My son (K - Age 5, turns 6 in summer) recently went through our district's GT testing process (they do the COGAT and NNAT over two 2 hr periods on successive Saturdays in small groups). His scores were pretty high and qualify him for our district's center based GT program (stand alone classroom format with in a neighborhood school, 1 GT class per grade). Just for background, his scores/percentiles were (Age Percentile first, Grade Level Percentile in Parentheses):
NNAT: 99% (99%)
COGAT Verbal: 99% (98%)
COGAT Quant: 99% (98%)
COGAT NonVerbal: 95% (93%)
COGAT COMPOSITE: 99% (99%)
I've read a lot about how COGAT is not a great test, there's no way to give derive a relative IQ, etc., but we're pretty happy he qualified for the program.
Now we're faced with a choice of whether or not to send him to the Center. It's relatively close by and housed at an excellent school and I'm hopeful it will be more challenging for him. But, I do want to visit the program and get a feeling for the classroom and get some more questions about the program answered. He's currently getting a lot of extra attention/pull-outs at his current school. He's subject accelerated in reading to a 3rd grade room, does special projects with the librarian, etc. But, he doesn't really have a peer group and at this point, I'm not sure a grade skip would be enough or that he's ready for that yet socially (I've read nation deceived, etc and I'm not against grade skips, just not sure it's the right path for him). For all of these reasons, we're leaning towards sending him to the GT Center, but I was hoping I could get some ideas of questions/ideas for what to ask about when I go visit. Here's what I have so far:
- General Questions about class size, format, etc
- HW questions: I'm hopeful that they stick with their mantra of "different, not more," but we'll have to see
- How they deal with kids at different levels/differentiation (you only have to score 95% in one area to qualify for the program, so levels can vary)
- Will they subject accelerate if needed?
- How much time is spent on social/emotional issues?
- How much integration with Gen Ed kids at the school...I'm hopeful recess, specials, etc. are at the same time and the GT program is not too segregated.
Anyone have other ideas I should add to my list...
