Since the Spring of 2022, I’ve had the pleasure of collaborating with Homero Chavez as part of the National Working Group on Advanced Education. We and eighteen others developed a set of recommendations for how districts, charter networks, and states can better serve academically talented students while simultaneously furthering equity and increasing opportunities. The culmination of that work was Building a Wider, More Diverse Pipeline of Advanced Learners, published in June 2023.
My time on that project also introduced me to Homero’s accomplishments as the director of the Early College Program at the Gadsden Elementary School District 32, in the border city of San Luis, the poorest town in Arizona. The program offers advanced academic opportunities and educational experiences for high-performing students from fifth through eighth grades. Since 2007, it has, among many other achievements, helped more than 2,000 students take college-level algebra and precalculus for college credit. I wanted to learn more—and wanted readers to learn more, too—so I asked Homero to explain how his program has achieved so much. Here are some of his answers.
You’ve been the director of an early college program in San Luis, Arizona, just south of Yuma, for seventeen years. Can you give some background on the program? How did it come to be? Who are your students? And why have you stuck with it for almost two decades?
Each year, during the summer, prior to the start of the academic year, approximately 500 fourth through eighth grade students districtwide are identified as advanced learners and are recruited into the Early College Program (ECP). The ECP provides a series of advanced educational opportunities. Students can take advanced math, study for the ACT, take community college math and English courses for credit, and participate in the Center for Talented Youth Residential Program at Johns Hopkins University (CTY). Students can also enroll in our early college summer school program, where they engage in STEM activities and participate in university field trips.
Fourth through sixth grade students are transported to our two junior high schools, where they are taught ACT prep in the after-school advanced math tutoring program. Students learn advanced concepts in math to prepare for the ACT and to take college level courses down the road. At the start of the year, seventh and eighth grade students are placed in ACT Prep courses and in algebra as part of their daily class schedule.
As students make their way from grades 4–6, ECP teachers identify and encourage students to take college math at the community college. ECP teachers are the same teachers teaching in the district’s after-school tutoring program, in junior high school, and at Arizona Western College as part-time math professors. Teachers are responsible for selecting students for college math. Their recommendations are based on how well students perform in their classrooms. Each year, approximately 250 students in grades 6–8 take community college courses for credit, from beginning algebra to precalculus, including English Composition 100 and 101 at our community college.
Since 2006, the ECP has enrolled more than 2,500 students in college math courses for credit. Additionally, the ECP has sent over 1,500 students to CTY, and has received over $7 million in scholarships from Johns Hopkins University. In 2016 and 2017, the ECP was recognized for sending the most students from a district in the country to CTY. More than 3,500 students have taken the ACT, and in 2015 and 2016, one of our schools, Southwest Junior High, was chosen among the top ten in the world by CTY Talent Search for scoring High Honors on the ACT.
Seeing the enthusiasm and achievements over the years of our students graduating with STEM degrees has given us both the motivation and the drive to continue moving forward with the program.
You’ve long accomplished much of what the National Working Group on Advanced Education advocates for in our report: for example, in getting your middle schoolers, many of whom are economically disadvantaged, to take advanced and college-level coursework and getting graduates into top universities. How have you achieved this?
This program started seventeen years ago. Back then, we wanted to have a program that prepared our kids for STEM-related degrees, but we didn’t have anything for that. It was clear that, for this, students needed to have a strong background in mathematics and exposure to STEM programs. The idea was to target highly proficient seventh and eighth grade students in mathematics using state tests and district assessments score results, and to offer algebra classes as part of their daily student’s schedule. Now we needed someone with content knowledge in math to teach these students. I knew of an elementary school teacher, Mr. Arrizon, that was perfect for this. He was a former metallurgical engineer. He agreed to move to junior high to teach strictly high-level mathematics. Since the school only offered basic math, the move to offer algebra as part of the class schedule at the junior high for advanced students was met with resistance by the administration.
At the same time, I had learned about the aforementioned summer program at Johns Hopkins, the Center for Talented Youth Residential Program (CTY), that offered STEM courses and financial aid scholarships for talented low-income students. To participate, students had to take the ACT and earn a qualifying score. We identified and invited high-performing math students to be part of math tutoring sessions on Saturdays. We had teachers who volunteered to come and tutor for free.
In looking at the district’s data, I found that there were many students who were highly proficient in mathematics, but there were no advanced math classes being offered. There was only Math 7 for all seventh-grade students and Math 8 for eighth grade students, without any distinction between high-achieving students and the rest of the population.
We decided that our high-achieving students could benefit from a more advanced curriculum outside of junior high. We went to the high school and suggested they offer a zero period for our advanced students. Students would go to an algebra class and earn credit. The high school rejected the idea. So we went to the community college and proposed that they give our advanced students the opportunity to take college math courses. They didn’t think it could be done. They felt our students were too young to handle a college class. We finally convinced them to at least give them the opportunity to take the college math placement test. They agreed.
We selected thirty-five of the most advanced students, and they took the placement test. All the students were eligible to take beginning and intermediate algebra. At the end of the first semester, all the students completed the course with exceedingly high marks. The school’s math department felt we had given the students an easy version of the final exam. This was not the case. The college math department came in and re-evaluated the students with another version of the final exam, and the students performed equally or better on that exam.
Our Saturday tutoring was also a huge success, but the district decided to end it because they thought we were only tutoring to make extra money, when in fact we were doing it because we believed in the project and teachers were tutoring for free. The administration changed its mind when we received the ACT test results. It then agreed to integrate ACT prep and advanced algebra in their master schedule. That way we could serve more students and reach a wider audience. This allowed us to increase the number of students that we would serve. We added eight sections of algebra and eight sections of ACT Prep. Every academic year, we have approximately 350 seventh and eighth graders at our junior high schools taking advanced algebra and ACT Prep. Identification of talent happens during the summer. Students are selected for the advanced after-school tutoring program and for ACT Prep and advanced algebra. All ECP students register for the ACT and take the exam in February.
All of this is a process that has taken time to produce results. We hoped that many of our students would graduate from universities with degrees in engineering, medicine, mathematics, law, and more. And this eventually became a reality, as we see more and more students graduating to this day. Our focus has always been on providing advanced mathematics and exposing students to programs like CTY where they can take a university-level class and experience college life by spending three weeks at a university. Many students had never even traveled by plane or left their city.
One of the key factors to build on is to find student talent at an early age. Once you do, then it’s critical that you develop services or programs that address the needs of your advanced learners. Finding talent is the first step, providing programs and building academic platforms (what is often called “front-loading”) should be the next step. We do not want students to be left in limbo. There is no point in identifying talent if you are not going to take advantage of it.
Another aspect of extreme importance to consider is building parental relationships and support. They are your best allies in this project. Without them, you cannot move forward. When they see that your programs are working and bearing fruit, parents become your main support. Taking college mathematics classes, students realize they have what it takes to succeed, and this gives them the drive and confidence needed to dream big.
Some of the recommendations in Working Group report focus on well-prepared educators. As you just mentioned, you recruit people who are highly accomplished and credentialed in their field to teach some of the program classes—those with STEM Ph.Ds., for example, to teach mathematics. How have you been successful in this when so many school districts are struggling to recruit any teachers whatsoever?
In our district, all teachers have grown up in and around San Luis, Arizona. Four of the ECP program teachers are former Gadsden Elementary School District students. I was also a GESD graduate. The teachers are local and have returned to this community to work in the schools. For us, families are the number one factor in deciding to return to work in this community. It is exceedingly difficult to attract teachers to come work in more marginalized communities, and those teachers must bring their families. In the case of ECP teachers, they have family roots, know and like the area, and identify with the student population. It is an advantage for us, since many teachers are from this community.
I believe that the teachers who have returned have liked this quality of life and are happy to return to serve their communities. The teachers have become accustomed to living the border life. This doesn’t always happen. I know many students who have studied STEM careers who have returned to this area to live and who have STEM jobs. We have truly been extremely fortunate to have teachers who know how to teach their content and who also teach part-time classes at the community college.
One of the ideas here for other communities that have difficulty attracting teachers is to identify talented teachers and have the district offer them training or an incentive to specialize in advanced subjects.
The heart of this program is the teachers. Teachers who have the passion for teaching and who have the mathematical background knowledge to take students to the next level.
What can other education leaders—be they at the local, state, or federal level—learn from you? How, for example, can we get more programs like yours operating in more places?
There is a lot of talent in schools that goes unnoticed. The National Working Group on Advanced Education report made many recommendations that school districts should consider, as a resource guide to help schools identify talent at their schools. The report is a map to follow to begin making positive changes in providing strategies for working with high-achieving students. It suggests using universal screening to identify high-performing students, especially in areas of greatest disadvantage, where the tendency is usually to exclude rather than include talent and let students’ potential go unnoticed.
Schools should adopt the philosophy of including more and not less. We want to embrace this philosophy so that students are not excluded in the identification process. We must be aware of the importance of having a diverse world of advanced students that is representative of all cultures and ethnicities, not just a few. As educators, practitioners, and researchers, it is our duty to help student talent flourish. In every school in America, a child is waiting for recognition and acknowledgment of their talent. We should err in the best interest of our students so their talent should not go unnoticed. All of them deserve to be challenged.
