Action | Revision of regulations school divisions must meet in their gifted education programs, K - 12 |
Stage | Final |
Comment Period | Ended on 3/3/2010 |
In Chesterfield Public Schools: African American students are 27% of the student enrollment but only 10% of students receiving gifted education services. Caucasian students are 61% of the student enrollment, yet 82% of students receiving gifted education services.
Of the fifty-seven
Students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch are 25% of the school district enrollment but less than 3% of students placed in the center-based gifted education program.
I recommend rejecting 8 VAC 20-40-40 subparagraph D3, screening, referral, identification, and service. Subparagraph D.3 provides that the identification process used by each school division must ensure that no single criterion is used to determine a student’s eligibility [for gifted services].
Chesterfield County Public Schools uses a single criterion – 97th percentile or higher on the CoGAT – for a student to be considered for center-based gifted education programs. Students scoring in the 96th percentile or below are considered for home school gifted services which consists of differentiated instruction in the classroom (at best).
I recommend subparagraph D3 be rejected and replaced with specific language that establishes how to weight the criteria relied upon for gifted identification. The weight given any criteria should be research-based and validated.
I recommend subparagraph D3 be rejected and replaced with specific language requiring school divisions which rely upon a cut off score, in this case 97th percentile, and used to determine the level of gifted services, to establish the validity of using that criteria as a determinant in providing the level of gifted services.