools has been working through a budget deficit and has gone through a districtwide reduction in force and staffing realignments. In a written statement to Valley News Live, a Fargo Public Schools representative said: “Yes, Fargo Public Schools has made some changes to our Gifted and Talented program for the 2026–27 school year. Please note however, we have had teachers provide gifted services to more than one elementary school in the past, so that is not a change for us. Our changes are focusing on ensuring we are providing equitable gifted services to any learner regardless of what school they attend. Now all of our schools will have the same amount of service regardless of the enrollment size of the school. Due to budget reductions and reorganizations, FPS will no longer provide informal gifted services in first grade, and will provide informal services for second grade. Formalized gifted services will occur in grades 3–5.” The district declined an on-camera interview, saying the first days of school left no administrator available. A separate letter sent from Dr. Liann Hanson, the district’s director of teaching and learning, described the shift as “The Next Phase of Gifted and Talented Services” and said Fargo Public Schools remains committed to advanced learners: “Fargo Public Schools remains deeply committed to ensuring each student has access to meaningful learning experiences, challenge, support, and opportunities for growth — including students identified for Gifted and Talented services. … In the 2026–27 school year, Fargo Public Schools will begin the next phase in the evolution of Gifted Services programming. The District’s updated model is designed to preserve core services for identified students while also creating greater consistency, alignment, and access across schools.” The letter says the “next phase” includes continued formal GT services for identified students in grades 3–5, dedicated gifted staffing across all elementary schools, continued use of Individual Learning Plans for students in formal services, and more collaboration between gifted teachers, classroom teachers and principals. However, parents who commented on Robinson’s post say they support the idea of equitable access, but fear that in trying to spread services evenly, the district could leave some of its youngest and most advanced — and often most vulnerable — learners without the depth of challenge they need. Copyright 2026 KVLY. All rights reserved.