Gifted Services

How Does A Student Receive Gifted Education Services?

If an evaluation determines a student is mentally gifted and in need of specially designed instruction, then a Gifted Individualized Education Plan (GIEP) is developed to meet that student's identified academic areas of strength. The GIEP is created by a team, including family/legal guardian(s) of the child, the child's teacher(s), a designated representative from the District and any other person who is requested to be present by either the family/legal guardian(s) or the District.

The GIEP identifies present levels of academic achievement, annual goals, instruction for specially designed instruction and supports each student in developing individual strengths.The content and design of each student's GIEP depends on the individual's academic strength areas identified for enrichment, acceleration or a combination of both.

Supports and services for students identified as gifted align to Pennsylvania standards. Instruction for gifted students deepens and broadens their thinking. Broad themes, appropriate to several disciplines, are used to help students connect ideas among and between various disciplines and to apply them in meaningful ways. Learning environments incorporate cognitive and metacognitive experiences to support the development of innovation, exploration, self-monitoring, creativity, decision-making, openness to new ideas, and academic risk taking. 

Pull out enrichment sessions for gifted students are available at the elementary and middle school levels. Students work in smaller group settings to go deeper into subject matter, have time to collaborate, and explore their giftedness through social emotional learning experiences  In addition, in the Regular Education classes, teachers provide enrichment and/or acceleration of the general education curriculum to broaden student thinking and provide the appropriate challenge to meet the needs of the students in their areas of identified giftedness in conjunction with the gifted support teacher.