Portland Public Schools uses a consultative model to address the needs of Gifted and Talented students. These services comply with "Chapter 104," the legal basis for Gifted and Talented identification and instruction.

For our school, this means that one or more consultants from our Central Office works with all teachers, as needed, to be sure that high performing, gifted students are offered a challenging, rigorous curriculum matching their abilities in the subject areas of Math, Language Arts (reading and writing), Social Studies and Science.

What we DO and do NOT do at Lyman Moore:

• We do not have a "pull out" Gifted and Talented program per se. However the Chapter 104 (Gifted and Talented) consulting teacher experts often design a time-limited unit of study or activity for identified students to explore English, Social Studies, Science or Math with an in-depth approach around a particular speaker, topic, reading or event.

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• We do have a teacher expert consultant who works with classroom teachers to develop supports to the curriculum that address the educational needs of the gifted student usually in the regular class. This might involve discussions with the Chapter 104 consultant and the classroom teacher about ideas or methods to provide in-depth exploration related to the current unit of study.

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• We do not automatically take the highest level students and place them in one class together, with the exception of Math (where we do cluster top level students). Instead, we have an approach that includes all levels of abilities in each classroom. If students, teachers or parents feel a "Chapter 104" student is not challenged, the teacher and consultant work together to develop meaningful change to the class, content or curriculum. The partnership between teacher, parent and consultant is crucial and is always a fluid work in process.

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• Parents whose child was referred to as "gifted" in elementary school and yet is in all regular classses in middle school are sometimes confused by this. The reality is that a high performing student who elementary teachers referred to as gifted does not necessarily fall into the now narrow guidelines for Chapter 104 consultative services.

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• The determination for how to apply the guidelines is made by each school district and is based on research as well as practice. At this time, our district generally has placed two pre-qualifying conditions on Chapter 104 services: first, that a student needs to score in the top two percent on standardized testing for that subject area and secondly, the student must have a teacher recommendation for services.

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• Other factors are also considered however, and parents may find it helpful to keep in mind that our district's philosophy is that differentiation within the classroom is meant to meet most students' needs. Here, too, it's helpful to keep in mind that Lyman Moore has many sending schools and a wide range of highly skilled students -- the highest in the class in fifth grade may perhaps be one of many highly skilled in the sixth grade.

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• Lyman Moore works with one or more Chapter 104 consultants depending upon the school's needs. Parents may call, e-mail or arrange to meet with Chapter 104 consultants throughout the year. And of course at any time, parents can ask questions of teachers, the school counselor, our administration, or our central office noted on the next line below.

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• Lyman Moore enlists many individuals for Chapter 104 extended consultation who also serve at-large in Portland Schools: Patti Perkins, Louise Moses, Carol Hagar and Marty . For further questions or explanations about the identification process and our district's protocol, you are invited to contact Portland School's central office Chapter 104 Coordinator, Patti Perkins at: perkip@portlandschools.org

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I will try to post here as an attachment an overview provided by our Central Office Chapter 104 Coordinator that explains the process in Portland. (If you don't find it here, it means I haven't figured out how to do that (yet!) but I will so check back.)