Project #1: Gate Coordinator
Overview
In Gifted Programs students, including those from diverse racial, socioeconomic, linguistic, and cultural backgrounds, are identified as “gifted” based on excellence or the capacity for excellence in academic and artistic areas that extends far beyond that of their chronological peers. High quality differentiated opportunities are created for learners to flourish in stimulating academic and social environments appropriate to their individual capabilities, interests, and needs.
Role of the Gate Coordinator
Less than 2% of Fifty-Second Street Elementary or 17 students out 940 were identified at gifted by the end of 2013-2014 school year. According to Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) , at least 6% of a school’s population should be identified as gifted and or talented and should represent the ethnic groups that make up that population. Therefore, my goal as the GATE Coordinator for the 2014-2015 school year, is to be a voice for those who are often ignored and left without a voice providing a path of educational upward mobility by increasing the number of students identified as Gifted by using resources at our school site and within our local district.
As the Gate Coordinator I devise and share the action plan with the principal. I begin employing the plan by by initiating contact with the Targeted Identification Program (TIP) where School Psychologists located within LAUSD provide support for schools whose GATE population is below 6%. I engaged in a telephone consultation with a school psychologist in which the identification markers, including poverty indicators, are discussed and understood. From this discussion emerged a set of criterias which I use to analyze, evaluate, and document students’ data to determine eligibility for potential intellectual testing which was shared with teachers. To include students who are not “test takers”, I collaborate with teachers in grades 3-5 individually and in small groups and advocated for students who did not meet the testing criteria but who exhibit gifted characteristic/traits. As a school leader, I guided teachers in articulating and documenting reasons students would benefit from such testing. I organized a day, in which three school psychologists from LAUSD’s TIP office came to assist me complete required documents and various days in which the office staff organized and prepared the documents to be sent to the GATE office. Once data collections and documents were completed paperwork is submitted and reviewed by the senior psychologist, and potential dates for testing are givens . I met with the principal to secure a classroom along with testing materials. I also prepared a testing schedule inclusive of students’ name, grade, and room number. I conducted a GATE informational Session for parents who received a notice of students being tested. I enlisted the aide of 
a colleague as a translator for non-english speaking parents. I also conducted a GATE professional development due to the inquiry of primary grade teachers and to review the characteristics for upper grade teachers. Lastly, in LAUSD moving to a paperless GATE process, I sought out and scheduled a GATE training, in which a school psychologist from TIP came to my school site to provide me with a mini professional development on the new MiSiS GATE portal.
During the school year I’ve met informally with teachers, on a continuous basis, to discuss the importance of monitoring and referring students whose potentially eligible for gifted testing based on the gifted characteristic in addition to the criteria set. We discuss how to analyze and evaluate academic prowlness as it relates to the gifted characteristics for students ensuring optimum educational opportunities and benefits for those who would be overlooked otherwise. As a direct result of these efforts, 53 students were identified as being eligible for gifted testing. Out of the 53 students , 35 or 66% of those tested have been identified as “intellectually gifted” and four of those students have been identified as “highly intellectually gifted; increasing our gifted population from 17 to 52 students; many of these students were in the lower grades. In addition, 19 addition students have been identified as potential students to refer for gate testing as a result of teachers using the criteria and gifted characteristics shared with them during the GATE professional development and informal meetings. Lastly parents of students in the upper grade students began to inquire about middle schools that would meet the needs of their gifted child.
Reflection
Being the Gate Coordinator has been professionally fulfilling because I get to advocate for students who are often voiceless, for students who are from the community I grew up in. I’ve always believed in urban youths as being critical thinking problem solving individual who should have a greater presence in the LAUSD’s gifted program. I knew it would begin with looking at the students on my school site. I came into this position having a basic understanding of how to refer students for potential testing. Not until I became the GATE Coordinator did I develop a deep understanding of the GATE characteristics, process, and become aware of the “poverty indicator”, or the tools used to determine potential gate testing . The academic criteria and the poverty indicator tool was the main tool used to extract students from the database and refer as for potential testing. Understanding the GATE characteristics was instrumental and allowed us to closely analyze and evaluate students who did not posses the required quantitative data. With my lens widen and an equity tool in in hand, I set out to identify as many students for potential testing as possible. It began with me sharing knowledge gained with all stakeholders, so collaboratively and collectively we could begin to build our GATE community and ultimately maximize educational trajectories for students who are often left without a voice.
There were two learnings I walked away with during this process. As I began informally talking to teachers about “giftedness”, I realized the numbers in the GATE program were not low because of deficit-mind thinking but because of the lack of knowledge about the gifted referral process and the tools used to make the determination. What was equally important as a school leader were the conversations that began to emerge around giftedness, as a result of teachers having access to knowledge and their shift in how they analyze students behaviors not necessary considered “gifted”. It pushed teachers past the “what” students were doing and place their focus on “why” they were doing it and was there any relation to giftedness based on the information received from our conversations.
Another learning that occurred as the Gifted Coordinator, was the age students could be referred for potential GATE testing. Although the data pieces used to determine potential gifted testing was different (qualitative), students in primary grades were eligible. In fact, the LAUSD’s TIP school psychologist suggested students to be identified as early in their academic careers as possible due to the complexity of the test as they get older. The buy in from lower grade teachers was amazing, immediately I began receiving names of students who teachers believed who would benefit from potential gate testing. Parents began to advocate for their children asking question stringing together pieces of data like California State Test (CST) scores in language arts and math, invitation to the 350 school club for language arts and math based on CST scores, and grades and how it is all related to being referred for potential gate testing. A 1st grade parent of an Asperger/high functioning autistic student approach me with his teacher as a translator inquiring about his son being referred for potential gifted testing. After having an informal conversation with the teacher and parent, collectively we decided that would definitely be in the best interest of the child.
As the school receive results back regarding students identified as gifted grew, more and more teachers became heavily vested in this process because they viewed it as a process that works and like me, they believed this to be way to advocate for students who often left without a voice.
Moving forward as a school leader, I would meet with stakeholders at the beginning of the year, middle of the year, and end of the year because I want to ensure we are capturing all of the students who are exhibiting signs of giftedness throughout the year. I would definitely continue to deepen my knowledge of academic portion of GATE while developing an understanding of the process for performing and visual art GATE identification. We will expand our lens to include students who exhibit talents in the performing and visual arts and include the required criteria in the professional development provided to stakeholders . Now that we as a school community are vested in identifying students for GATE, we must focus on implementation of a curriculum to support their needs, the professional development needed for teachers whose responsible for teaching those students, and how can we use such curriculum to cultivate additional potential GATE students keeping our focus on being the voice for community/students who is often voiceless.
List of Potential Candidates for GATE Testing
CAPE's Addressed
CAPE 12: Instituting a Collaborative, Ongoing Process of Monitoring and Revising the Growth Plan by including primary students in addition to upper grade students
CAPE 14: Helping Teachers Improve their individual professional practice by dismenating information and have teaching use the tools provide to identify students
CAPE 15: Identifying and Facilitating a variety of professional growth opportunities for Faculty, Staff, Parents, and Other Members of the School Community in Support of the Educational Program by conducting a GATE professional development meeting for teachers and an information session for GATE parents and those potentially tested for GATE.
CAPE 19: Representing and Promoting the School’s Accomplishments and Needs to the LEA and the Public by sharing school date by expressing the need to the LEA of support to aid us in analyzing and evaluating data and preparing documents for students eligible for GATE testing
