Gifted and Talented

At Spring Lake Park Schools, we focus on personalized learning ensures all students have opportunities to apply their learning across new, complex, and authentic experiences. All students engage in work and learning experiences that develop their potential in the academic competencies for each core subject and elective area. They also engage in learning experiences to develop career and life competencies including self-direction, collaboration, civic and cultural awareness, communication, creativity and innovation, digital literacy, and critical thinking.

Students have opportunities to learn, practice, and transfer their learning across disciplines over time. All students engage in learning experiences at all depths of knowledge. All students benefit from experiences that provide enrichment and challenge.

Our Talent Development for All approach allows for a greater focus on the development of emerging talent and potential. This offers more opportunities to address the needs of a wider range of students (Olszewski-Kubilius & Thompson, 2015).

Talent Development for All is supported primarily by classroom teachers. Innovative and personalized learning specialists, districtwide gifted specialists, and continuous improvement and innovation coaches are regularly supporting classroom teachers in their design of student work and learning experiences that will support talent development for all.

Some students have gifts and talents that require targeted programming beyond our approach to Talent Development for All. Targeted programming helps provide these students with work and learning experiences that allow them to reach their potential.

These students continue to engage in Talent Development for All. They also engage in targeted and/or individualized learning experiences that allow them to direct their own learning in areas where they can focus on high depths of knowledge.

There are many ways we support gifted programming through targeted talent development. Each student has a targeted learner maps documenting their strengths, interests, and needs. The development of this map might happen in the classroom, in small groups, or individually. The targeted learner map often includes embracing affective differences and providing support for students in their social, emotional, and/or behavioral growth and development. 

Gifted Programming through Targeted Talent Development is supported in by teachers, districtwide gifted specialists, counselors for personalized learning, Lighthouse facilitators, and the gifted programming and talent development coordinator. Targeted talent development activities and opportunities are documented in a student’s targeted learner map. Innovative and personalized learning specialists, gifted specialists, the gifted coordinator, and continuous improvement and innovation coaches regularly support classroom teachers in their design of student work and learning experiences that support the goals in the student’s targeted learner map.

We identify students through universal screening. This results in more equitable identification of students. However, rather than rely on one assessment tool for all students at one point in time, we review multiple data points for each student. This is to ensure there is more than one opportunity for entry into programming. A standardized assessment tool is part of the multiple data point review process, but it should not be the only source of determining how to best support a student. 

Universal screening for ALL students occurs in the spring of Grade 2 and fall of Grade 5. Universal screening includes:

• Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT) pre-screener
• Review of NWEA’s Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) Growth scores in reading and math, and MAP Reading Fluency in reading for Grade 2
• Review scores of proficient and/or extending on academic and career and life competencies within or above the student’s current grade band

Based on results of the universal screening tools, additional evidence that may be gathered to determine needs for targeted talent development may include:

• Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT) post-screener
• Additional teacher input using samples of student work
• Student observations

• Anxiety-Free Kids, by Bonnie Zucker
• Parenting Gifted Children 101, by Tracy Ford Inman and Jana Kirchner
• Letting Go of Perfect:  Overcoming Perfectionism in Kids, by Jill L. Andelson and Hope E. Wilson
• Behaviorally Disordered, by Robert Algozzine
• Conduct Disorders and Social Maladjustments:  Policies, Politics, and Programming, by Frank Wood
• Thinking Course, by Edward De Bono
• Discipline with Love and Logic, by Jim Fay
• First Aid Kit, by Jim Fay
• Life Saver Kit, by Jim Fay
• Life Teachings:  Raising a Child, by Jeanie Davis Pullen
• Magic Trees of the Mind, by Marian Diamond and Janet Hopson
• Moving On, by Michael Bullis and Roberg Gaylord-Ross
• Q Cards, by Silvia Rimm
• Reducing Undesirable Behaviors, by Lewis Polsgrove
• Social Skills for Students with Autism, by Richard L. Simpson
• Teaching Young Children with Behavioral Disorders, by Mary Kay Zabel
• Teaching Students with Behavioral Disorders:  Basic Questions and Answers, by Timothy Lewis
• Emotional Intensity in Gifted Students:  Helping Kids Cope with Explosive Feelings, by Christine Fonseca
• The Survival Guide for Parents of Gifted Kids: How to Understand, Live With, and Stick Up for Your Gifted Kid, by Sally Yahnke Walker
• Smart Parenting for Smart Kids:  Nurturing Your Child’s True Potential, by Eileen Kennedy-More and Mark S. Lowenthal
• Amos and Boris, by William Steig

Website Resources:

• National Association for Gifted Children
• Hoagie’s Gifted Education Pages
• The Minnesota Council for the Gifted and Talented (MCGT)
• The Davidson Institute for Talent Development
• Mensa for Kids
• Smithsonian - Fun Stuff for Kids
• National Geographic Kids
• Illuminations
• Read Write Think