Is it possible for a child to be accepted into classes at a center for gifted students, like CTD, and NOT be identified as gifted by his school? Child has excellent evals from CTD classes, but school says does not show ANY signs of gifted characteristics. School unaware of CTD participation.

What to do?

Maybe you could explain a bit more about what CTD is? And, what measurements/qualities is the school using? What do you see at home that makes you think the child is gifted?

It is frustrating when schools don't see what others do. The first public school my son went to said he was "barely gifted" and yet he qualifies for DYS. Go figure.

I hope you get some answers.

yes it is possible for a child to be in CTD classes and not gifted. CTD requires 95th percentile on NWEA MAP. That could be a high achieving child and not a gifted child. They do not require IQ testing but accept it for entrance.

(CTD is Northwestern University Center for Talent Development)

Here is their eligibility requirements

Eligibility
CTD Academic Evaluation | Acceptable Tests for SEP Eligibility | Admission Portfolio


To qualify for Saturday Enrichment Program (SEP) admission, students must be age 4 through grade 9 and must also provide evidence of one of the following criteria:

Successful completion of a Center for Talent Development Saturday Enrichment Program, Gifted LearningLinks or Summer Program course in the subject area of the SEP course to which student is applying;
A score at the 95th percentile or above on a nationally normed standardized test in the subject area of the SEP course to which student is applying;
Participation in above grade-level testing such as the EXPLORE test taken in grades 3, 4, 5, or 6, the ACT or SAT test taken in grades 6, 7, 8 or 9 (Talent Search).
Qualifying academic evaluation (available to students age 4 through grade 3) performed by Center for Talent Development or a similar testing agency; or
Submission of an Admission Portfolio (an option only for students in grades 3 through 9).

Yes, there are ways to qualify without school or state testing for both CTD and CTY. The school is not likely to care about the CTD classes if they don't see the child as gifted.

Does your school do gifted testing or identification? Do you have state testing from the school? Many schools around us don't do GT testing until 3rd grade. If your child is younger the school may not have a program in place even if you can get the ID. My dd6 is in 1st and they don't have much to offer her. The math "enrichment" is a joke and the highest reading group is below her level. We are asking for more, but I'm aware it is unlikely to be much until 3rd grade. Our school is well aware of CTD. They won't consider enrichment classes a sign of Giftedness. They do however recommend it as a place to skip ahead in the Honors track later in middle school and high school.

Are you trying to use the classes as evidence to the school?

In the case of the chameleon kid, it's very possible that the CTD program and the school see completely different kids. In the one environment in which being smart is cool, the child exhibits intelligence, and in the other environment, the child dumbs down deliberately. This is a common behavior among gifted girls in particular.

Ask me about the time my DD, who had been forming perfect letters since she was 3, decided she didn't know how to write a capital M anymore...

Thanks all

I was surprised by the disconnect between what we hear about and observe in private activities vs. school feedback. I like the "chameleon kid" term. We choose to keep private activities private so do not plan on disclosing CTD or other info. Group testing will be done next year. This year testing was by invitation only.

You might also think about the "ceiling effect." In an typical kindergarten, for example, most teachers wouldn't think of asking a child to do multiplication, and if the child doesn't initiate the activity there are "no signs" of giftedness. We saw a bit of this with DS in preschool. The class was doing letter of the day, "B is for ball" etc., and the teachers were absolutely shocked when we mentioned he could read. (They never gave him an opportunity to show them!)

Without group testing, I'm assuming any evaluation begins with teacher observation. If your child isn't the quiet, compliant, type, a teacher might, unintentionally, be combining observations of behavior with observations of intelligence.

Assuming you did some testing for CTD, you might consider sharing that testing.

I can think of all sorts of reasons that a child might not be identified as gifted in early elementary. In addition to the possibilities that others have mentioned above, a teacher simply not caring to identify. Many of the children who are identified early in our district have teachers who believe in the positives of identifying gifted children and giving them enrichment, but there are some teachers who don't see the point, or think it's a hassle to have a child pulled from their classroom for enrichment or who don't want to give out differentiated work. I also think that sometimes it's difficult for parents to separate out what is "gifted" and what isn't when children are very young. EG/PG kiddos sometimes think very differently than other kids, and that's obvious to parents and teachers (if they choose to show it at school), but it's possible to have high-achieving kids who will later not land in the highly-gifted ranges who are able to achieve ahead of other kids due to exposure or developmental readiness.

I'm curious why you don't want to share the results of the testing you used to get into CTD with the school? It may be useful info to advocate with. Can you share it with us here? Or share your concerns re what might happen if you share it with the school?

polarbear

This thread is about CTD, so I don't want to get off track here... but re CTY, yes, there are multiple ways to qualify and you can qualify without testing... but that's just qualifying for the talent search. If you want to take classes, you have to meet a certain level on the CTY testing (or on SAT testing for older kids)... so it would most likely be difficult for a child who doesn't meet the general CTY ability cut-off range for being considered gifted to actually qualify to take CTY courses. I'm not sure if that's the case with CTD, I don't have any experience with CTD.

polarbear

We have a chameleon kid in school too, and it makes advocacy more difficult. He did not like to stand out, and he is an incredibly well-behaved student. He would not want to make waves by asking for more. He certainly would not speak up or volunteer anything in Kindergarten, with the consequence of the teacher thinking he was a little slow verbally. (This was quite shocking to us, since he was an incredibly verbal kid with a huge vocabulary.)

If your DD seems unhappy with school, you could investigate further into testing this year. Some schools must honor parent requests for testing, though it's not usually advertised.

This sort of happened with my DD10. She was accepted into a gifted pull out, even though she had no district/ministry gifted tag. I say "sort of" because she was tested in grade 2 and found to be several grades ahead, so that might be the equivalent to your "CTD" classes? Not sure. Anyway, she didn't get her designation until after she was put in the pull out.