All About Challenge
General Information
In November of each year, the State Department of Education provided testing for students in grade two to determine their eligibility for Gifted and Talented Programs. The Iowa Test of Basic Skills, an achievement test, and The Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT), and aptitude test, are administered. As soon as results are available in mid-January, parents are notified of their child’s performance on these tests.
Beginning in grade three, students who meet the state criteria may be placed in the academically gifted and talented program. This program is called "Challenge" in Greenville County.
At the elementary level, Challenge is a pull-out program. In third grade, students attend Challenge for at least 125 minutes each week. Students in grades four and five attend Challenge for at least 200 minutes per week.
Each school receives a Challenge teacher based upon the number of qualified students in that school. Students are taught in classes with a teacher-pupil ratio of 1 to 20 or less.
At the middle school level, the Challenge program serves students through Language Arts instruction. Challenge Language Arts is a daily scheduled class with a teacher-pupil ration of 1 to 25 or less.
Honors math and English courses serve identified gifted and talented high school students. These classes meet daily with a teacher-pupil ration of 1 to 25 or less.
Qualifying for Gifted and Talented in SC
All second grade students are given the Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT) and the Iowa. (updated 8/12/2015)
Student must have one qualifying item in two different dimensions.
It is also possible to qualify for Challenge if the child’s composite aptitude test score is 96NP (National Percentile) or greater. In this case, no other scores are required.
Grades are not used until the end of elementary school. At the end of fifth grade, a student’s GPA of 3.75 or greater meets the criteria for Dimension C, Performance.
Only students who are partially qualified (have a qualifying score in one dimension) will be re-tested.
Private testing is not accepted for identification and placement of students for our gifted and talented programs.
There are no parental overrides for admission into gifted classes.
Students from another state who have participated in gifted classes must meet the state GT criteria for SC. There are several states from which students can enter our GT program: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Ohio, Oregon, Tennessee, Washington, West Virginia