our district has a continuim of gifted services beginning in 3rd grade. before that they do what amounts to ability grouping by subjects within team taught classes. for instance two or four classes in a grade are clustered. there will be multiple reading groups, language arts, even science and math. the math is mostly enrichment but acceleration begins in 3rd grade.
at third grade kids can test into a gifted magnent, which is basically upper 1-3% but there is a very broad rubric with multiple parameters that give points. it includes ability testing, achievement testing, classroom performance, teacher and parent questionaire about gifted traits. and a few othr things. They also have an appeal process if kids dont get in intitally. they will consider additional information such as private testing, IQ scores etc. Kids with close scores can also get a test run at it for a semester. its alot more work than the regular curriculum so kids often dont like it if they are not really gifted. but on the other hand highly motivated achievers can be successful in the magnent.
but the home schools all have honors tracks and cluster the top 10% kids in those classes ( based on the same rubric for the magnent). and kids that are just strong in math or in reading/LA can be in accelerated classes for just a single subject.
they have to qualify again for middle school. it is also magnent and home school clusters based. the middle school kids do the state curriculum, the honors curriculum and a project based gifted curricum on top of that. its alot of work and some kids that qualify stay at the cluster based in their home schools. All kids that qualify on the rubric or in appeal are served. class sizes vary every year. class sizes are much larger in the magnent than the regular schools though. funding has been cut in the last few years so material costs have been greatly reduced and field trips etc. but the structure remains intact.
