AIM Elementary Placement

 

The District currently maintains two 4th grade AIM classes for students who are identified and qualified under the AIM category of intellectual ability or intellectually gifted.

Student Identification and Qualification

Students must qualify for AIM based on the identification and qualification process as explained on the AIM Identification page of the website.  A new identification process was approved by the Board of Education in November 2015.

Placement Preference
The District will notify qualified students of their option to request enrollment in an AIM class.  Qualified students must submit a Intra District Transfer Request  Form found here which includes, but is not limited to, the following information: residence, class site preferences and whether they have a sibling already enrolled in an AIM class at a preferred site.

Geography and siblings are preferences the district will take into consideration for the convenience of the families; these preferences to not reflect a legal right to a specific location.

General Selection Process

If more students request placement in the district-wide 4th grade AIM classrooms than seats available, a public random selection process will occur. The public random selection process will result in a placement list and a waiting list. This placement and waiting list will be maintained until it is no longer needed.

Determining Order of Placement

  1. All students qualified as intellectually gifted who submitted a request for placement in an AIM classroom will be placed in the lottery pool.
  2. The placement order list will be generated at a public meeting. For this process, “public meeting” means that district personnel, one teacher representative from the AIM Advisory and one parent representative from the AIM Advisory will meet together to implement the lottery process.
  3. Students who are qualified as intellectually gifted and who have submitted a
    Request for Placement Form will receive a number which will be hand-written on
    the form. Each form will be assigned a number beginning with
    “1”.
  4. The numbers on the Request for Placement Form will be submitted into the random number generator, such as Random.Org,  by one or more of the people at the public meeting.
  5. The random number generator will produce the list for order of placement.
  6. The participants at the public meeting will match the number on the list with the students Request for Placement Form and create a list of students.
  7. District staff will offer spots in the AIM program classrooms as follows:
    • District staff will first place any entering 4th grade student who has a sibling who will be continuing in 5th or 6th grade AIM so they are at the same site.
    • Next, twins/multiples will be ranked as a “set” with the higher/est ranking student so the siblings can be placed together; unless otherwise requested by the parent/guardian. When the “set’s” rank order number is next, they will be placed in the first selection that can accommodate them together.
    • If there are no siblings to consider, the student will be placed in the AIM classroom listed as their first preference.
    • If the first preference is full, the District will place the student in his/her second preference, unless full. The District will follow this step until all of the student’s preferences are considered.
  8. Steps as described in number seven (7), above, will be repeated for each student on the list in the order generated.
  9. Regardless of whether a student is placed on his or her first, second, third or fourth preference, the next student who is randomly chosen cannot bump an already placed student.
  10. After the placement list is determined, District staff will review placements among the students selected in the initial list and may make adjustments between families when mutual agreement exists.
  11. If space is not available for a student at their requested site(s), that student will be placed on the wait list.
  12. If a family declines placement, the student will be placed on the wait list.
  13. If a space becomes open after the initial placement list is determined, that space will first be offered to students in the order determined by his/her original lottery number. If the student does not accept the space, the district will turn to the wait list to fill it.
  14. Students on the wait list for whatever reason will maintain the same order as originally generated.
  15. After steps 13 and 14, above, are completed, if space is still available, students on the wait list will be offered seats in the order originally generated.
  16. Any student AIM-identified and qualified to seek an AIM classroom spot after the placement and waiting lists are finalized will be added to the bottom of the wait list by the date he or she qualifies and requests placement. This could be newly identified students or students moving into the district.
  17. The order of the wait list will be maintained until April 1 of the subsequent year at which point a new wait list for those qualified as intellectually gifted but not placed in an AIM classroom will be generated through the lottery process described above. This new wait list will be used to fill any vacancies that occur in the new academic year.
  18. When implementing these new procedures, unintended or unexpected issues may arise. The District reserves the right to adjust these placement procedures as needed.
    Any questions should be addressed to [email protected]