Schools approve plan for gifted
By Phyllis Moore
Published in News on July 25, 2016 1:46 PM
Wayne County Public Schools has a plan for better serving its AIG -- academically and intellectually gifted -- students.
The three-year plan recently submitted to the state is based on the N.C. AIG program standards, a framework and guide districts use to provide appropriate programs.
"We have looked at this more carefully, how to serve these children separately," Amy Williams, lead AIG specialist, said at a recent school board meeting. "We want to make sure that we're serving them in intellectual 'IG' areas."
Pulling out those two letters, "IG" and focusing on the category of intellectually gifted, is new to the county and across the state, Mrs. Williams said.
"This is the first plan where DPI (Department of Public Instruction) said, 'You must talk about intellectually gifted children," she said. "We have done it in the past. We've got IG in our power schools but we've not really dug down."
One area that was lacking was staff training, with the district branching out to address that, she said.
"We have been spending a lot of time on academically gifted," she said. "What we're spending time on this year or the next three years, we want to spend time on professional development, helping our subgroup grow, having good service options."
In the proposed plan, the criteria will be different than what is done for the academically gifted children, she explained, using a "triad model" introduced around the state.
"This is new territory. We did put specifics in place because we didn't want to harm and we didn't want to hinder," she said. "We're going to do some testing and there are several testing options. It's not going to be one test, one day, like the cognitive abilities test."
There is a wide range of students that fall into this category, she explained, but fortunately the district has many aptitude tests to draw upon.
"We have a 'treasure box' basically," Mrs. Williams said. "We are trained in how to administer those tests and how to score those tests.
"It may not be a one-test, one-day option. It may be a, 'It didn't work today. Let's try something more streamlined for what we're looking for with that.' And how do we know what test to choose? That's a question I get often. We base that on what the teachers have seen off of those gifted characteristics that they've seen."
How students learn varies in this subgroup of students, just as it does in another group, exceptional children, or EC.
"This is where AIG and EC children are very similar," said Tamara Ishee, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction. "They're really complicated to test, extremely complicated to teach and everything has to be individualized."
That is why services like the AIG department are important, Mrs. Williams said.
In addition to identifying and serving this student segment, there is another challenge in getting them assistance.
"We're down to 27 licensed (AIG) teachers in our district," Mrs. Williams recently told the board's curriculum and instruction committee. "If we were to split them up, we wouldn't have enough for every school."
"I hope the district will start looking at the AIG kids the way we think about EC (exceptional children) kids," Ms. Ishee said. "I hope we would start to serve them the same way."
The school board approved the new AIG plan at its July meeting. It will be implemented starting with the upcoming school year, Mrs. Williams said.