Wallingford-Swarthmore School District

GIFTED DETERMINATION 

The District relies on a multi-phase process to determine eligibility for gifted services. This process was designed to capture as many students who meet the criteria for gifted services as possible in a timely manner. It relies upon the most current research and best practices in the Field. 

The first phase consists of universal screening. During the Spring of 2nd grade, WSSD students take part in a screener which determines the extent to which individual students might meet the criteria for a comprehensive evaluation to determine eligibility for gifted services. The District relies on the InView cognitive assessment for its screener. The InView measures the skills and abilities directly related to a child's ability to achieve academic success in the classroom by evaluating each student's verbal reasoning, sequences, analogies, and quantitative reasoning skills. The District relies on the InView for multiple reasons including that this assessment has demonstrated resistance to various biases and is more recently normed when compared to other assessments available. It is balanced in that it includes measures of verbal and non-verbal reasoning. Students may receive a score on the screener that warrants automatic movement towards a comprehensive evaluation in order to determine evaluation for services. 

Subsequent phases of the process are designed to more broadly assess measures of both ability (captured in Phase I) as well as achievement. These measures are designed to capture thought-to-be eligible students who may have been missed through universal screening and to minimize reliance on single high stakes tests such as the PSSA, by relying on multiple measures of both ability and achievement. In an effort to promote greater validity and equity, the district relies on norms that are local to the school of a student as opposed to National norms or even district-wide norms which have been found to decrease access to needed services.

Other means for consideration of gifted determination also exist. When teachers or parents suspect that a child meets the criteria for gifted services, a screening process may be initiated and will inform a school-based team’s consideration of whether or not to proceed to a comprehensive evaluation.