The Advanced Academics Services office offers Staff development for teachers new to the area of gifted education for no charge or a small fee in the summer.
The State Mandated 30 G/T teacher training if offered at least twice a year at the ESC or through online classes. Special arrangements can be made for a district with many teachers to train.
Additionally multiple opportunities are offered for the annual six hour update training.
Teachers from districts not belonging to the G/T Coop are welcome to attend staff development sessions for a fee.

The Advanced Academics consultant will gladly provide technical assistance in the areas of State Plan compliance, student assessment, student placement, program options, program evaluation, school board training for program evaluation, and other eduational issues for gifted students. This assistance may be provided by phone, email or campus visits depending on the need.

Region 14 provides a comprehensive plan of student assessment. Five identification measures for grades K-12 are available for check out. Those measures are the Naglieri NonVerbal Ability Test, the Screening Assessment of Gifted Elementary and Middle School Students, The Torrance Test of Creativity, Scales for Identifying Gifted Students, and the Cognitive Abilities Test for high school students. Scoring services are also available for the above measures.

Tips for GT Coordinators

If you have been tapped as your campus or district coordinator/contact, you may not know exactly where to begin! The following tips, originally submitted by Region 4 ESC Advanced Academic Services Specialist, Judy O’Neal, may give you some ideas about where to start.

1. Be sure you have your Regional Education Service Center’s Advanced Academic Services program specialist’s information handy. These specialists are ready to answer all of your GT questions--or find someone who can. There is no such thing as a silly question, and when you are new may have many of them!

2. If you have not taken “Nature and Needs of Gifted Learners” and “Identification of Gifted Learners” recently, try to re-take the session(s). Be sure you attend a session that will address the laws and guidelines for gifted programs in Texas. Regional Service Centers offers these workshops several times each year, and it is the best way for a new coordinator to receive this information. Being in a class gives you the opportunity to ask questions.

3. Begin to look at your district’s G/T program and compare it with the State Plan for the Education of Gifted/Talented Students. Is your district in compliance with the “Acceptable” regulations of the plan? (This is the minimum level of compliance for districts.) Ask your ESC specialist to look over your plan if you have questions.

4. Find out how gifted services being provided. For example: Pull out Program, Special Schools within a School, Cluster Groups of G/T Students in Regular Classrooms, Self-contained classrooms, etc. Is the current system providing students with on-going, differentiated TEKS-based instruction?

5. Find out who is delivering gifted services. Be sure that there is documentation to support that each of the assigned G/T teachers has the required G/T training. Talk to the administrators on each campus and find out if administrators and counselors have had the required G/T training in Nature and Needs and Program Services.

6. Look at your list of identified gifted students at each campus. Confirm that they are in class with a G/T trained teacher, and perhaps most importantly, that teachers are aware of which students in their classrooms are identified as needing advanced services.

7. Look at your District’s identification/assessment matrix. Find out how your student’s are identified. Look at your district’s demographics. Does your gifted program reflect your district’s demographics? Is there ample evidence that students from all populations are being assessed in ways that best exemplify their abilities?

8. Find out how teachers are documenting gifted services delivery, or help to develop a framework for teachers to use that will show their efforts and monitor student’s progress. Be sure a system for reporting student’s progress to parents is in place and that parents are receiving updates in a scheduled way.

9. Review the District’s G/T Handbook for Parents/Teachers/Students. Does it reflect what is happening in your district?

10. Ask teachers what kind of professional development/support they need to better work with their gifted students and work with building administrators to deliver that support. The State Plan indicates that training should be specific to needs expressed by teachers, so an ongoing dialogue with these professionals is vital.