Bellevue has a good program and I did know a couple ELL kids in the gifted program, but because of their high cut-offs for English reading comprehension you might have difficulty testing in. Bellevue and Lake Washington both require reading scores in the 98th % on both the CogAT and the ITBS to get into the program (and 98th on the CogAT only gets you into the one-day-a-week pull-out in Lake Washington). I believe Issaquah's requirements are similar. Northshore seems to be a little more flexible. But they ALL require the CogAT and ITBS, and not always even the same form of it. There are new laws that are causing all the local programs to change their requirements and procedures. One of the good things is that they can't apparently waitlist qualified kids anymore. But proving your kid is qualified may require jumping through some pretty specific and slightly outrageous hoops.
We are having transfer issues right now because DD took the CogAT and ITBS in one district with scores high enough she should get into any gifted program anywhere. But she took the "wrong form" of the CogAT according to the district we are moving into, and they claim they are going to require her to re-test with a different form of the CogAT in August. It's illogical and ridiculous, especially considering we also have very recent IQ and achievement testing scores that are equally high. The bureaucracy about testing and transferring in this area will make your head spin, or possibly even explode. I mean, she scored at or above 99% across the board, and the only way she would reasonably be expected to score lower now is if somebody screws up the testing, the whole re-testing business is just a lot of pointless BS at this point.
