Steele Gifted & Talented Program

Steele Elementary supports our K-5 gifted and talented students with culturally responsive, above-grade-level instruction that is Common Core Standards-based. The academic component of our program includes vigorous differentiation, pull-out grouping, and/or a push-in model to honor the needs of our diverse learners. 

Advanced literacy instruction will be rooted in deepening students’ understanding of and interaction with the Common Core Standards. Lessons will parallel classroom units of study, but will be taught at a more advanced level, moving students along the K-6 continuum for each standard. Writing will be a major focus.

Accelerated math instruction will mirror classroom units, while also digging deeper into problem-solving strategies. We will create personalized plans for acceleration through the K-6 standards based on diagnostic testing and adaptive educational technology. Individualized support will be given at sticking points in real-time. 

Student, parents, and teachers will collaboratively set goals using an Advanced Learning Plan, which will be updated yearly. If your child has not qualified for the Gifted & Talented program, they will still have access to many of the differentiated activities and materials used in the GT classroom. The DPS Gifted and Talented Universal Screening will occur in the fall for all 1st and 5th-grade students. 

Students are identified as gifted and talented or highly gifted and talented using a body of evidence that includes scores from cognitive assessments, academic assessments, and teacher observations. Qualifying academic data must be in the 95th percentile for a student to be identified as gifted, and a student identified as highly gifted must have a cognitive score in the 95th percentile or above in addition to multiple pieces of qualifying academic and/or observational data. Magnet-eligible students only have qualifying cognitive data in the 95th percentile or above, and have no other qualifying data yet. While the identification process can be overwhelming and confusing, the GT teacher monitors all of the data for every student in the school and keeps track of all qualifying data in order to identify students the minute they have the required body of evidence.