And many of the programs that Mr. Gardner is going to share with you tonight and give some information regarding continue to come up in all of our conversations whether it's our district um continuous improvement planning our campus improvement planning process the the SIPs that our our uh leadership coaches as well as um Dr. Martin and Miss Taylor are working on um it continues to come up uh the the thought of advanced academic studies and so he's going to cover a few of those. We're fortunate to have Mr. Gardner. joined our team this year. I constantly refer to how fortunate we are to work with great people and Mr. Gardner certainly adds to that. He has a background as a assistant principal at a high school and AP teacher as well as an elementary principal and so we're fortunate to have him leading the way in this area.
Mr. Gardner, thank you and good evening. Uh Mr. President, Dr. McCord, the governing board. Uh I want to start just by uh expressing my gratitude um to be here tonight but also just the opportunity as Mr. Ryan said, um, this is my first year in Gilbert, um, public schools and in this position and it's a wonderful opportunity to be here in this community. Uh, there's so many wonderful things that our students are doing, that our teachers are doing, um, that all the educators in this district are doing. So, it's it's really wonderful for me to be able to have the opportunity just just to be a part of that. Um, so I want to share with you some of those really amazing things that are happening right now within advanced learning. to begin um with our vision um and our goals. Uh our vision obviously is inspiring excellence in every learner and even though we're doing a lot of great things, it's really important that we have a continuous improvement plan.
Um so within our advanced learning programs, our plan is essentially to increase the enrollment of students participating in those programs in elementary, junior high, and high school. Um those programs include gifted AP um IB, dual enrollment, traditional and accelerated um honors courses as well. Um the opportunities that we want to increase um will provide students with the educational experience that they have to be able to make choices in their life. I was inspired by these students that came and and spoke to us earlier and I envisioned um the students today being in our seats and and doing these things. And that's what we want to do is open up those opportunities so students can excel. Um some of those numbers look pretty big. Um elementary um we want to have 30% um enrolled in our advanced programs by the uh 2026 school year. Um in high school in junior high, excuse me, 40% enrolled and in high school 70% enrolled.
Um those are based on the baseline of the numbers from 2023. Um, so we use those numbers and projected them forward to continue to have ambitious growth in those programs um, based on what we're currently seeing. So beginning with elementary, here's where we are. So our baseline in 2023 24, you can see those numbers. Um, I want to point out that that total advanced column is not a sum of the other categories because we have students participating in multiple programs. So for example, we have students that are both an accelerated and gifted. So overall in our advanced programs currently 20% um of our elementary students are participating in one or more of those programs. Um which is a great step towards that ultimate goal of 30%. In 2026 in junior high you can see our programs. We have IB and honors. um we are really approach closely approaching that goal of 40% um just under that 30 just under 38% total advanced you'll see there that really honors captures the entirety of that percentage um our students that are in IB um are also participating in honors um so we have that IB program at the Gilbert Advanced Middle School um so as we continue to grow that program we'll see growth across the board um the other thing I want to point out within that honors category in junior high.
We have our gifted academy, our gifted program at Highland Junior. Um that represents about 2.5% of our entire junior high population in that program. And then our GCA, um Gilbert Classical Academy, which represents 4% of our junior high. Moving on to high school. In high school, um students have a lot more opportunities and options of things to do. Um they get to choose a lot more classes. We saw FFA earlier, CTE programs, all the things that we do in high school. Um, so there's a lot more options as well in the advanced programs. Um, and you can see the percentage breakdown there. Again, to point your attention, that last column is not a sum of the other columns. Um, because we have it, it's pretty amazing when you look at our students and the different things they're participating in. um particularly um AP 30% of our high school population is participating in at least one AP class as well as uh perhaps honors and dual uh enrollment or dual credit classes.
Um one opportunity that we have for growth particularly in this category is within that dual credit. A lot of times when we think of advanced learning we we focus in on those traditional academic um pathways. Um, but advanced learning also can include those dual credit classes which can align with CTE and other courses that are advanced but not in those traditional academic settings providing opportunities for students and families to make appropriate choices based on their needs and desires. To highlight a little bit more with AP, that's an area where we're seeing a lot of growth and we're putting a lot of effort into our AP participation. um in 2025. So that's actually so this school year. So these the these numbers are related to the upcoming AP exams that will occur in May. Um we have 6,620 enrollments in AP courses. Um students take multiple AP courses.
So that represents um 3,319 students taking at least one AP course. And that's a 6% growth from their previous school year. Um the exams that are coming up, we have we're about to give over 5,000 exams um for AP students, which is uh represents 22% growth um with 2,739 students taking at least one AP exam. Uh one thing that I think is really important to point out when we're increasing our numbers, we do not want to water down opportunities. So while we're increasing those numbers of exams, we're also seeing an increase in achievement in those exams. So last year's exams, 77% of students earned a three or better um on those exams, and that was an increase of 5% from the previous school year. So we're growing the numbers of exams, but we're also improving our uh student achievement on those exams. And we point out that three on the AP because that's where students generally can earn some college credit.
Can I ask a question real quick? Yeah. So what do you attribute that to if and if I'm understanding this right? So you've got more students doing better. Is that right? Yeah. So what do what do you attribute that to? Is it simply a matter of identifying? I know that there's been a big push, especially at the high school level, to encourage kids to try honors and AP classes. Um, is this a result of that effort or is there something else that you're seeing? I think there's m I think that's a great question because there's there's multiple factors. Um, previously today, I was meeting with our team, our AP committee, which represents um, leaders from all of our high school campuses, and we talk about those those issues, um, maintaining expectations within those classrooms while encouraging more students to participate. Um, I think a big piece of it, as you suggest, is when a student has an adult that they've worked with come to them and say, "You can do this.
You should get into this class because I've seen that potential in you." It's really meaningful. Um, I know for me, I can point out times in my life where I had a leader come to me and say, "I see potential in you." Um, and I think it's really critical that we not just let that happen just as it happens. Um, but actually really take a um the approach to plan for that and encourage our teachers, encourage administrators to identify the potential in our students and help them to see their potential. because it's too easy for kids along the way of all the years K12 that they're in school to to give up, lose interest, um to to beat up themselves because of a poor performance in a class or in an assessment. Um so to have that opportunity to have someone to point out that you have potential.
So, we're identifying kids and pushing them to achieve their potential, I think, is ultimately what we're doing. But then at the same time, we're encouraging um our educators to really make sure that we're still pushing them and preparing them for those exams. So, we're not losing focus on that high achievement while we're getting more kids in those classes. Um, another piece of that that we need to celebrate is our AP honor roll. Um we had two of our high schools receive um recognition from the college board um of AP honor role. I want to tell you briefly what that is. There's three things they have to do to achieve that. One is um 40% or more of the graduating cohort took at least one AP exam during high school. So you have to have 40% that took at least one AP exam um during their high school experience.
The second category is college credit. 25% or more of the graduating cohort scored a three or higher on an AP exam um during their high school experience. So that's that college credit piece. And then the third piece is college optimization. 2% of or more of the graduating cohort took five or more AP exams during high school and at least one in 9th or 10th grade. So that experience is spread across their um high school experience. Couple things I want to point out. Every single one of our high schools met that third piece. These two met those all three. Campo received a bronze overall. Um they were really close. They got a gold in those second two categories, but then a bronze in that 40% that first category of of uh college culture. Um so they really deserve something better than bronze in my mind. Two golds and a bronze doesn't equal a bronze but college board.
Um, and then Gilbert Classical Academy Platinum, which is the very highest award you can receive. Um, as well as an AP access award, which means that they're really identifying, uh, a variety of students, a diversity of students to participate in those AP classes. Um, and really working hard to make sure that they're extending that reach. So, kudos to those campuses. A lot of hard work goes into that. And that's a national award that they're receiving. So, wonderful things happening at our high schools. And so and all the rest of the high schools are doing wonderful things with this as well and working towards those achievements projections. Um so looking at what we've got to do like I said we might be doing great things we got to keep doing great things. We've got to keep improving keep doing better. Um so currently uh or in this school year um we do we we do gifted testing three times.
So we do it in the first semester uh where parents, teachers can request individual students across the elementary schools um and second semester we do another round and then we'll do a screener in May where we do all of our second graders. So we haven't done the screener yet, but with those two um tests that we already did based on request, we identified 238 additional gifted students um which is really great. And then we have that upcoming screener in May. So, we anticipate we'll get many more. Um, based on where we've been percentage-wise in the past few years, we should anticipate anywhere from 150 to another 200 additional gifted students identified in that second grade group. Um, gifted academy at Town Meadows Elementary and Highland Junior High. Those are some name changes for the self-contained gifted that was at uh Town that is at Town Meadows and the GTC program at Highland Junior.
um now being referred to as a gifted academy at Town uh Meadows and Highland Junior High. Um we're adding an additional section at Highland Junior High, which will represent an additional 25 students for next school year and plan to endorse more teachers so we can continue our gifted opportunities moving forward. Currently throughout our district, we have 64 teachers um with gifted endorsement. Our plan this next school year is to endorse um 25 or more additional teachers within our district. We'll do that in-house. So, we'll provide that endorsement for teachers um to be able to have that and provide that training for them. That will allow us to open up more seats um within those programs and allow us to continue the professional development of our teachers. Finally, um APSI, the AP summer institute will be hosted at Camp Overdie this um this summer in June.
Um, that's a big deal because it allows us to do that same kind of training as the gifted endorsement, but on the AP side of things. It's not an endorsement, but it's a training AP. Um, we connect AP teachers, our teachers with teachers across the state and across the region. So, it both allows us to provide training collaboration for our teachers, but also to continue to grow um our identity as a district um of high academic standards throughout the state of Arizona and throughout the region. Next steps, gifted testing. Um, we want to establish a more comprehensive plan for gifted testing. I kind of explained how we do that right now. Um, we want to expand our reach though, um, and look for opportunities where we can do testing for students and families that are not currently enrolled in GPS. Perhaps they live in our boundaries and are choosing other options or perhaps they live outside of our boundaries.
Um but if we expand our reach, we continue to grow again that identity of high academic um standards and that we have thriving gifted programs and are bringing students in and participating in the general community in that process. Uh we need to continue to work within that program. Can I ask one quick on that one? Absolutely. Sorry, I have a lot of questions but I've tried not to interrupt but but just really quick on this. What So students that are currently not in GPS can come and get tested, right? that they're they're charged. Are you saying we're we're going to change that or is or is that not what the current policy is? So, our current we do um generally it's only our students that request that are currently enrolled in our in our schools. On occasion we do have people that aren't enrolled in our schools that will request gifted testing.
Um and so we work with them. Um generally we'll just do that testing for them. Um there are occasions where if it's not um testing within our normal COAP program uh where you may have to charge because it's a different kind of test. Um but the difference with this is so currently our testing is done each elementary school and the requests are done by parents um and um teachers to say this kid should test um and and then they request that and then we schedule a date. Um what we want to explore is options to have more general district testing on top of that where we can advertise that on this Saturday um for example we will provide gifted testing. Um as far as what the cost what that would be that's something we still need to explore and right now the testing we do is embedded in the school day.
So we're not having to pay somebody additionally to proctor it. Um so it's really just the cost of the test the license for the test. So if we do go that direction of having that Saturday testing um then that's something where we would look at okay what's the cost of proctoring? How do we um how do we mitigate that with a cost maybe to outside district um families? Okay. And then is as is the current only non non-teer non-parent initiated screener that that second grade screener. There's not any other correct. So the screener the state of Arizona pays for all second graders to be screened for gifted. Um, so that's something pretty much every district does is screening all second graders and then after that screening is done, it's identified students that need the the full test to identify those gifted areas. Great. Thank you.
Yeah, absolutely. Great question. Um, the uh gifted growing giftedmies I mentioned before endorsing additional teachers will allow us to have more teachers and open up more spots. Um, so currently we most of our gifted endorsed teachers are in the elementaryaries. So if we target to uh gifted provide gifted endorsement as well for junior high teachers and high school teachers um in the future um it will allow us to for example open up more spots and sections at that gifted academy at Highland Junior High um and explore what options we can provide for gifted services beyond elementary. Um the IB program within our district is fairly new with the vertical alignment through Patterson uh the Gilbert Accelerated Middle School and Gilbert High. Um so as we continue to bring students through, we're seeing growth um in that program as more students enroll um we'll see continued growth within that IB participation um particularly within that that vertical articulation there.
Um and identify additional opportunities for dual enrollment. So, we don't want all of our advanced learning opportunities to be those traditional academic pathways, but also include some of those things like CTE um to provide certification for students and college credit in those areas. Um so, that will allow us to um continue to grow in dual enrollment. Um I mentioned how we met earlier today with our AP committee that represents um all of our high schools. um we'll continue to meet together to collaborate and unify our practices with AP um so that we can make sure and grow those programs, address those issues of you know preparing students for the exam um recruiting additional students, identifying those potentials um and then um improve uh our alignment between the most critical piece really one of the hardest things in education is that connection between schools. So, as students move from sixth to seventh grade, from 8th to 9th grade, really making sure that our alignment is there um with our accelerated programs, with our gifted programs, where do those line up with AP, with honors.