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I do believe Northwest’s identification process is “flexible”!  I am new to the district this year and have had many conversations with my school’s GATES teacher.  She does a great job of keeping me in the loop as far as the identification and testing processes are concerned.  This year, I nominated a student who is extremely bright (100% on both Reading and Math STAAR tests last year) who did not qualify.  I do believe that when it comes to the identification portion, from my end, I could definitely use more training.  It does become difficult to help identify those students that don’t fit the “mold”.  I believe that this is crucial!

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As a substitute, I am not aware of the identification process as a whole. From working in a long-term position for 3 months and beginning a new one in a twice-exceptional program, I understand the complexity of proper identification. I believe what is most important is to really get to know your kiddos. In doing this, the teacher is better able recognize tendencies, habits, and "idiosyncrasies" to The poignancy of the following quote allowed the following quote to really stand out for me: "...it is not something you do at an outstanding level of accomplishment, but rather someone you are as an intellectual and emotionally intense human being."

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In NISD, I think the identification process is as flexible as it can be given the size of the district and the number of students enrolled. Unless all teachers (new and veteran alike) in the district are trained on how to identify potentially gifted students, then there is that possibility that we will not identify as many gifted students as we can. The most important aspect of identifying atypical gifted kids is being a student advocate.  If a teacher really and truly believes a student is gifted, then he or she must strongly advocate for the student. The following quote from Chapter 2, to me, sums up the importance of advocating for students:
"If you're told that "the test scores or grades just aren't there," ask about alternative paths for identification. If such paths don't exist, pave one yourself. Offer evidence of the child's work and thinking that made you suspect giftedness in the first place."

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Identification & Assessment - Northwest Independent School ...

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The official website of Northwest Independent School District, a public school district in North Texas that serves families in 234 square miles.

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After reading the first two chapters, I have a much better understanding of why the identification process can be so complex and complicated at times.  If the term gifted is so varied and vast, how must we then identify a student with that term that is not so easily defined? To be honest, my knowledge of our identification and approval process is very basic. However, with the limited knowledge I do have, I believe that our identification process, as a district, is somewhat flexible in that we include teacher input as part of the deciding factor and not test scores alone. To better help identify atypical gifted students, we first need to equip all teachers with the core characteristics of these students so that they have a better understanding of what to be looking for.

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Schluter Elementary, Music Specialist

I'm not sure how truly flexible our identification process is or can be.  I think just like any program, there is always room for improvement and modification.  In my position, we are limited to seeing students only once per week.  This proves challenging when a parent approaches me and asks if his/her child possesses talent or apt quality to try an extracurricular musical activity.  It certainly helps when adults willingly offer valuable information about students such as hobbies, passions, interests, that can help me find a connection for them.  For now, our assessments measure content validity and retention that don't always indicate advanced abilities or thought processes.

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It's an interesting question: Is our identification process flexible? At first analysis, we know that students must test in at least 3 of the 5 categories to be considered for the GT program. However, teachers and parents are able to request students to be placed in the gifted program so then part of the process is flexible. I've seen multiple students not qualify as GT at Byron, even though they have part of a GT program in another district since elementary school. It's interesting that districts can maintain their own standards for gifted qualification. Does that qualify as flexible? I'm still learning how the system works here but I believe our school coordinator is extremely flexible in making sure that all students who "may" be gifted are able to go through the process without obstacles.

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I feel that it's good to reflect on how we identify students who will be serviced through the gifted program. I value input from parents and I am very glad that is a piece to the process as well. I think relying only on test scores does not identify the whole child and some very creative gifted students could be missed. I feel on our campus there is a lot of discussion with past and present teachers about a students performance in addition to how they scored on the assessments.

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I think the identification process can be incredibly challenging for schools. From what I understand, it takes a combination of assessments and teacher observations to identify a gifted student. This becomes more challenging when the definition of giftedness is unclear. I also found it interesting that the book reinforced the idea that giftedness is a lifetime quality. I often hear of students being removed from the GT program for various reasons. If we are properly identifying GT students and meeting their needs, they should remain in the program for the remainder of their school career. I do think that we do our best to be flexible when identifying gifted students. We review teacher/parent/peer recommendations and assess students over several days. I do think we could continue to learn how to properly identify gifted students (as teachers) and better support our students once they are identified to avoid removing them from the program.

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While I think our District does a good job identifying gifted kids, I think there is always room for improvement. It is a challenging task and, I would say tricky, as well, because sometimes high achievers might be identified as gifted and viceversa. I do like the idea of having an identification process that it’s more focused in the WHOLE person. Testing is not enough for sure! An interview and a parent questionnaire are good ideas. On the other hand and after reading chapter 2, “Once Identified, Always Identified” or “Once Not Identified, Never Identified” caught my attention and I wonder how are we dealing with this.

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Hatfield Elementary,  2nd Grade

Identifying with flexibility is extremely difficult, since testing usually has a norm or standard that is used. I think the district works very hard to make sure that a child is not defined by just a "score". It is a judgment call and trusting teachers' opinions for recommendations, in addition to other factual information (I like that interview idea, Casey!) Since we work hard to "put kids first", I have to hope that GT courses like these will increase increase our awareness and our accurate identification of our gifted students. Even a regular email, that reminds us of some of the characteristics of a gifted student.

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Roanoke Elementary, Special Education Teacher

Identifying students as gifted learners is a development of several components. I believe we do a respectable job of some flexibility in the ID process, but do we accurately look at the whole student? I like the idea of the GT teacher conducting an interview with the student that looks for evidence of complex and abstractly thinking and not solely on scores and teacher input. I wonder how often behavior and test anxiety prevents identification of students that could be identified as twice exceptional?

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Identifying a gifted student should be a process that looks at the whole student. Information should be gathered from teachers, parents, grades, tests and the student. Students should have input as well. I am not certain what that should look like but some reflection from them giving them some ownership in this process would be valuable. Maybe the student questionare  or an interview where the student can answer orally. I think that we give this test to first and second graders and they have no idea why they are taking it or how their performance on the test can ultimately change their educational path. This year our GATES teacher came in and taught lessons prior to the Cogat test. This gave the students some idea of what they would see on the test. We also used these lessons to stress the importance of the test. I am eager to see this years test results!

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After reading Chapter 2, I can understand why the gifted identification process has become such a challenging endeavor.   The quote “You can’t judge a book by its cover” comes to mind. Your first impression of a student with straight A’s would be that they are gifted. This is not always the case. Outward appearances are not a reliable indication of being gifted. The gifted identification process seems to be more like a treasure hunt. As the school year progresses you notice certain clues or attributes appearing from students that have not been identified as gifted. For example, they work independently, they are very creative, and are easily bored. The next step is to request assistance from other teachers to validate the attributes in question.  If the majority teachers agree on the attributes, then recommend the student to a gifted education specialist for further evaluation.

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Our identification process is open. It is not based on just the student grades. Some students might be gifted, but do not have good grades due to boredom during class. I think we just have to remember the signs of being gifted and try to think about this throughout each day. Maybe just observing these particular traits with one student for a couple of days and then moving on to the next one.

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I had the unique experience of teaching an autistic, emotionally disturbed, and I believe, gifted child. It was during my year with him that he was identified as AU and ED. His IQ scores showed him above average in areas, but not all. If he was having a bad day, it would have greatly impacted his testing results. If he didn't want to take the test, it would have greatly impacted his test results. I know that he will be screened this year in 2nd grade, and I can't wait to hear the results. I do think our district is flexible, relying on not only testing, but parent and teacher input. As this chapter noted, we have to be careful we are not overlooking those kids that just don't test well, are economically disadvantaged, our ESL kids, and our special needs kids.

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Is our identification process flexible? Ideally, how can we work to ensure we are identifying atypical gifted kids? 

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Is our identification process flexible? Ideally, how can we work to ensure we are identifying atypical gifted kids? 

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Rebecca Swaringen - Byron Nelson High School - AP/GT Human Geography
I am unclear of the weight that teacher feedback is given to identification of gifted students, but as the chapter emphasizes, that is the key to flexible identification processes. Although all teachers are educated professions and those without specific GT training will be familiar with some of the signs of giftedness to give useful data, the teacher panel that determines giftedness should ideally be an integral part of collecting data, not just reading data that was already collected. While a teacher without training may read giftedness from "teacher-pleaser" behaviors, a teacher with training should have an opportunity to glean more accurate signs from students up for testing.

Ideally, we should be ensuring that teachers with other qualifications are also part of that team and trained in GT matters-- so if it might be relevant, a dual/tri-trained teacher who is qualified in ELL, SPED or at risk/economically disadvantaged youth in addition to GT would be able to cover these blindspots.