Elementary Gifted Education Program

2010-11 School Year

A Tiered Elementary Gifted Education Program exists within each elementary school. The purpose of this approach to service is to ensure that we are providing direct services to address each student’s specific areas of giftedness.

Elementary Enrichment – (Grades K-3) Gifted Specialists within each elementary building have identified enrichment opportuntiies to best meet the needs of K-3 students within the building. These offerings may include: enrichment clubs, independent projects, contracted work with classroom teachers, competitions/contests, center activities within the regular classroom, school-wide fairs/events, etc. Please check with the Gifted Specialist to learn about offerings for K-3 students within each school.

Advanced Curricular Thinking (ACT) – Grades 4-5
Qualifying identified highly gifted students will have the opportunity
to participate in a Reading and/or Math pull-out program occurring multiple times per week. This program will provide accelerative and enriched opportunities in the specific content area. Students must be identified as gifted (by ODE guidelines) in at least 1 of the following areas to be eligible for service: Math, Reading, and/or Superior Cognitive Ability.

Elementary Accelerative Opportunities –

Acceleration is a huge umbrella of services available to gifted students is meeting their needs, including (but not limited to) subject acceleration, grade-skipping, curriuculum compacting, etc. Qualifying identified gifted students may have accelerative opportunities based on their individual academic needs. Please complete a Referral for Accelerative Options form (available within each school's Main Office or by clicking HERE) and/or contact your school's Gifted Specialist or our Coordinator of Gifted / Arts - Jane Simeri - at (216) 320-2182 or via e-mail at: j_simeri@chuh.org with inquiries.

The process for consideration is consistent across the district and includes the folowing steps:

1) Areas of gifted identification are reviewed - Math, Reading, and Superior Cognitive Ability for grade level acceleration, and Superior Cognitive Ability and the content area for a subject-related acceleration.

2) Once we have these areas of identification, we administer above-grade level standardized assessments in the content area(s) - looking for scores at or above the 85th percentile.

3) Upon completion of above-grade standardized assessment, we also administer informal summative assessments to determine if there are any gaps in learning which we may need to fill if an acceleration occurs.

4) The final step is to gather this data and assemble the Acceleration Committee - which includes parent/guardian(s), the Gifted Cooridnator, a Gifted Specialist, the Principal, the counselor, the classroom teacher(s), an above-grade level teacher, and any other school district staff who might further inform the decision. We meet to review the data, complete a document called the Iowa Acceleration Scale (if a full-grade acceleration is considered), and discuss the student’s academic, social, and emotional needs. If the Committee determines that an acceleration will occur, a Written Acceleration Plan is drafted, which indicates what type of acceleration will occur and how it will be implemented and monitored.

For additional resources related to acceleration, please visit: www.nationdeceived.org. This site provides access to "A Nation Deceived: The Templeton Report on Acceleration". This report is a compilation of years of research on acceleration and dispels many myths which have existed regarding the implications of acceleration. The document also provides information which describes the myriad of accelerative opportunities which may exist for gifted students.