Identification of Students as GT
Students are nominated for evaluation by the gifted and talented teacher at their school in one of several ways. They can be nominated by a classroom teacher, they can be nominated by a parent, or they can be determined to need further testing based on their scores on previously administered assessments like CSAP or MAP. Beginning in 2009-2010, second grade students will be screened with the Cognitive Abilities Test.
The Colorado Department of Education has developed guidelines for districts to use when qualifying students for GT programs, which includes collecting a body of evidence to identify students for services. TSD has used these guidelines to determine our eligibility criteria. Students must have two strong indicators or three moderate indicators in their strength area to be identified as gifted and talented in that area. A strong indicator could be a score of 98% or above on a standardized, norm-referenced assessment; middle advanced or higher on CSAP; or a performance evaluation 2+ years above grade level. Moderate indicators include a score of 95% – 97% on a standardized, norm-referenced assessment; low advanced on CSAP; or advanced on a grade level performance evaluation. For non-academic areas, we rely on checklists of characteristics of gifted students (such as the Scales for Identifying Gifted Students – SIGS) and examples of advanced performance in the area as measured by a rubric. For example, to qualify as GT in Math a student could have a quantitative (math) CogAT score of 96%, a math MAP score of 95% and a middle advanced score on math CSAP.
Generally students are identified as gifted and talented beginning in third grade because of the amount of data needed to qualify students for programming and the lack of available data before that time. Students can be identified as gifted and talented in the following areas:
Reading/Language Arts
Mathematics
Science
Social Studies
General Intellectual Ability (high ability in the above four subjects)
Writing
Visual Arts (drawing, painting, sculpting, etc.)
Performing Arts (music, drama, etc.)
Creativity
Leadership
Cognitive
