|
GATE: Gifted and Talented Education
Students read The Great Horn Spoon
at Ann Soldo Elementary School, as part of a
4th grade California history thematic unit.
|
Thinking Outside of the Box
“Discovery consists in seeing
what everyone else has seen and
thinking what no one else has thought.”
—Albert Szent-Gyorgi
|
“I want to thank you two SO MUCH for coming to our site and leading
the discussions around student motivation and achievement. Our staff room conversations
have been transformed for the better. People are opening up about what they struggle with,
how they want to improve, etc in such a positive way. It feels like we’ve been working really
hard on building a learning community for years and this year we’ve finally arrived! I attribute
the change in culture and moral in large part to the work you’ve done with us.”
—A PVUSD teacher, following one of our staff development workshops
|
News & Upcoming Events
Spring is Time for GATE Student
Screening!
GATE Services staff are hard at work with the screening process for identifying
students who may be candidates for GATE identifcation. There are several steps to this process:
- All 2nd and 3rd
grade students at all 16 elementary schools will be taking the Raven’s
Progressive Matrices test.
- Teachers are asked to complete GATE
Referral Forms for any student they wish to receommend for GATE
consideration, as well as those students who score in the top 10% on the Ravens.
- Parents are also encouraged to complete a Parent
Questionnaire about their child. (También está disponible
en español.)
Schools are to notify parents of the GATE screening, and send home with students the
Notification of GATE Testing form
(También está disponible en español.)
The Formal GATE identification process occurs each fall.
The fall process is as follows:
- We will administer “make-up”
Ravens testing to any students who
for some reason were not tested this spring.
- Hold a “GATE Placement Committee”
(GPC) meeting at each elementary school. The GPC consists of at least
one school administrator,
a teacher and a GATE Services staff person. They look at multiple
criteria, including: Ravens score, CST scores, classroom grades and
performance, teacher comments, parent
input, and any other relevant information about each student. The GPC
then determines whether a student is identified as GATE.
- GATE Services then mails notification
to parents of all GATE-identified students with
information about the identification, along with a fall newsletter and a flier about
the annual fall Parent Workshops.
If you have any questions about the spring screening process or the fall identification
process, please contact us (contact info at the bottom of this web page).
The Raven’s is a non-verbal assessment of reasoning skills comprised of
graphical puzzles; there is no math or language involved, and is proven to be a
valid and reliable “culture-neutral” assessment. For more
information about the GATE screening process, read our
“Questions and Answers”
about the screening process. GATE Parent Workshops:
Understanding Your Gifted Child, and Supporting their Emotional Needs
Raising a gifted child is not always easy. Gifted children often have unique
characteristics that present special challenges for parents. These two workshops
will provide parents with valuable information and strategies to help them better
understand, relate to, and help their gifted child.
At the first workshop, we will explore gifted characteristics, motivation and
stress management. The second workshop explores discipline, sibling rivalry
and peer relationships.
Each workshop will be offered twice, once in Watsonville and once in Aptos:
- Characteristics, motivation, stress management
- Discipline, sibling rivalry, peer relationships
- Monday, March 15, Landmark Elementary, Watsonville
- Monday, March 22, Aptos Junior High, Aptos
All four workshops will run 7:00–8:30 pm.
Register by phone (786-2144) or register online.
Printable flier in English
(114 KB  )
or español
(108 KB ). Winter 2010 GATE Newsletter:
English
(103 KB )
and español
(135 KB )Second Annual GATE Student-to-Student Conference!
Saturday May 8, 2010 ~ 1–5
pm ~ UC Santa Cruz
Students present workshops on their favorite subjects; other students
attend these workshops! Open to all students
grades 3–12 in Santa Cruz, Santa Clara, Monterey and San Benito Counties.
This year’s conference will be held at Merrill College, on the beautiful
campus of the University of California at Santa Cruz. New This Year: Parent Workshops!
Read more at www.giftedcalifornia.org! GATE Advisory Council (“GAC”) Meetings:
The GATE Advisory Council is the group of teachers, parents and administrators
interested in providing input and guidance to PVUSD GATE Services on
policy, practices, projects and priorities. GAC meetings are open to
all interested people. We meet 3–4 times a year.
The next GAC Meeting is Thursday, February 18, 2010
Our first GAC meeting was Thursday, December 3, 2009.
The third and final GAC Meeting for 2009–2010 will be Thursday, April 22, 2010
|
We want to keep in touch — Please complete the new Parent Permission Form!
We’d very much to collect contact information for parents and guardians of all GATE-identified
students in PVUSD—and anyone interested in GATE services and issues, and would like to be on our
contacts list. We especially want your email address—an efficient and affordable means of getting out the word!
We included in our fall mailing a new version of our “permission slip” that asks for your
mailing address, one or more phone numbers and your email address. Please return
this permission slip to us by way of your child’s teacher, or directly to us. It is also
available in printable document format for downloading and printing, in English
and español.
|
PVUSD GATE Resources
GATE Newsletters:
Looping Resources
(Looping is when a teacher stays with the same class of students for 2 or more years.)
|
Other Resources & Information
Some articles of interest:
- Read a recent Op Ed piece
in the Sacramento Bee, regarding the importance of meeting the academic needs of
gifted/advanced students.
|
|
 The Adobe Reader icon indicates that a file is .pdf format.
You need Adobe Acrobat Reader in order to view .pdf files. 
You can download the free software from Adobe at
www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2_allversions.html
 The PowerPoint icon indicates that a file is
a PowerPoint slideshow (.pps).
If you do not have Microsoft PowerPoint on your computer,
you can download the free
PowerPoint Viewer software,
for either the
Macintosh or
Windows platforms.
|
|
This page last updated
August 26, 2010.
This page valid XHTML 1 and
CSS 2
Website questions may be directed to the Ted Altenberg.
|
|
