Welcome!
The program for gifted students is designed to aid in the optimum development of their intellectual, emotional, and social abilities and to honor the diversity among the identified gifted students through the provision of varied placement options and differentiated and more challenging curriculum.
The Gifted Instructional Coaches work with your students’ classroom teachers to provide professional development on differentiated instruction and questioning strategies.
Instruction for gifted students in grades K-8 is individualized through differentiated instruction in the classroom on a daily basis. Students receive instruction focusing on higher order thinking skills.
Students in grades K-8 receive differentiated instruction in combination with opportunities to participate in supplemental, clustered learning activities, acceleration into a higher grade or single subject acceleration.
Students will meet regularly with the Gifted Instructional Coach in order to participate in K-8 Social Emotional education, STEM/Creativity challenges, and critical thinking activities. Additional fun and challenging projects and activities can also be found in your student’s Gifted Google Classroom.
Please contact me if you have any questions about gifted testing or services.
Shalane Harris, M.Ed.
Instructional Coach for Gifted Ed.
Estrella Foothills, Paseo Pointe, M.C. Cash
sharris@laveeneld.org
More Information about our gifted program and giftedness is available on our district homepage using the link below:
http://www.laveeneld.org/programs-services/gifted-education/
Definition of Giftedness
Gifted students are identified using a cognitive abilities test. In the Laveen district we use the Cognitive Abilities test, or CogAT, to identify students that are in the 95th percentile or above in verbal, quantitative, or nonverbal abilities. These students have the potential to achieve at high levels.
In Arizona, the definition of a gifted student is:
“Gifted pupil” means a child who is of lawful school age, who due to superior intellect or advanced learning ability, or both, is not afforded an opportunity for otherwise attainable progress and development in a regular classroom instruction and who needs appropriate gifted education services, to achieve at levels commensurate with the child’s intellect and ability.