Jordan School District reports ALPS enrollment, $350,000 USBE grant and local barriers to broader access

Jordan School District presented an update to the Board of Education on May 27 about its Advanced Learning Placement for Students (ALPS) program, the district’s largest gifted-and-talented delivery model.

The district said a Utah State Board of Education grant called the Enhancement for Accelerated Students provides roughly $350,000 a year to support ALPS testing, proctoring, substitute stipends for professional development and supplemental classroom resources. The presentations were led by Carolyn Goff and Rebecca Smith, who described ALPS operations, professional development and enrichment activities funded by that grant.

The update said ALPS is a long-standing district program that identifies students through annual testing and serves roughly 900–1,000 students; this year’s enrollment is about 950. Elementary entry is application‑based; the district runs universal testing in sixth grade and issues invitations for middle school ALPS. Schools that currently host ALPS classes include Jordan Hills, Riverton and West Linn elementaries and Elkridge, Hidden Valley and Joel P. Jensen middle schools.

Smith said the USBE grant pays for testing licenses, proctors and stipends for after‑school professional development. The district also uses grant funds to run a Sparking Minds professional development series that trained general‑education teachers in Socratic discussion techniques tied to the district strategic plan.

Board members pressed administrators about limits to expanding ALPS. Board member Robinson and others said many parents decline invitations because the magnet‑style ALPS sites require students to travel away from their neighborhood school. District staff and the superintendent, Dr. Anthony Godfrey, replied that transportation and full neighborhood schools are the main practical barriers: adding local ALPS “cluster” classes would increase staffing complexity and costs and require teacher training and dedicated FTE, especially at elementary sites where a 1–6 staffing model is needed to sustain a program.

Administrators described other access strategies: site‑based professional development, early flyers and parent outreach in English and Spanish, teacher referral cards, in‑school specialist support for students on wait lists, and partnerships to fund competitions (STEM fair, History Day, debate and math tournaments) that are open to many students.

Board members asked staff to return with cost estimates and staged options for expanding services, such as “one ALPS per feeder” or additional middle‑school sections, and requested a breakdown of current district spending on gifted and talented (grant vs. district personnel and testing costs).

District staff said they would collect personnel and testing costs and email the board a fiscal breakdown. They also offered to return with staged expansion options for board consideration.

The discussion closed with board members urging the district to prioritize strategies that reduce the transportation burden on families and to bring back clear costed options for board decision.

Ending: The presentation gave the board a summary of ALPS scale and funding and framed the choice the district faces: expand local, neighborhood access at higher staffing cost or keep the current magnet‑style model and address transportation and outreach to raise participation.