Our district does testing in K and 2nd grades (CoGat and ITBS). Then, there is a pullout of about 1 1/2 hours a week (assuming the GT teacher is not busy administering state tests, helping the special ed teacher, performing hall duty, or a multitude of other tasks). There is a theme and the kids do arts and crafts and watch movies and read some books. Last year in 1st it was Ancient China and they made a Great Wall, a Chinese Dragon, ate rice for Chinese New year, stuff like that. Pud loved going but it didn't do much for him academically. I think the time increases a little each year after 2nd until they go 3 hours a week in 6th grade. I think it is a miserable way to address GTness. The problem with pullouts is that kids are gifted all the time and these programs really just entertain the kids and help keep them from going out of their minds with boredom in the regular classroom. Our 1st grade teacher actually resented the GT pullout and sometimes "forgot" to send the kids.
I don't know what our middle school has. High school has AP classes and an agreement with the local community college for joint courses.
