I'm curious to know if there are districts that are formally identifying and accommodating 2E students. Do any districts have a... 2E specialist...? I know, a pipe dream, right? I thought maybe Silicon Valley...?
I'm looking for policy. In writing.
Otherwise, I assume, it's student-by-student, being identified as gifted and getting special ed services as needed, with the parents leading the way.
The reason is that you need a state that considers gifted education to BE a "special need" the way that disability confers specific and differential special needs.
There are places that automatically write IEP's for gifted students-- and PA is the one that I'm aware of where the practice is apparently state-wide and written into educational law.
Since the second 'e' is Federal, that should mean that PA effectively recognizes 2E students as a unique group. You only write ONE document called an IEP, after all, and if it contains provisions and line items for both gifted needs and also for disability-related ones, then it's de facto a "2E" version of an IEP.
Does that help?
The problem that you're going to face in looking at POLICY here is that Disability is federal, and gifted is state or local. Period.
Lillie-Felton is a ruling that you ought to take a look at, however. That specifically spells out that it is ILLEGAL to prevent gifted students from having access to appropriate (gifted) programming by virtue of disability's limitations.
Now I need to read the fine print about when a child's performance is at (or even above) grade level but she still has a learning disability.
And it is interesting that disability is federal while gifted is state or local... gifted is never considered a barrier to learning? That's mostly a rhetorical question. Mostly, but I know there are plenty of studies showing underachievement and elevated drop-out rates for underchallenged gifted students.
Doesn't sound like the OP is near PA, but a word of caution for PA folks - the "good" districts really control the gifted ID process. Since the law says that kids with an IQ of 130+ must be offered gifted services, our district puts you through a long process which they control. First, all sorts of paperwork and a pre-test (and they tell you that from the pre-test, they know your kid won't score high on the IQ test) - this takes months. Then our district chooses which IQ test the kid takes, and they administer it. Must be FSIQ of 130 or more, no GAI or looking at subsections.
I know others will tell me that the PA law isn't written this way (making the IQ test the only factor). While I agree, it would be tough to change the district process. When you are in a district with plenty of FSIQ >=130 kids, then they really feel no need to bother with the kid with a low PSI. I realize that isn't fair and may potentially be illegal, but just pointing out that even where gifted is a "special need", the process isn't perfect.
Our district is just starting to understand this, in part as a result of changes in leadership and in part through parent advocacy making the need crystal clear. It's marvelous.
Our district, under "placement procedures" in its written gifted education policy states:
"Written criteria provided by the District shall include an explanation of the methods used to ensure equal access to each gifted service for all eligible District students, including minority or disadvantaged students, students with disabilities, and students for whom English is a second language."
This reads as state boiler plate, so it would be the same state wide in districts that offer services.
But, as you know, written policy and administrators who really get it are different things. In our case, the standard tools they use for ID are really problematic for several disabilities and they won't budge on making any accommodations.
I am not sure yet, I sure hope my district understand them. Looks like I am going to be trying, haven't decided yet if we are going to push for a 504 or an IEP till we do testing this summer. My district does have "gifted" IEP's but the only time I've seen the paperwork for that was when my son was in the gifted class in 4-6th grade.
The problem I see with being able to get an 2E IEP, is that from what I remember being told years ago, the "official" cutoff to be qualified as a LD is having at least one subtest show the student to be under the 7% cutoff. But a kid who is gifted could still have major problem if in a sub area was they were significantly lower than how they performed were tested in everything else. But they still might be above that 7% mark and the school might claim that they don't qualify.
Our district qualifies for achievement scores >23 points below cognitive scores in the same area, so DD qualified with barely below average spelling considering her VIQ. This is an administrative decision not mandated by federal law.
Rather than single person, it sounds like they are looking to enhance cross training and communication amongst exceptional, gifted, and esl to identify the best they can.
Albuquerque Public Schools has an office of Twice Exceptional. It was because of their intervention that we were able to get my son finally placed in gifted classes this past year. It did not, however, help getting the teachers to understand or accept the issues of being Twice Exceptional.
Our district qualifies for achievement scores >23 points below cognitive scores in the same area, so DD qualified with barely below average spelling considering her VIQ. This is an administrative decision not mandated by federal law.
This is significant, I think - it's a relative performance indicator.
The sad part is that this district was taken over by a deal with Pearson to market common core materials and from what I hear, things are not as rosy as they could be. (IOW, I wouldn't move there for the services!)
This is exactly what I'm looking for! I'm looking for examples of policy and best practices. (I'm not looking to move anywhere!) Thank you -
I believe the Wright's Law folks are even based in Virginia.
I think there is still some variation in the individual districts as they all have to come up with a Local Plan for Gifted Education that is submitted back to the state.