I wish schools offered another option like portfolio.
Tammy
Our county does this, although I don't think they regard it as a separate option. There is a rubric something like '2 out of 5' areas they collect info in have to show e
xceeds peer group by 2 grade levels or deviations depending on whether they are looking at school work achievement tests, iq tests or outside-of-school work samples collected. And then I think at least one other area has to show
exceeds, but not as high.
I know some places this is not true, but it certainly pays to ask. And keep asking until you are really speaking with the folks who know: the gifted teachers and assessment folks and program administrators.
Last year my ds came very close on some testing, scored really high on reading assessments and I was offered the option of sending in more info to support their assessment for the k-3 program. I brought in a bunch of his outside 'creative' work in and this does seemed to have helped his situation. Some of it was "real" writing, but also a bunch of drawings, paper constructions and other stuff, it all had a sort of story-telling theme going on.
Anyway, I like to share this in case there are folks out there wondering about this fuzzy area of id'ing.
