A parade of frustrated parents and students charged Highline schools lack academic rigor during the Dec. 14 school board meeting.

The speakers, many from Mt. Rainier's honors International Baccalaureate (IB) program, criticized the addition of students performing at or just above grade-level achievement into honors classes.

Highline Area Council PTA vice president Meg VanWyk told board members that Highline High honors parents and students are also upset.

To applause, Superintendent John Welch assured the audience, "I have not mandated an end to ability grouping."

Earlier, VanWyk read a letter from parent Jane Emerson listing what Emerson considers recent disappointing district developments.

They include closing Valley View Elementary with its innovative programs, eliminating honors classes or expanding them to include the top third of students, weakening Mt. Rainier's ninth and tenth-grade pre-IB classes, demanding equal outcomes for students in the new high school small learning communities and forcing parents to "stay in the face" of administrators to keep quality programs.

Parent Gretchan Morgan said the district assumes that to help students who are not passing the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) tests, it must disenfranchise students who meet state standards.

"You don't have to ration education," Morgan declared. "That is a divisive strategy."

She said the district risks losing its top students which will mean even lower district WASL scores.

Students who are focused beyond passing the tenth-grade WASL tests need accelerated programs by the seventh grade to qualify for prestigious colleges, Morgan added.

Mixing academically average students with advanced students in honors classes is not fair to either group, parent Mike Vrbanac maintained, because. advanced students are held back, while the average students struggle to keep up.

Insisting on equal results for all students and demanding ethnic balance in classes is a" recipe for mediocrity in the real world," parent Michael Wray told board members. "The district is failing highly capable students. It is also doing a poor job of communicating."

Although none of her family have attended private school, she is enrolling her child in a private high school next year, Linda Wray noted.

She said the district does a good job of educating elementary and middle school students but she is afraid of upcoming changes in high schools.

Wray reported that when she talked to teachers with no administrators or principal present, they called small learning communities an "educational fad."

The district is transferring its high schools into smaller schools within the larger campus.

Administrators say the more personalized environment where students have the same block of teachers will cut the district's drop-out rate and help lower-achieving students improve.

Parent Susan Conners said elementary science and social studies classes have been "gutted" in favor of more reading time.

However, her son is not a better reader or writer, she added..

Several honors students at Mt. Rainier testified about bad experiences in mixed-ability classes.

Andrew Reusch said his mixed science class last year moved too slowly and impeded his ability to prepare for IB classes.

Micaiah Michaela said he didn't receive his writing assignments back from his teachers for several weeks.

Kevin Graham said that in his mixed English class he was assigned only three short essays to write and four books to read all year.

Aaron Smith said he tutors regular students who are "perfectly capable, but not motivated."

Eva Ghirmai observed, "A teacher can teach at any level but not all levels at once."

Mt. Rainier's IB coordinator Pat Zabora Fairbanks countered that her program is thriving.

"The solution is to get teachers together and work on individual problems, not just make general statements."

Welch noted he has observed many honors classes and is gathering more data.

He said he would work with staff, teachers and parents to solve the problems.

Board members also praised Mengstab Tzegai, who is leaving the board after being defeated in the Nov. election.

Board member Phyllis Byers cited Tzegai's "incredible sense of fairness and reason."

Susan Goding and Julie Burr Spani were also sworn in to replace Tzegai and Steve Denmark.

Denmark did not seek re-election to the board. He ran instead for the Burien City Council, but lost.

Eric Mathison can be reached at hteditor@robinsonnews.com or 206-444-4873.