Hi Trinity! <waves>
My former username was isugari on the forums;
Clark County's elgibility info is here:
http://ccsd.net/schools/twitchell/staff/minnich/eligibility.htm . I guess based on that, our county here offers different levels of gifted programming services? ie, GATE, TAGS, & Highly Gifted Services.
Their Highly Gifted Services state:
The Highly Gifted Program is a K-12 program offered to eligible students with general intellectual abilities at or above 145 on the Stanford Binet Intelligence Scale administered by a licensed psychologist. The Highly Gifted Program offers instruction in an inclusive setting with individualized programs developed for each identified student. Differentiated activities are provided to the students during the school day and a variety of social and/or academic activities offered after school hours throughout the school year.
So I guess the qualifying scores for their highly gifted services is at or above 145 on the SB. At the meeting with all the key folks (my son, his dad, my son's teacher, the GATE teacher, the school principal, and the county's Highly Gifted specialist), we were told out of about roughly 300,000 school kids in Clark County, they only have about 135 highly gifted identified.
The Highly Gifted specialist drew out a bell curve sketch for us on paper and said that here on the middle 50% line is where the general school age population falls, then farther out, this is where the GATE teacher's kids fall, and my son, he falls out here... and she drew out a tiny speck on the end of the curve. Our particular specialist who will be our Highly Gifted coordinator handles the Northwest side of town and she has about 20 highly gifted kids, with my son being the youngest.
My son will continue with 3rd grade reading, and will also get math acceleration. He started GATE classes this week too and seem to be enjoying that. They seemed to be a bit held back and reserved on grade skipping this early for my son and said it was something they can do later on when he's in 3rd or 4th grade. But I asked them, what about his grading then? His current report card and all the work he brings home is all at 1st grade level, which he's already well beyond, is he going to get graded too for the higher level subjects? The principal said they will work on devising a report card just for him, but it may take them time, but that definitely before end of this school year, they will test him to see where they will place him for certain subjects next year.
Oh, and we'll be attending SENG workshops here in Vegas, where our coordinator will be a speaker. It should be fun, and will be my first real interaction, and my son's too, with like-minded kids and for me, parents.
We'll be applying to the Davidson's Young Scholar Program, but since we only have the IQ test results and none of the achievement tests yet, I still need to gather his portfolio together. Probably will send it off next month
