These questions mostly pertain to gifted education in the elementary school. Questions regarding middle school will need to be directed to middle school gifted educators.
The earliest a child can be referred for testing is in first grade. Students can be referred at any time during the school year from first through eighth grade.
According to the West Virginia Department of Education, the teacher, parent, or any interested person or agency may refer the child for gifted testing. The child may also refer themself for testing.
You will need to write a note or type an email stating that you would like your child tested for the gifted program and send that to their homeroom teacher. Please be sure to include your name and your child's name.
Once a child is referred, an 80 timeline is started. All of the testing must occur within that 80 days, and it takes several hours to complete. Although the time spent testing may not seem very long compared to the 80 day timeline, the whole 80 days is usually needed due to the amount of students referred to special education. Gifted counts as special education since the child will have an IEP if they qualify. It can take a while for a psychologist to work through testing, especially when they are responsible for testing and completing observations for other students in the school.
Once a child qualifies, an Individualized Education Program (IEP) is developed with the IEP team. You will meet annually to update this document with most recent benchmark scores, strengths, challenges, and other pertinent data. There is a 5 day initiation period after the meeting, after which, your child will start their TAG classes. You may choose to waive the 5 day initiation period, but you will need to ask about that at the meeting.
If you are fine with your child not qualifying, then you have nothing more to do. If you would like them retested, then you have two options. The first option is to wait a full year and have them retested at the school. You would refer them for testing with a note or email to the teacher. The second option is to have your child tested outside of the school setting. However, the county is not responsible for covering the cost of outside testing. If you choose this option, you may want to check with your insurance provider to see if they will cover all or some of the cost.
No. Once a child qualifies, they remain identified as gifted throughout their school years. The only exception would be if you were to home school your child for any length of time and then register them back into public school. When a family chooses to home school a child with an IEP, they are revoking the IEP. In this situation, a child would lose their identification as gifted unless they were referred for testing upon re-entry and qualified. There are a few other exceptions which are rare and would be addressed on a case by case basis.
Students who qualify for TAG will be in the gifted program through eighth grade. At some point during eighth grade, a transition meeting will be held to determine if the child's needs can be met through honors and AP courses or if they will need to be identified as exceptional gifted. More specific information regarding this topic will need to be directed to a middle school TAG teacher.
Skyview will need the testing from the previous school. Administration will review the testing to see if it complies with West Virginia policies. If not, the child may have to go through the testing process.
Upon recieving their file from their previous school, administration will review the file. Your child may be able to start their TAG classes right away, but an IEP meeting may be called to adjust the child's IEP together as a team.
Yes and no. The gifted teachers in Monongalia county collaborate often, so we try our best to keep the minutes (amount of time they recieve TAG instruction per week) the same or similar. Some of us teach the same lessons, but for the most part, the curriculum will be unique from school to school and teacher to teacher. Once they go to the middle school, they may compete in the same competitions as other middle schools in the county and/or state.
This can be a touchy situation and should be handled with care and forethought. We usually recommend pointing out the strengths of each child, and discuss how some strengths can be addressed with in-school support (TAG, band, choir, clubs, etc.), but some strengths can be addressed with outside support (belonging to a team, taking lessons, 4H, scouts, competitions, etc.). Additionally, you may want to be cautious with using the words "smart" and "intelligent" with your gifted child too often. Studies show that can negatively impact gifted students as they may lessen the effort they put into tasks because they feel they have nothing more to prove or more to achieve.