Every school in DCSD has gifted programming options as a part of its Multi Tiered System of Supports (MTSS). To that end, each school site has a gifted education contact. The contact collaborates/consults with building leadership, classroom teachers, parents and students to identify, plan for, and appropriately serve gifted/high potential students.
Gifted and talented students are those students between the ages of four and twenty-one whose abilities, talents, and potential for accomplishment are so exceptional or developmentally advanced that they require special provisions to meet their educational programming needs. Giftedness is the manifestation of performance or production that is clearly at the upper end of the distribution in a talent domain even relative to that of other high-functioning individuals in that domain. Further, giftedness can be viewed as developmental, in that in the beginning stages, potential is the key variable; in later stages, achievement is the measure of giftedness; and in fully developed talents, eminence is the basis on which this label is granted. Psychosocial variables play an essential role in the manifestation of giftedness at every developmental stage. Both cognitive and psychosocial variables are malleable and need to be deliberately cultivated. Gifted students include students with disabilities (i.e. twice exceptional) and students with exceptional abilities or potential from all socio-economic and ethnic, cultural populations. Gifted students are capable of high performance, exceptional production, or exceptional learning behavior by virtue of any or a combination of these areas:
General or Specific Intellectual Ability
Specific Academic Aptitude
Creative or Productive Thinking
Leadership Abilities
Visual Arts, Performing Arts, Musical or Psychomotor Abilities
The National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) recommends that all students have the opportunity to participate in the screening process for identification to ensure equitable access to programming. In accordance with state and national guidelines, the Gifted Education Department has developed a process to gather data in order to match appropriate services to identified student need.
Components of identification:
Student Aptitude
Student Achievement
Student Performance (or conversely, high ability/underachieving students)
We complete universal identification for all third and sixth graders every year in September using the CoGat assessment. Additionally, we complete targeted identification for students in all other grades who have been referred by a classroom teacher or parent.
Fill out this form and submit to Jill Montoya to refer your child to initiate the gifted identification process.
Our school site provides programming for gifted/high potential learners through the implementation of some or all of the following strategies:
Differentiated instruction
Curriculum compacting
Content acceleration
Grade-level acceleration
Mentorships
Tiered assignments
Flexible grouping
Independent study
Project-based learning
Leadership opportunities
Competitions (Math Olympiad grades 4-6, Spelling Bee grades 4-6, Continental Math League grades 2-3, Destination Imagination, Battle of the Books, Writing Competitions)
The NAGC recommends that all students have the opportunity to participate in a universal screening process for identification to ensure equitable access to programming. In accordance with state and national guidelines, the Gifted Education department has developed a process to gather data in order to match appropriate services to identified student need. As part of the universal screening process for identification, students in grades 3 and 6 take the CogAT (Cognitive Abilities Test) in the fall of every school year. Student in grades 1, 2, 4, and 5 may take the CogAT during the fall screening but teacher or parent referral or request is required. Contact Jill Montoya at jill.montoya@dcsdk12.org
Douglas County School District uses a dynamic, ongoing identification process with multiple criteria including cognitive ability, student performance and achievement, and parent, teacher and student feedback. Students may be referred for gifted identification at any time by teachers, parents or themselves. To initiate the identification process, please complete this Referral Form and share it with the gifted education facilitator at your child's school.
DCSD Gifted Community Website
Colorado Association of Gifted and Talented (CAGT)
National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC)
Supporting Emotional Needs of the Gifted (SENG)
Colorado Department of Education - Gifted Information