To: SVSD Superintendent Dan Schlotfeldt and the SVSD Board of Directors

The Snoqualmie Valley School District website says — as of the date of this publication — that the STREAM program "is offered to second through fifth grade students who qualify for Highly Capable services." For ten years, STREAM has been the district's flagship program for its most highly capable elementary learners.

This year, seven Snoqualmie Valley children qualified for 2nd grade STREAM. The district now says seven isn't enough to run the class. Instead, those families are being offered two options: skip a grade entirely, or accept a cluster placement at their home school — embedded in a general education classroom with periodic specialist support. Neither is what STREAM provides. Neither is what these children qualified for. Neither is what the district promised.

For several of these families, an older sibling is currently enrolled in STREAM and will continue next year — while a younger sibling who qualified under the same criteria will be turned away. Same family, same identification process, two completely different outcomes.

We are asking the SVSD Board to direct that the 2nd grade STREAM class be formed for the 2026–27 school year.

Why this matters

The district has not pointed to a single binding reason this can't happen. The superintendent has cited a list of factors — cohort size, staffing, program design, sustainability — but none of them hold up:

• There is no minimum class size for Highly Capable programs in Washington state law. In fact, RCW 28A.150.260 funds Highly Capable allocations based on a ratio of fifteen students per teacher — well above the size of this cohort, and well below the 20-student general education target SVSD is now applying to STREAM. Aligning a Highly Capable program to general education class sizes isn't stability — it's conformity. It prioritizes administrative tidiness over the educational outcomes the program was designed to deliver.
• New state rules support running this class, not cancelling it. Recent changes to WAC Chapter 392-170 broadened Highly Capable identification from students who are "significantly advanced" to students with the "readiness and/or potential to benefit" from accelerated learning — and in the same revision, the state required districts to offer "a variety and array of services" to meet the range of needs that broader definition produces. STREAM and cluster are not interchangeable; they serve different learners. Students identified in multiple domains need the depth and pace of a dedicated STREAM classroom. Students identified in a single domain are well-matched to cluster. Eliminating STREAM and routing every identified student into cluster isn't variety — it's the opposite of what the new rules require.
• The district has run smaller STREAM cohorts before. A 2nd grade cohort of eight students was successfully served in 2019–20. Twelve students has happened in another year. The district found a way then. It can find a way now.
• The teacher exists. The curriculum exists. The classroom exists. SVSD has a qualified 2nd grade STREAM teacher already on staff. Per-pupil Highly Capable funding from the state follows identified students. We are not asking the district to build something new. We are asking it to continue something it already runs.

This is a promise being tested. When a district publishes a commitment to families for a decade, families plan around it. Children work toward it. Parents enroll a kindergartener trusting the program will be there when their child qualifies — especially when they've already watched it work for an older sibling. That trust is what makes a public school district worth investing in. Withdrawing STREAM from this cohort, while continuing to offer it to every other cohort identified under the same process, breaks that trust for every Snoqualmie Valley family — not just the seven affected this year.

The two alternatives the district has offered do not match what these students were identified as needing. Cluster placement, even with differentiation, is designed for students whose needs can be met within a general education classroom — not for students identified for the depth and pace STREAM provides. Grade-skipping moves a child into the next grade's general education classroom with no Highly Capable curriculum at all. For the multi-domain learners in this cohort, STREAM is the service model the district itself has long matched to their profile.

This sets a precedent for every family planning around STREAM in the future. If the program can be quietly withdrawn in any year the numbers are inconvenient, no family can plan around it. That could be your family next year, or the year after.

A bigger problem we also need to fix

In a recent survey, 92% of Snoqualmie Valley families did not know that data collected as early as kindergarten was being used to determine Highly Capable eligibility. Among families currently in the kindergarten and first grade window — the ones going through identification right now — not a single family knew. When parents asked teachers what was being measured, teachers couldn't answer either.

The seven students identified this year are not the full picture, but SVSD staff has refused to provide information on how only seven were identified, how many others were identified as Highly Capable in ELA or Math but not both and why. This is not just a problem this year - when we polled parents in the valley, we received responses from parents of elementary-aged kids in every year, citing a lack of transparency in the decision-making process. There are Highly Capable children in this valley who scored 99th percentile on CoGAT and were still not identified as eligible for STREAM. There are Highly Capable children whose families simply didn't know the window was open or who did not know they could appeal the decision. Highly Capable children exist in every demographic, in every zip code, in every school in this district — and the system is built in a way that finds the children whose families already know how to navigate it, and misses the rest. That isn't equity, and it isn't what state law requires. RCW 28A.185.020 establishes that for Highly Capable students, accelerated learning is part of basic education. SB 5072 (2023) requires universal screening with an explicit equity focus. SVSD should be moving toward identifying more children, not running fewer programs.

What we are asking the SVSD Board to do

Primary, time-sensitive ask:

1. Form the 2nd grade STREAM class for the 2026–27 school year. Honor the program these seven children qualified for and the commitment the district has published for a decade.

Related asks for systemic reform:

1. Publish year-over-year data on the Highly Capable identification funnel — how many students are screened, how many advance, how outcomes vary across schools — so families and the public can verify the process is working consistently.
2. Notify all families, from kindergarten onward and in every language they speak, about what data is collected and how it factors into Highly Capable identification.
3. Conduct transparent, individualized review of identification decisions, including consideration of national versus local norms as RCW 28A.300.770 requires. State rules are explicit that any single strong criterion can qualify a student in a subject domain, and that no student may be excluded from Highly Capable placement without at least two objective data points to support that exclusion. When students scoring at the 99th percentile on CogAT are denied services, the burden is on the district to explain why — not on the family to prove their child belongs.
4. Strengthen the cluster program for the hundreds of students already in it, with clearly defined differentiation and meaningful reporting to families.
5. Establish a sustainable, transparent K–12 framework so no Snoqualmie Valley family has to wonder, year to year, whether the program their child is working toward will exist.

We are not asking the district to lower its standards. We are asking it to honor its published commitments, find every child who qualifies, and serve them consistently.

Sign this petition to tell the SVSD Board: form the 2nd grade STREAM class, and fix the system that almost let these children slip through.