May 9, 2018, New York City -
Rachel Ford, Lead Author

In just two weeks, this online group of parents of twice exceptional children in New York City managed to have over 500 people respond to our survey.  

I think the parent comment quote on the title page shows our urgency and why we are so fed up and able to get this done so quickly.  I firmly believe this is something that is not only going to help 2e children but will help others as well.  

“ There isn't currently a place for students who have disabilities but are accelerated academically. This results in many challenging behaviors for my son. If we weren't sending him to private school, I believe that he would be on a pathway to frequent suspensions. This feels like a ticket to the schools-to-prison pipeline for students whose families cannot afford private school, services, and attorneys. Teachers working with G & T classes (my son attended one a few years back) do not have special education training. Special education classes cannot differentiate up for gifted students. ”

—Survey Respondent

Here is a link to the 2e NYC Survey Summary  

We would be grateful and honored if you shared with anyone who cares about twice-exceptional children and equity in education for all. Please see One Sheeter of our survey below 

At Tweed Courthouse, on May 24, 2018, the 2e NYC group (Parents of Twice Exceptional Kids in NYC Listserv) gave a presentation about their recent survey of Twice-Exceptional students and families to the Citywide Council on Special Education (CCSE).  We were so grateful to Ellen McHugh and the CCSE for inviting us to present our survey findings! Click here to read the 2eNYC Survey Summary.

Thank you to Rachel Ford, Lead Author of the 2e Parent Survey who collected the data, prepared the survey report which allowed us to be able to prepare these presentations. 

There were approximately 30 members of the 2e NYC group in attendance at the meeting.  Additionally, other members of the Department of Education also attended including Christina Foti, Chief Executive Director, Division of Specialized Instruction and Student Support and various members of the Special Education Office. Additional DOE members in attendance included Veronica York, Assistant Principal, Townsend Harris, Georgia Brandeis, Special Ed Coordinator, Townsend Harris, and Bandna Sharma, Family Leadership Coordinator, District 30.  View the video above for the presentation.  The slides of the presentation are available below, just click here:

The members of 2e NYC were thrilled to participate in this meeting. They shared their own experiences as well as brought questions about how best to move forward. Christina Foti, Chief Executive Director, Division of Specialized Instruction and Student Support, Special Education Office, NYC DOE, graciously answered all the members' questions.  

Seven months after 2eNYC was published and shared the results of Rachel Ford's 2eNYC Survey Report  about twice exceptional learners (some may see them as having "invisible disabilities") in NYC, the New York City Department of Education Division of Specialized Instruction and Student Support presented the Personalized Learning Symposium on January 4, 2019. The symposium focused on training teachers of learners with disabilities who were in gifted and accelerated programs. Parents were also invited and attended as well. There were three tracks for learning (Parents, Teachers, and Related Service Providers). The morning sessions were dedicated to learning about the executive functioning challenges of these students and how best to help them. The afternoon session was dedicated to learning about the potential for the use of assistive technology to assist gifted students with disabilities. This was supposed to be one of two symposia dedicated to this topic. We are grateful and excited as training for teachers was a major priority for parents according to the results of our survey. 

At St. Francis College, on May 23, 2019, NYC DOE Division of Specialized Instruction and Student Support held its second Personalized Learning Symposium to address the needs of students with disabilities in gifted and talented and other accelerated learning environments.  Link to event here- be sure to click “event details”

Deputy Chief Academic Officer, Corinne Rello-Anselmi, who has studied the needs of twice exceptional students at the University of Connecticut, addressed an audience of administrators, school psychologists, teachers, related service providers, and parents.  She was followed by Chief Executive Director, Christina Foti, who, along with her team, has been working with 2eNYC (Parents of Twice Exceptional Students in NYC) to find ways to support dually identified students. 

(Click on the titles of the seminars to get the powerpoint)

The symposium kicked off with a presentation from Arwina Vallejo, Chief Executive Director of School Based Evaluations and Family Engagement and Lauren Sullivan, Director of Evaluations and Eligibility. In the seminar, IEP Development Using Strengths-based Model of Understanding Executive Functions, the co-presenters showed the attendees how to translate a student’s executive functioning deficits while recognizing a student’s strengths to consider the impact on the student’s disability on their performance at school. With a worksheet template (see above), attendees were provided opportunities to discuss the appropriate accommodations for such students in their IEPs. Ms. Vallejo noted that tests such as the NEPSY and other batteries were available to all school psychologists and encouraged them to contact their supervisors to access them. 

Meghan Duffy, Director of Primary Literacy Interventions conducted a densely packed workshop: Supports for Executive Functioning: Focus on Writing to explain the necessity of explicit instruction when teaching writing. She guided attendees to explore the ideas of Anita Archer who emphasizes modeling (I do), getting students throught the strategy (WE do), elicit frequent responses, and providing feedback. 

Ms. Duffy also covered areas of Judith Hochman’s The Writing Revolution method of which she noted that training was available through NYC DOE Academic Intervention Services as well as other training provided by the DOE. Topics explored included: sentences and fragments, sentence expansion, various types of outline for paragraphs and compositions. Templates for teachers to use with students were shared. 

Another workshop: Personalized Learning and Executive Functioning Supports for Diverse Learners was presented at the same time in the main auditorium. 

Jackie Ortiz, OT Supervisor for the Bronx and Lauren Greenman, OT Supervisor for Brooklyn presented Classroom-Based Sensory Strategies for Rigorous Academic Environments. They discussed and explained the existence of 8, not 5 senses, the additional being Vestibular, Prioprioceptive, and Interoceptive. They discussed some measurement tools including the OT Classroom Observation Form and the Motivation Assessment Scale to measure some of the challenges faced by the students. Other topics discussed were interventions that included sensory diets to be done prior to challenging events such as circle time.

BEST QUOTE OF THE DAY: THE DOE DOES SENSORY

“The DOE does sensory,” said Suzanne Sanchez, Senior Director, Therapeutic Services, and Occupational Therapist at the New York City Department of Education. “The OTs in schools are certainly capable, trained, and have the expertise to treat functional based sensory disorders needs in a school based setting.” Ms. Sanchez said this in response to an attendee who said that she was told that the DOE doesn’t do sensory. She was glad for the opportunity to dispel the myth and added that what the DOE says is that they don’t necessarily need a sensory gym or very fancy sensory equipment.  

Conclusion:

The word among parents, who were a small minority of the attendees, was that the 2nd symposium was better than the first! While we will continue to pursue further progress, we are grateful to the NYC DOE Division of Specialized Instruction and Student Support for this symposium. Just one year ago (click for video), our group presented our survey findings to the Citywide Council on Special Education about the plight of gifted children with special education needs in our schools. Our work and activities were even chronicled in the Hechinger Report, EdWeek, Chalkbeat, KQED Mindshift and Childmind.org. 

We’ve been told there will be another symposium.  Please remember if you are a parent of a twice-exceptional child at a New York City public school, we invite you to share your challenges with us at 2eNYCtrack at gmail dot com and we invite all parents of 2e children in this city to join our listserv. https://2enyc.groups.io/g/main  

Published June 17, 2019  Click Here for the Report

After the 2nd Personalized Learning Symposium on May 23, 2019, members of ​2eNYC realized that the needs of staff educating ​twice exceptional students​* in accelerated high schools were not as well addressed. Thus, 2eNYC created a short survey and distributed it to staff at specialized high schools and screened and accelerated middle and high schools.  This survey was informally distributed (parents gave to school staff) during a busy time (June) in a school year. There were 33 responses to the survey. 

While clearly more data needs to be collected, results of the survey indicate what has been a growing concern for students with disabilities in accelerated high schools in New York City.

1. There is a definite lack of presence of twice exceptional students in screened accelerated high schools in New York City. Students with disabilities often enter the screened accelerated high schools through a separate pool of applicants known as the Students with Disabilities (SWD) pool. To achieve the SWD distinction, students must meet a minimum requirement of having 20% of the instruction provided by a special education teacher. SWD status is often inaccessible to twice exceptional students as not only do they have gifts that commonly mask their disabilities but even when concerns are raised, 2e students’ ability to perform at grade level is often incorrectly and unfairly used as the justification to deny services to them, especially special education services (ICT and SETSS).

2. Responses from Specialized High Schools staff indicated that the staff didn't possess adequate knowledge to support students with disabilities many of whom are likely twice exceptional. 2eNYC emphasizes this point in recognition that students with disabilities are not included in the conversation about proposed reforms in specialized high school admissions. We also fully recognize that unlike screened accelerated schools, none of the specialized high schools in New York City are required to admit a percentage of SWDs equivalent to the percentage of students with disabilities in their district or borough. 

3.  Staff at screened accelerated high schools were deeply concerned with their students with disabilities who are entering these schools with severe foundational academic skill gaps. These students are described as having reading levels from 1st to 5th grade thus they are entering these schools with academic levels far below peers in even non-accelerated general education environments.