The Mercer Island School District board voted to approve the district’s 2024‑25 ICAP (highly capable) program plan required by the Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI), after staff presented screening, identification and classroom practice information.

Assistant director Weston Lucas, newly assigned to district learning services, led the presentation. Lucas told trustees the plan that will be filed with OSPI documents universal screening in kindergarten, grades 1–2, and fifth grade; the district’s identification instruments include the CogAT, Iowa and Torrance assessments along with classroom data and performance measures. Lucas said the district provides a mix of services: general‑education accommodations and extension (code 32) and a self‑contained cohort model in some schools (code 33). He highlighted enrichment examples such as Destination Imagination and “math in action” units the district showcased in classroom videos.

Lucas acknowledged gaps in longitudinal benchmarking at the high‑school level and noted the district is considering whether to adopt a repeated assessment at secondary grades to measure growth over time. He also presented demographic breakdowns and said some subgroup counts are suppressed in public slides to preserve confidentiality when numbers are small.

Staff presented achievement snapshots: students who have at any point received highly capable services showed higher letter‑grade distributions and higher enrollment rates in AP and honors courses at Mercer Island High School, and I‑Ready and SBA data presented for elementary and middle school grades showed students served by the ICAP program scoring at higher levels on local benchmarks. Trustees discussed how the district tracks acceleration, the distinctions between code‑32 services in general education and code‑33 self‑contained programs, and how flexible grouping and pre‑assessment guide classroom placement.

Why this matters: Approval of the OSPI plan is an annual requirement. Trustees asked for more disaggregated demographic data by site and service type and recommended the district report back after the first cohort of code‑32 students reaches middle school to compare outcomes versus the self‑contained cohort.

Action taken: The board approved submission of the 2024‑25 ICAP plan to OSPI. A motion to approve the plan passed by voice vote; the board recorded affirmatives and no recorded opposition.

Next steps: Staff committed to follow up with requested breakdowns by school and to consider benchmarking tools to enable secondary‑level growth measures.