Wow! Maybe I am not as out of the loop as I thought. Renzulli and Reis for ID goes back to my endorsement days. Something tells me that not much has changed there. You are right that the kids can tell you who the really strong students are, unfortunately I don't think that is going to be allowed as part of the process. (One of my fourth graders informed his parents the other day that a student should have made one of our academic teams because he is SO smart. The mother worried, too, as we discussed what he might have done to keep him off.) It seems that he was so upset at not knowing some of the skills, he keep getting sick and leaving. HE DIDN' T finish the test!!! (He is now on the team after a little teacher intervention. All I shared was the opinion of the other kids, with a little data from test scores.) Our math lessons have taken a little turn, too, since these kids now have a need for division in their problem solving.
I totally agree that the "label" isn't the important part, the programming is. However, the state of Indiana now requires that we identify the "High Ability" learner from grades k-12. I am researching what that really means, but from what I can tell it mandates ID, but does not say anything specific about services. Our state gifted association conference is next week and I am hoping to gain more insight there.
I taught our pull out program when I came here---until it was soooooo watered down from monetary cuts that assigned me half time to another program. I decided that I would be able to utilize my talents in the general ed classroom much better than where I was. The program was eventually deemed a waste and eliminated altogether.
There is no way that we will hire any new staff (too bad), so we have to figure out what the staff will accept and implement. I am pretty sure that my grade will probably cluster with the "high ability" in my room. My teaching partner may not like that, but it is really already being done--it just isn't stated as such. The decision will be who else gets grouped in the mix. Honestly, I would love to have the below level with them. Perfect for peer tutoring and also giving some extra adult assistance to work with the groups so I could focus on the specific needs of each one.
As I said, I love what I do and this is an exciting challenge to kind of go back to my roots, so to speak. I know that I have a lot of influence on upcoming decisions because of my background and want to make sure that the latest information is being used. It is important that we at least try to make this the best possible program to meet the needs of our top kids.
We just in-serviced today on our ISTEP+ scores with the focus on what mistakes were being made by those not passing........but the one point that was emphasized was that our GLARING problem is we were not bringing our top kids where they needed to be. (We are teaching to the middle and those not passing the test.) Surprise!!! Surprise!!!
I really appreciate your input and will be checking out the sources mentioned. I am sure that there will be MANY more questions as we tackle this in the next few months. Hopefully, there are some willing responders.
