Academic acceleration is when a school or district places a student in a higher grade level than is typical given the student's age for the purpose of providing the student access to appropriately challenging learning opportunities.

Types of Acceleration

There are many types of acceleration, including, but not limited to the examples below.

Whole Grade Acceleration: This type of acceleration occurs when a student moves ahead an entire grade level. This is commonly referred to as "skipping a grade." Examples include:

A second grade student advancing to the fourth grade the following school year.
Admitting a student who is not age-eligible to attend kindergarten a year early to school. This is often referred to as early entrance.

Subject Acceleration: This type of acceleration occurs when a student moves ahead a grade level in one or more subject areas but retains his or her overall grade level. Examples include:

A seventh grade student advancing to ninth grade reading.
A student completing third, fourth, and fifth grade math in two school years.

Early Graduation: This type of acceleration occurs when a student meets the requirements for graduation in less than four academic years and graduates high school early in order to pursue post-secondary education.

Find Sylvania's acceleration referral form here: https://forms.gle/q1W8HPA71m7ND6Uv5

All students who wish to accelerate must be screened with the Iowa Acceleration Scale (IAS), Third Edition, only acceleration assessment process approved by ODEW.

Acceleration Checklist.pdf

Junior High Acceleration Options

Acceleration is not typically offered to students until they reach junior high. In 2023/2024, we only had one student taking an accelerated course who was in a grade under 6th grade. Only 5% of 6th and 7th graders are taking an accelerated course. Social-emotional aspects are important to take into consideration when considering acceleration. Often parents and students want to wait until a student is older to mature a bit in order to handle the additional rigor of an accelerated course. Due to this, 16% of 8th graders are taking an accelerated math course. This does not include 8th graders who are taking a foreign language which is also counted as an accelerated course.

Sylvania Acceleration Options and Rules for Junior High Video With Subtitles.mp4

Junior High Acceleration Presentation.pdf

Junior High Acceleration Brochure.pdf

Written Acceleration Plans

Districts must provide all students recommended for acceleration with a Written Acceleration Plan (WAP). The WAP describes the transition plan and supports for the successful implementation of an acceleration. After the successful completion of the transition period established in the WAP, an acceleration becomes a permanent placement.

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