I'm still confused about your school's gifted thing - they identify the top 5% of all kids, and provide services for the top 5% of the gifted group? ((confused look))
Grin, certain states require schools to ID GT kids--all of them!--according to specific set of rules. Say, a 130 IQ, for example. But then the school may not have enough money to serve appropriately all of those kids according to the rules. (These are good rules, BTW, since they are working to minimize "drive-by GT education," where a kid would get a handful of worksheets once a month and be deemed "served." <eye roll>)
The solution? Don't serve all the GT kids. If you can only serve 50 kids, you serve the 50 who scored highest. #51 is out of luck, even though the school agrees the kid is GT and could use the services.
It all comes down to $$$.
Is that any clearer? I'm not sure I did very well there...
