School Board Meeting for Feb 26, 2020
Education Subcommittee (members include Allyson Minton, Kevin Mahler and Marcie Crow) met before the regular Board Meeting.  
The Department Chairs for Math, Science and World Languages presented information about grade acceleration (skipping) for each of their departments.  An outline of their presentations is at https://go.boarddocs.com/pa/nasd/Board.nsf/files/BM6HN6494202/$file/Education%20Committee%20Presentation%20(2-26-2020%20-%20Academic%20Acceleration%20in%20North%20Allegheny).pdf
Math Department Chair, Bob Bell called acceleration a “necessary evil”.  While there are strict benchmarks elementary school students must meet, any student may attempt to accelerate upon entering 7th grade.  Mr Bell reported that 250 students from NA attended CCAC last year in order to attempt to accelerate a year in Math.  He recognized that some students accelerate multiple years (e.g. attend CCAC 2 or more times over their years at North Allegheny).  He further stated the typical class where accelerated students have difficulty is in Honors Pre-Calculus.
Mr.  Chris Omasits spoke about acceleration in the Sciences which are limited to Honors Biology and Honors Chemistry.  Mr. Omasits stated that there is no college course that matches the NASD curriculum.  Forty students attempted to accelerate last year but fewer than half were successful.  He also emphasized that no credits will be shown on the student’s high school transcript for the college class.  Mr. Omasits stated that a student’s passion for the sciences should be the only reason to attempt acceleration. 
Mrs. Marcie Good spoke about acceleration in World Languages.  The practice is strongly discouraged as there is no equivalent for the NASD curriculum at the local college level.  Fewer than 10 students attempted to accelerate a grade level last year. Possible reasons students may decide to attempt acceleration include, wanting to change their World Language preference in 9th grade; being new to the district; scheduling conflicts; and/or having the opportunity to take an AP class.
Board member, Mr. Mahler stated that he didn’t believe 8th or 9th graders should be taking AP courses, which is happening for a few students who have accelerated multiple grade levels in math.  Mr. Mahler believes it is important to determine how many students need to be tutored and if more of those students attended CCAC.  He stated that NA needs to determine if the number of accelerations needs to be capped.
Mrs. Minton asked how NA compared to other schools.  She stated acceleration may be an equity issue in that students must pay for the college courses that are for acceleration.

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