Also in my state/district program and placement are two different things.
Our district:
A child is screened because someone nominates him/her for screening....parent or teacher. Screening is a one on one test with the guidance counselor using a K-BIT 2. If s/he meets the minimum score, at least 2 different teachers fill out some sort of gifted scale, records are reviewed, and a student study team signs off on a psychological assessment request and parent consents. Ideally the assessment would be a wisc and a woodcock Johnson. But they do what they feel like doing. One of my sons got a RIAS and one got a K-ABC-2 instead of WISC and they used an old SAT-10 for my younger son's achievement.
Anyway that qualifies them to be a part of the gifted program....which is just a label...then you develop what that child needs and finally decide the placement or the how....that child is required to see someone gifted endorsed for some part of the day. So principals try to have one gifted teacher per grade level and then that leads to clustering in that teacher's classroom.
