Wilton Schools Look to Formalize Policies, Procedures for Gifted Students

At last night’s Wilton Board of Education meeting (Thursday, Oct. 13), the board began discussing how to revise policies and procedures for identifying gifted students. According to Chuck Smith, assistant superintendent for curriculum, the state requires districts to identify gifted students. However, because the district has made changes in its comprehensive assessment system over the last few years, it now needs to re-examine its current policies and procedures for how they do that.

Smith also told the board that there is no current consistent identification procedure across the district. “Each school has its own practices, and we were seeing inconsistencies, so it was time to revisit this.” Currently, there are less than 5-percent students who are identified as gifted in the district–approximately 200 students.

Working over the summer with Cider Mill psychologist Lisa Perry, and Middlebrook psychologist Cindy Scope, Smith reviewed what the state required against what the practices were at Wilton’s individual schools as well as at Westport, New Canaan, Fairfield and Greenwich schools. Together they drafted a preliminary proposed practice guide for identifying gifted students.

Students will be ‘data profiled’ for giftedness in three areas:  ability, achievement and characteristics of gifted students. Students in grades 2, 4 and 7 will take an OLSAT, a test to assess a student’s ability. All students will be screened every year, using their most current OLSAT data and achievement data, starting in 2nd grade. “We don’t need to give an ability test every year because ability doesn’t change much; it tends to stabilize around age 7, that’s why we do it first in 2nd grade,” Smith explained, adding that the ability they have by 7th grade “is probably the ability they’re going to have for the rest of their lives.”

Then, for students that meet criteria in both achievement and ability, parents and teachers will be asked to contribute data on the students’ characteristics of giftedness. “There are students who are bright and there are students who are gifted, so we need to make sure we’re sorting out the differences,” Smith said.

Some examples of comparisons of bright vs. gifted characteristics used in the proposed guidelines include:  knows the answers (bright) vs. asks the questions (gifted); grasps meanings vs. draws inferences; absorbs information vs. manipulates information; able technician vs. inventor.

They also will solicit nominations from parents and teachers, of students who will be considered by a committee in each school, known as a “group PPT.”

“It will consist of a building administrator, a school psychologist, some special education teachers as well as a classroom teacher, who will look at all of the data and make a determination,” Smith said, adding that some students may be recommended for additional testing with a psychologist to determine whether they’ll be considered gifted.

After Identifying Gifted Students, Then What?

Board member Glenn Hemmerle noted that the fact that the policy proposal addresses identification, it doesn’t give any thorough thought to what to do after students are identified as gifted. “It’s spongy–what happens next. ‘Differentiated learning.’ Okay…Now that we know this, how are we going to address this, in a significant way.”

Smith answered that the state only requires that schools identify students who are gifted. “I would welcome the discussion about how to meet the needs of those students.” He added that at the moment, the only accommodation for gifted students is differentiation in the classroom, and not a separate program.

Hemmerle was echoed by fellow BoE members Lory Rothstein and Chris Stroup about the need to begin to collect data on how well the district is serving the students who are identified as gifted, and to determine the eventual outcomes of what happens once the gifted students are identified.

BoE chair Bruce Likly, agreed, and added, “Having every child thrive in our district is what we strive for, so trying to get a program in place that addresses that. All boats rise to the top, so the more we do for them the more we’ll be able to do for everyone.”

He noted that he sensed “consensus” from the board that, “we need to do more for these [gifted] kids.”

Vice chair Chris Finkelstein asked about the subset of students who aren’t quite gifted, but who are still very bright.

“When you look at most programs, they’re not just for gifted students–they’re for accelerated or high achieving students. As a board you have a discussion about, number one, do we want to? What’s the history of success for those sorts of programs? There’s an underlying principle that sticks out in my mind, that separate is not equal, whether you are talking about students who are of a different race, a different culture, a different ability level–whether it’s low ability or high ability.”

Smith also noted that sometimes programs for gifted learners only give more work instead of appropriately leveled work, because of a “fundamental misunderstanding of what the needs of gifted students are.”

“In my own experience, and I think the experience of many of us sitting in this room, traditionally the types of ‘gifted programs’ are not of the quality that we would feel confident in bringing to our students. We’re offering them Shakespeare in 3rd grade, which is inappropriate. We’re giving them a lot more work to do. Those programs look at not just a child’s ability and achievement, but what are their work habits like, can they do tons and tons of homework. I’m not opposed to having a discussion about how to meet those needs of those kids, but I’m a little concerned about the expectations of the community about what makes a good gifted program,” Smith said, adding that while there are lots of programs to use as a model, there must be good programs identified to use as a model before considering what to implement, if anything.

Likly asked, “Who says we can’t forge our own path?” to which Smith said, “Yes, that’s why I say I welcome the discussion.

That theme was echoed by superintendent Dr. Kevin Smith, who added that the district’s more recent concentration and focus on “universal design”–an educational framework that can accommodate individual learning differences–is meant to be able to address the needs of all learners, including high achievers.

“We really are thinking about the continuum of learners, and it’s not been lost on anyone in the administration that we underserve our gifted population,” the superintendent said.