The word GT is overused and misrepresents the current services offered. I belive the strict definition of Gifted, meaning it should be applied only to those students with test scores in the 99th percentile range (in any of the test categories) will result in appropriate services being given to those students. Statistically, the actual number of gifted kids is only about 1 or maybe 2 per classroom. The rest may be high achievers, highly intelligent, and capable of doing work at approximately 1 grade level above what the cirriculum is in the class. The 1 or 2 children that are really GT should be allowed to work to the extent of their abilities - even if they are several grade levels above, they should be permitted to "test into" higher grade Math, science or whatever they are tested to, and return to their normal classroom for the regular course cirriculum. This should be scrutinized and only offered to those students showing significant - well beyone grade level capabilities. Children with this kind of capabilty find no value in the school cirriculum (they already "know" everything that is being taught and are forced to be patient for YEARS...). The impact of holding these kids back is a national problem, we are not educating our most valuable resource for the nation's future scientists, engineers, etc.. It also impacts the children in that they are not being educated and it is the mandate of the state to provide an education to every child. For the above average students (IQ between 105 and 130), a much broader swath of the population, that can move beyond the current cirriculum up to a grade level up, they should be educated at their level as well, but forming a select group and calling them "gifted" is not appropriate. They should be given optional, advanced educational opportunities so that even children who were not initially identified have the chance to progress into above grade level courses. This should be offered on an individual subject basis. Parents should be made aware of school testing AND given information on the subject matter so that if their child would like to advance, they have clear information on where to find the materials to study. This above average, above grade level opportunity should NOT be confused or intermingled with GT. It should be called Above Grade Level Opportunity - to indicate that this is available to all who wish to achieve. This kids are distinctly different from the highly gifted who can have extreme capabilities, but no outlets for advancement. The impact of the current movement - opening GT services to a wider range of students, essentially allowing "above average" students to receive GT services is two-fold: 1) GT for a wider group holds back the truly gifted children since they still cannot work at their level and are recieving an above average cirricula not a GT one. 2) it excludes those children who were not selected. Simply put, if a child who enters kindergarten tests with a 170 IQ in non-verbal and is capable of 2nd grade Math, he or she should not be forced to sit through years of not being educated. They should be offered the special accomodation of attending a math class with 2nd graders for part of thier day in order to meet thier needs. These are the kids who truly have needs that are not being met. I know in our school 1/3 of the 3rd grade is "identified" as GT. That is absurd! The truth is there are 4 or 5 kids in the GT class who are actually GT. The devastating impact is 2/3 of the grade already feel as if they have already missed their opportunity in life. This needs to end. Above grade level work should be an open opportunity and should be referred to as "achievement" based. If a significant population of the school can perform above grade level, they should be offered the opportunity, but that opportunity should include cognitive testing as well as achievement and should not be closed, as many "average" students can strive to achieve at this level. There should not be a differentiated group for all courses, but open admission. Abolish the work GT for all but the select few who truly need those services and allow them to be an exception in order for them to learn. Start allowing above grade level achievement for ALL of those who can and want to achieve.

I have one child that has attended the base school and is now in high school, and another child that has been in the elementary and middle school GT Center (and is now in 7th grade).  Based on my experience in seeing both programs, I am strongly in favor of retaining the GT Centers as they exist.

 I believe that the GT Center serves a vital role as a place that students can go and learn with other students like themselves.  It provides a peer group where students can be who they are and not the "outcast nerds" that they might be in the base school.  Generally, at the base school, there are not enough students to make this same kind of peer group and that is the reason that the GT kids feel that they don't fit in.  In contrast, at the GT Center these kids feel good about who they are, the depth of information taught is interesting to them, and they feed off each other both in class and socially.  When my son went to the GT Center, for the first time he became interested in school; I cannot even describe in words what a difference it made to his motivation and his happiness.  He was a completely different person, working harder and making better grades.  For the first time, he had teachers that really liked him and understood him, and he came home talking about the things he was learning at school.   At the base school, he was falling through the cracks, not being challenged despite being in every "pull out" offered, and I strongly believe that he would have fallen through the cracks in a big way had he not gone to the Center. 

There are people who believe that the Centers should be eliminated and honors classes offered instead.  I disagree with this completely.   In my experience the honors classes have become less demanding as they are opened up to virtually anybody that wants to take them.  My daughter took all honors classes in middle school.  There is no comparison between the level of her classes and the level of the classes offered at the GT Center.  It is not even close.  Unless the level of the honors classes changes drastically, they are no substitute for what is offered at the Center.  Moreover, as discussed above, without a program, there is no consistent peer group, and the importance of this cannot be overstated.

I do believe, however, that in going through this process of evaluating the GT Centers, it would be wise to review the direction of the honors program at the base schools.  I believe that less people at the base schools would be dissatisfied with the GT program if their children at the base schools were obtaining a higher quality education.  While I can see benefits of expanding the honors program at the base school and making these classes available to more students, my experience is that this policy is diluting the quality of the honors program.  At my daughter's school, the honors classes did not seem very demanding.  I believe that more of what is being offered at the GT Centers should be infused into the honors classes.  There is no doubt that most of the students that should be in honors classes can do the work, and there is no reason that the gap between GT and honors should be so great.

I'm hundred percent agree with Mrs. Griggs on the word GT is overused or abused.  The 4th grade GT Math level (my daughter in) is supposed 1-2  grades higher.  It should focus into real-life problem solving of fraction, ratio, percentage as interest, discount, profit, tip, tax, commission.  Futhermore, direct and inverse variant, volume, measurement, proportion, signed numbers, coordinator system and order of operation.

It's totally disappointed that all she's practiced in the classroom so far is  solving Least Common Divisor with demoninator of 2 and 3, 2 and 4.  Students are bored of what they're taught and tested as if they were in second grade, so they don't have motivation any more.  In spite of being equipped with plain numeric strategy, they're exposed to Continental  Math, which requires their critical thinkings.  It is fairly imbalance!   
In Physical Science which requires lot of experiment and imagination, it's hard to expect students who are just taught numeric math to understand Science.
In Language Art,  students' reading and writing are heavily influenced by environment.  Most of teacher choose the way let students write freely.  As the results, fragment, run-on sentence, wrong verb tense, incoherent ideas, grammar and mispelling errors!!!  You name it! 

"The impact of holding these kids back is a national problem, we are not educating our most valuable resource for the nation's future scientists, engineers, etc.." 
Mrs. Griggs can't be more right about it.  It's likely the reason American jobs are shipped oversea to India and China.  Their fifth graders  are disciplined and study  tremendously diligently than our eighth grader.  Let count back how many holidays to celebrate from the beginning of school year of September until the end of February.  I believe school should invest money on learning to  reinforce "NCLB" policy, instead of either cramming the SOL test material or wasting time/energy for holidays.  We shouldn't alternate the tests _tools to measure the learning knowledge_ with knowledge itself, then later reward for that phony knowledge.  There will be no bright perpestive for our country if the young generation get into the habit of "work for the worst! " 

I strongly recommend GT elementary students should have specialized teachers for different major subjects.   Teachers can be rotated different classes, focusing on the particular subject more than running to catch up with the quantities of subjects daily.  Young students need time to warm up their thinking prior to concentration.  Around one-hour period is too short to relate the new learning data with previous lessons.   I vote gifted ones should be grouped together.  They can share knowledge, can compete to advance themselves, and learn team work spirit, so it'd be better to have specific acceleration than just repeat old lessons year after year.

To my viewpoint of learning method, everyday students should take notes, have summary/ outline for each subjects and bring home for review in prepared for next learning days.  Teacher should compose parent letter weekly as a milestone report.  This will serve as communication vehicle, parent can test their children's learning and also match it against FCPS curriculum to emphasize on essential concepts.

 

I could hardly disagree more w/Ms Griggs. She's leaving out the other piece of the GT program--the T part, for Talented. Gifted children aren't just those with spectacular IQ's (and the hypothetical 170 IQ child she mentions is vanishingly rare--a program for 150+ IQ students would be tiny); gifted children are those who wait and wait while the others need to be taught something 5 times, and they got it the first time. Like Ms Hayutin (sp?) , I watched my children flourish when their needs were met in a GT environment, and their IQ's are in the Very Superior range, not the 140's. Ms Griggs lumps together IQ's from 105 to 130, which is a very inaccurate way to go about it--105 is normal, within the statistical plus-minus range, and 130 is in an entirely different category. Certainly gifted children need to be identified accurately: but aside from not meeting the needs of the 125-140 IQ child, a program designed to seine out only the extraordinary child who is a statistical outlier would serve so few children that it would be under constant threat from taxpayers who don't want programs which serve only a few children. So much money and resources go to special needs children at the other end of the developmental spectrum--let's keep the GT program open to the highly able students whose success is so critical to our nation's future--and whose failure would be an incalculable loss.

I think any person with a documented disability who is intelligent and hard-working should be allowed to take honors and AP level courses while in high school.  It should be mandatory that all high school department chairpersons should allow these people to enroll in such courses and not be discriminated against because of their disability.

When I was in high school about 10 years ago, I was denied the opportunity to take AP classes when I was a student at Walsingham Academy in Williamsburg, Virginia.  I am a person with high-functioning autism and now have successfully completed college and graduate school, with Magna Cum Laude at my undergraduate graduation from N.C State University!  However, a couple of the department chairpersons from Walsingham thought I was not capable of doing AP level work and this was most upsetting and discouraging for me.  Specifically, the people responsible for these terrible mistakes were Linda Eccleston of the social studies department, and Louise Pearson of the science department. 

In any revision of the existing regulations, it should be easier for people like myself to be able to enroll in honors and AP courses.  There should also be options for students to appeal decisions made by department chairpersons that do not decide in their favor.  Thank you for your consideration in this matter!

I would like the new regulations to focus more on service and less on identification.  One could set the bar at 1%, 5%, 10% . . . whatever number used is going to be somewhat arbitrary--both supported and opposed by academic research and publication.  Instead, the state should focus on the need to provide a range of services for the range of students we deal with in our schools.  The complexity of an individual's "giftedness" does not call for a simple solution like this particular center or that particular class.  Instead, it demands a complex approach that seeks to provide services that suit that child's particular needs and characteristics.  This is why a range of services is needed and we should move away from the out-dated concept that "gifted" students should do one thing and "regular" students something else.  This approach would not be considered in the field of special education (i.e. all special education students are separated from their regular ed. peers for a separate class or separate center;) why should it be assumed to work in gifted education?

As a parent in a smaller school division, I recognize the difficulties our division has in implementing and providing services.  We do not have magnet schools or centers; instead, our concerns center around having our child placed with another "similar" student in the classroom.  The term "gifted" is applied too broadly; our students, identified through a local plan, would be considered merely bright in one of the larger school divisions in VA.  However, if the term was not applied broadly, we'd have a very small number of students who'd be identified as gifted.  By allowing schools to identify gifted students as having "general academic aptitude", the regs do not require differentiated programming.  Each student in VA should have the opportunity to participate in an appropriate differentiated curriculum.  If they excel in math, science, English and history...then they should have a differentiated, accelerated curriculum in all of those areas.  We have ten high school students that attend a regional Governor's school during the academic year and it was a struggle to get funding for that; more support is needed to help students receive TRULY differentiated and acclerated services in their home school. 

I believe gifted children need GT Center before 3rd grade and not just GT enrichment classes in 1st and 2nd grades.

I agree with Ms. Griggs that we should identify the gifted properly and not confuse the gifted with advanced learners. There is a difference and the GT Center should allow children who are gifted to learn with others like themselves so that they can appreciate their intellectual achievements. Therefore I like the GT Center as a concept. I don't think they should be in mixed classes. They will not get the attention they deserve.

I also believe like Mr. Nguyen that the country and the state of Virginia cannot afford not to push its gifted populations. These are students who can actively contribute to language arts, science and mathematics in the future.

The Virginia Plan for the Gifted now provides that "Using multiple criteria, local staff members should regularly search for students ,,, [with] potential and/or demonstrated abilities and who give evidence of high performance capabilities (which may include leadership) in one or more of the following categories:

"• General Intellectual Aptitude. ...

"• Specific Academic Aptitude. ...

"• Technical and Practical Arts Aptitude. ....

"• Visual or Performing Arts Aptitude. ..."

Some Divisions, however, submit plans under which students who fall into a single one or more of the above categories may NOT necessarily be identified - because they choose NOT, for example, to recognize students with high potential performance in "General Intellectual Aptititude" as gifted..  Divisions apparently choose which of the above categories they choose to recognize.  It would seem contrary to the Plan for students who were eligible under any one of the categories to be excluded simply because of a choice of this nature by the Division.

In addition, some Divisions effectively require evidence of "enthusiasm", "leadership", or the like to obtain certain services under division gifted plans.  A particular, demonstrated level of enthusiasm or leadership is not relevant to the question of ability to benefit from (or need for) gifted services.  Divisions should not be permitted to considered such criteria in assigning levels of services to GT students (except that leadership and so forth may be defined as an independent form of giftedness).

All instruments or scales used to assign students to service levels within a GT program should be validated for that purpose.

Divisions should be cautioned that according to well-accepted research, introversion is associated with high degrees of giftedness and that introverted students may not appear to be engaged and enthusiastic -- the sort of students teachers tend to suppose to be gifted.

Divisions should be cautioned that a lack of performance on school tasks may be a sign that a student is not being challenged, rather than a sign that a student is not able to perform.

Divisions should be given criteria to help them identify twice-exceptional and highly- or profoundly-gifted students.

-------

Identification and services should start earlier and continue longer.

Divisions should be urged to consider grade-skipping and other forms of acceleration more frequently.

The current regulations seem to address basic identification adequately.  The weakness in them is in differentiating between levels of giftedness.  The difference between a mildly to moderately gifted student's needs and the highly or profoundly gifted child's needs is dramatic. The emphasis in the system is egalitarianism.  We should have an egalitarian school system, that is one that provides an education for each student.  That doesn't mean the same system for each child but one that educates each child.  Highly and profoundly gifted children are capable of completing the entire K-6 school curriculum in just a couple of years.  Children aren't allowed to test into school early.  Gifted programs don't begin until 2nd grade and then are directed towards the needs of the mildly to moderately gifted.  Our current system of elementary education doesn't educate these children.  They either do it themselves or quit trying and just take up space.

And of course the real issue is not a lack of appropriate regulations but funding.