Tempe Union board reviews data showing racial disparities in advanced and gifted programs and outlines follow-up steps

Tempe Union High School District officials on Tuesday presented enrollment data showing persistent racial and programmatic disproportionality across district programs, and the governing board discussed next steps including counseling outreach, feeder-district collaboration and a review of gifted identification methods.

Dr. Lehi and a district data presenter walked the board through charts that compare each subgroup's share of a program against its share of total enrollment. The presenter said the district chose a 10–percentage-point cutoff to flag significant over- or underrepresentation and cautioned that small subgroup counts (for example, 18 freshmen in AP) can magnify percentage differences.

Key findings included repeated patterns across grades and schools: Hispanic students were underrepresented in AP and gifted programs and overrepresented in Title I supports; white students were often overrepresented in AP and gifted tracks; Asian students showed overrepresentation in AP/honors in several cohorts. The presenters said the three-year trend is largely stable and similar when disaggregated by school.

Board members pressed for concrete responses. Member Amber James said counselors should proactively identify and recruit students who might thrive in honors or AP courses and called for ways to support teachers so they can help spark those conversations. Member Hodge urged the district to coordinate with feeder elementary and middle districts to address inequities earlier, noting the district often “loses them in third grade.”

Dr. Lehi described immediate next steps: meetings with principals and counseling staff, placement of the issue on the tri-district agenda for feeder-district alignment, and a forthcoming five-year scope-and-sequence review for the gifted program. The district also proposed examining multiple measures for gifted identification rather than relying solely on a single test.

Board members also raised access to summer opportunities. The district confirmed next summer's Math Academy will be housed at Desert Vista and said it would explore options such as transportation or additional locations to serve northern Tempe students.

The presentation included school-by-school breakdowns (Corona, Desert Vista, Marcos, McClintock, Mountain Pointe, Tempe High). The district noted Tempe High's use of the International Baccalaureate program (about 200 IB students versus roughly 11 AP students at that site) alters AP participation patterns there.

The board received the presentation and asked staff to return with follow-up information and recommendations; the presenters invited trustees to submit additional questions and direction as they continue registration and program planning.

The district framed those next steps as implementation and monitoring items rather than immediate policy changes; the board indicated it will continue oversight through committee work and future agenda items.