The Garfield Re-2 School Board discussed the district’s Gifted and Talented program during their regular meeting on Sept. 25 at Rifle Middle School. 

A gifted student has been defined as being between the age of four and 21, being exceptionally or developmentally advanced and having a high aptitude or competence in abilities or talents. This can include multiple domains, like athletics and music. There are around 110 students in the program right now. 

“There are special provisions put in place to meet the educational programming needs of the child,” said Simone Richardson, elementary director of curriculum, assessment and student success. “That’s why we work so hard to find these students, to make sure they’re getting what they need.”

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Some students in Garfield Re-2, Richardson said, are twice exceptional: that is when a student might be gifted in an academic area, like reading, but has a special education need in the behavior area, such as an autistic student being identified as gifted. 

“These students…once they’re identified, they are serviced through a document called an Advanced Learning Plan (ALP),” Richardson said. “We’re in the process of writing those right now at all 10 of our schools for students who are already identified as GT learners.”

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ALPs written in the state of Colorado are honored throughout every district. Should a student move from Garfield County to Boulder Valley, the ALP follows and is part of that student’s curriculum in the new school district. 

To get into the Gifted and Talented program, either a parent or educator must notice and refer the child. 

“Once a student is referred, the parent is notified and brought on board to be included in the discussions around their child around interventions,” Richardson said. “What are we seeing as strengths, what is the performance like in the classroom, what’s attendance like, what’s behavior like?”

After this evidence is collected for the Gifted and Talented program, formal assessments will be completed. 

“It includes parent input through what’s called a Renzulli scale,” Richardson said. “Teachers have a different scale, and it’s called the Renzulli scale, but a teacher version…the student takes an assessment called the Naglieri assessment.”

Renzulli Scales are a standardized instrument to identify gifted children and are used by educators or parents to describe the child’s abilities in a few different areas, like creativity, precision in their communication and science. 

The Naglieri Assessment has a couple different versions, either the General Ability Tests or the Nonverbal Ability Tests, where both versions are used to try and identify high intellectual ability. 

The difference between the two is the General Ability Test uses verbal, quantitative and nonverbal test questions. The Nonverbal Ability Test does the same thing but with only nonverbal questions. 

After these assessments are completed and evidence is collected, the entire case is up for review on whether the student is truly gifted or talented or if they’re a high achiever. 

“One place that it’s a little different is for a student who might be gifted or showing talents in any of what we call the fine arts,” Richardson said. “This would include physical ability, sports for instance, artistic talents…or music.”

Students that are a part of the fine arts gifted and talented are in for a long process if they wish to go through it. The assessment isn’t done by the district either, it’s done by the state. 

“We help the parents prepare for the assessment,” Richardson said. “In the meantime, we foster the talents that these kids have…the school can step in and support that parent in all those efforts and help them prepare for that state evaluation, which is called adjudication.”

A portfolio is then built up over the years to show that the talent is showing growth, leadership in that talent and how is that talent being documented over the years.

“Often kids that have talents in any of the arts are not adjudicated until they get into their later years in middle school or high school,” Richardson said. “Often, a talent becomes stagnant, because it’s just that, a talent, and we are looking for true giftedness.”

The district will help the family get in touch with teachers, tutors or after school time to help build the portfolio but the family must be the one to build the portfolio. 

Re-2 has 10 Gifted and Talented coordinators, one for each school, where they follow the Colorado of Department of Education guidelines. They are overseen by Colorado BOCES and are funded by grants from BOCES. Some of the coordinators are also teachers at the school they’re doing Gifted and Talented responsibilities for. 

“We have a lot of parents knocking on our doors, saying they want more, saying they’re worried their kids aren’t getting enough,” Richardson said. “I can’t say I disagree with them, but we’re trying very hard to work the system to give them all we got.”

Richardson also reported that the second grade talent pool got much bigger because of the new Naglieri assessment, since it eliminated the language piece of reading, instead replacing it with creativity and problem solving. 

“We want to make sure there’s equity across the system and this system needs to be improved,” Richardson said.