Our district is similarly crazy. They require CogAT scores over the 98th percentile PLUS achievement scores over the 95th percentile (higher for the highly gifted program). The quant AND the verbal sections of the CogAT BOTH need to be high and the Composite does not matter unless it's at least 139. So a kid could have a 137 Composite CogAT score and high achievement scores in both math and reading, but not qualify for g/t services if they screw up, say, the verbal section of the CogAT. It's infuriating and shows how clueless the district admin are. They are just looking for nice simple numbers to plug into their eligibility matrix. I doubt even the makers of the CogAT intended it to be used that way.
Achievement scores depend a lot on what the school is teaching. So it is nonsensical for them to say a child is not gifted because they are not achieving, when the child never had access to higher level material or concepts. I don't know anything about ITBS (whether it measures above-level skills), but on tests which have a high ceiling, kids who are scoring above the 95th percentile generally have mastered concepts that are a few grade levels advanced and the test measures those skills. Just because a student hasn't mastered them yet doesn't mean they are not capable of learning the skills.
