GT notification letters

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It makes no sense to me. My only kid who i felt was way more gifted than my other 2 who were designated gifted by mcps was found not gifted by mcps. I don’t know what’s going on. Based on some assessment on which he scored 4 but MAP was 99 percentile he did not meet the gifted criteria. Something is fishy here. What are these assessments? Is it because of a teacher shortage that they are doing this? Moreover, my kid has been above grade in reading throughout and yet it says his reading level is on grade level on the letter I received. It makes no sense. Someone is lying here..

Go straight to accusing someone of lying when you don't understand. OK.

If the report says my child gets enrichment in math and reads above grade level while the letter tells me that my child reads at grade level and should not get any above grade level enrichment in math .. then there is a problem. One of them is wrong

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anybody know of any 2nd grade children who were designed GT per the letter that came home this month? So far, I know zero. Something fishy is going on.

Yes, mine was, but also listed as on grade level with no enrichment. Which seems odd. We’re not aiming for a magnet so I’d rather have the enrichment.

Did your child get 5s in both EOL assessments?

No.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anybody know of any 2nd grade children who were designed GT per the letter that came home this month? So far, I know zero. Something fishy is going on.

Yes, mine was, but also listed as on grade level with no enrichment. Which seems odd. We’re not aiming for a magnet so I’d rather have the enrichment.

Did your child get 5s in both EOL assessments?

No.

Adding that the designation appears to have been based on reading and math scores plus parent recommendation. The teacher rated child as below performance expectations. But as another person posted it appears you need aome combo of these and I guess DC had that. But was still not designated as needing enrichment. Honestly what I want is math acceleration. DC is not well suited for the accelerated writing program that starts in 4th grade or whatever and we know that.

[Anonymous]

Someone asked if the 3rd grade letter referred to Math 4/5 placement. It doesn't. We received a separate letter for that in my kid's backpack last week.

Fwiw, I don't think my kid is gifted (90th percentile for both reading and math). But he met 3 academic measures and 1 behavioral checklist so he meets the criteria. Not sure the purpose of the GT designation is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anybody know of any 2nd grade children who were designed GT per the letter that came home this month? So far, I know zero. Something fishy is going on.

Yes, mine was, but also listed as on grade level with no enrichment. Which seems odd. We’re not aiming for a magnet so I’d rather have the enrichment.

Did your child get 5s in both EOL assessments?

No.

Adding that the designation appears to have been based on reading and math scores plus parent recommendation. The teacher rated child as below performance expectations. But as another person posted it appears you need aome combo of these and I guess DC had that. But was still not designated as needing enrichment. Honestly what I want is math acceleration. DC is not well suited for the accelerated writing program that starts in 4th grade or whatever and we know that.

This designation is unconnected to math enrichment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Last year the GT identification could come from any of three (I think) factors - test scores, teacher assessment or parent assessment.

This year, my undestanding is that GT identification requires multiple test/performance-related measures and either teacher or parent assessment. Some schools opted not to have 2nd graders take all the tests (trying to preserve class time for instruction as we move on from pandemic learning disruption), so there is missing data and re-screening will be needed in 3rd grade. Of course this only gives them one shot at identification instead of two.

I think the enrichment paradigm is different between ELA and Math. Benchmark Advance enrichment (or ELC, if your school is lucky enough) is designated for GT learners (and others, too, sometimes). For elementary Math, there is the enrichment ladder that is supposed to be applied to each student for each module, whether or not identified as GT. I think that is why there isn't a "Math - enriched" designation on the letter for next year's recommendation, but, rather, the verbiage about enrichment below that. Terrible clarity of communications, but, then, we're talking MCPS, so par for the course...

Of course, there are the accelerated 4/5 & 5/6 courses. I don't know if GT letters for current 3rd graders are showing 4/5 placement or not -- my understanding is that accelerated placement is a separate process from GT identification -- but current 2nd graders wouldn't see that anyway, short of, perhaps, being identified as needing hyper-acceleration (e.g., Math 4/5 in 3rd), and those cases are relatively rare.

Imagine if MCPS told parents, teachers, students and administrators that they would be changing their criteria for their process before they administered the assessments they’d be using! Instead, they say nothing, tell no one, and after the fact change all the criteria and back into the process and weaponize this data against children who clearly should have enrichment. Also those Benchmark EOLs are very confusing, poorly written tests. I have upper el kids who say the questions are multiple choice and two of four are usually correct and it’s impossible to infer based on limited text which one is the right answer.

THIS DESIGNATION IS MEANINGLESS!! It does not determine whether your kid gets enrichment. There is no reason to get bent out of shape. Also it was the same last year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anybody know of any 2nd grade children who were designed GT per the letter that came home this month? So far, I know zero. Something fishy is going on.

Yes, mine was, but also listed as on grade level with no enrichment. Which seems odd. We’re not aiming for a magnet so I’d rather have the enrichment.

Did your child get 5s in both EOL assessments?

No.

Adding that the designation appears to have been based on reading and math scores plus parent recommendation. The teacher rated child as below performance expectations. But as another person posted it appears you need aome combo of these and I guess DC had that. But was still not designated as needing enrichment. Honestly what I want is math acceleration. DC is not well suited for the accelerated writing program that starts in 4th grade or whatever and we know that.

Thanks, that’s good to know. This is our first kid in MCPS obviously … so what is connected to math enrichment, do you know? DC has never gotten any. We asked the teacher and she vaguely said they “don’t do that much” and then gave DC a couple extra worksheets one time and that was it. The kid talks about math concepts constantly for fun so if enrichment is available it’s baffling he doesn’t receive it. If it’s not available, that different. Then, so be it.

This designation is unconnected to math enrichment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It makes no sense to me. My only kid who i felt was way more gifted than my other 2 who were designated gifted by mcps was found not gifted by mcps. I don’t know what’s going on. Based on some assessment on which he scored 4 but MAP was 99 percentile he did not meet the gifted criteria. Something is fishy here. What are these assessments? Is it because of a teacher shortage that they are doing this? Moreover, my kid has been above grade in reading throughout and yet it says his reading level is on grade level on the letter I received. It makes no sense. Someone is lying here..

Go straight to accusing someone of lying when you don't understand. OK.

If the report says my child gets enrichment in math and reads above grade level while the letter tells me that my child reads at grade level and should not get any above grade level enrichment in math .. then there is a problem. One of them is wrong

PP here- FWIW my child’s teacher assessment says grade level. My child seems to make careless mistakes sometimes. That caused him his GT designation.. as his scores were 4’s on the district assessments.

[Anonymous]

It's completely meaningless. My kid was not "identified" in 2nd grade but went to CES and will go to a magnet MS in the fall. We just got the letter for my younger one, who I think is the more clever of the two, and they were not identified either. It really means nothing as far as accuracy for talent and eligibility for enrichment/gifted programs.

[Anonymous]

The designation isn't entirely meaningless.
MD law (https://www.marylandpublicschools.org/programs/Documents/Gifted-Talented/COMAR_13A0407_GT_Education.pdf) requires MCPS to identify GT students, make GT programs available to them and train staff to provide GT education.

The more who are identified, the more needs to be provided, but economies of scale usually make this feasible. The specifics of that which is to be provided are nonexistent, though. MCPS can use Benchmark Advance enrichments or ELC, Eureka enrichments or acceleration, and MCPS can say that some need is met theough one and some through the other, meaning that they can decouple Math 4/5 placement criteria from GT identification. The GT designation [b]should[b] ensure that a student is provided one or the other, however, and the notice to parents/guardians should allow them to follow up with the teacher/school administration to ensure that that happens. Lord knows that MCPS central staff (AEI) don't have the manpower to provide the oversight of all the schools, and whatever they're calling OSSI nowadays (area superintendents/directors who oversee the schools directly) doesn't seem to make adherence to this aspect of COMAR a priority.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The designation isn't entirely meaningless.
MD law (https://www.marylandpublicschools.org/programs/Documents/Gifted-Talented/COMAR_13A0407_GT_Education.pdf) requires MCPS to identify GT students, make GT programs available to them and train staff to provide GT education.

The more who are identified, the more needs to be provided, but economies of scale usually make this feasible. The specifics of that which is to be provided are nonexistent, though. MCPS can use Benchmark Advance enrichments or ELC, Eureka enrichments or acceleration, and MCPS can say that some need is met theough one and some through the other, meaning that they can decouple Math 4/5 placement criteria from GT identification. The GT designation [b]should[b] ensure that a student is provided one or the other, however, and the notice to parents/guardians should allow them to follow up with the teacher/school administration to ensure that that happens. Lord knows that MCPS central staff (AEI) don't have the manpower to provide the oversight of all the schools, and whatever they're calling OSSI nowadays (area superintendents/directors who oversee the schools directly) doesn't seem to make adherence to this aspect of COMAR a priority.

Thank you, this is helpful. Given how opaque the admissions process is now for the 4th/5th grade CES programs, can someone who knows DEFINITIVELY say that they are sure that lack of GT designation for a rising 3rd grader will not impact his chances of CES admission this time next year? Kid is off the charts on MAP, apparently bombed EOLs.... truly not sure how a kid in 240s for map m in 2nd grade gets a 1 on EOL... I'm concerned. In the shorter term, he loves his math enrichment and will be so sad without it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It makes no sense to me. My only kid who i felt was way more gifted than my other 2 who were designated gifted by mcps was found not gifted by mcps. I don’t know what’s going on. Based on some assessment on which he scored 4 but MAP was 99 percentile he did not meet the gifted criteria. Something is fishy here. What are these assessments? Is it because of a teacher shortage that they are doing this? Moreover, my kid has been above grade in reading throughout and yet it says his reading level is on grade level on the letter I received. It makes no sense. Someone is lying here..

Go straight to accusing someone of lying when you don't understand. OK.

If the report says my child gets enrichment in math and reads above grade level while the letter tells me that my child reads at grade level and should not get any above grade level enrichment in math .. then there is a problem. One of them is wrong

PP here- FWIW my child’s teacher assessment says above grade level. My child seems to make careless mistakes sometimes. That caused him his GT designation.. as his scores were 4’s on the district assessments.

Oops that should say above grade level

[Anonymous]

Ok, so we have established that get designation is meaningless. Now, what prompted mcps to change the criteria and use some random assessments? My current 4th grader in CES was identified as gifted and there was no such random assessments. But that could also be because of covid. But it was also prior to benchmark. Benchmark was implemented during covid shutdown when my current 4th grader was in 2nd grade.
Is the new criteria to reduce the number of kids identified as gifted?
I also genuinely wonder how the kids did on these assessments which were used in the gut identification process as the current 2nd graders had no experience taking assessments prior to 2nd grade because of online school. In 1st grade the benchmark assessments were online. They were a pain for my kid because it was online , it was difficult for him to scroll up and down to reread the passages and look for answers on the screen. The benchmark assessments scores were rarely shared with the parents. Maybe it’s just my kid who had a hard time doing online school last year. But my current 2nd grader is definitely way more clever, smarter or ‘gifted’ than my current 4th grader identified as gifted and now in CES. So this is super confusing for us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ok, so we have established that get designation is meaningless. Now, what prompted mcps to change the criteria and use some random assessments? My current 4th grader in CES was identified as gifted and there was no such random assessments. But that could also be because of covid. But it was also prior to benchmark. Benchmark was implemented during covid shutdown when my current 4th grader was in 2nd grade.
Is the new criteria to reduce the number of kids identified as gifted?
I also genuinely wonder how the kids did on these assessments which were used in the gut identification process as the current 2nd graders had no experience taking assessments prior to 2nd grade because of online school. In 1st grade the benchmark assessments were online. They were a pain for my kid because it was online , it was difficult for him to scroll up and down to reread the passages and look for answers on the screen. The benchmark assessments scores were rarely shared with the parents. Maybe it’s just my kid who had a hard time doing online school last year. But my current 2nd grader is definitely way more clever, smarter or ‘gifted’ than my current 4th grader identified as gifted and now in CES. So this is super confusing for us.

So many questions, such little transparency. I really don’t think mcps could make this more confusing if they tried. We have a bunch of seemingly bright and involved parents who are all utterly confused and communications that are contradictory. And testing that is clearly flawed if numerous highly able students are not performing up to their typical level. After a year of virtual for very young learners. And they toss this at parents the week before summer, even though the test was in Q2? My goodness.

[Anonymous]

I would let this go if my kid hadn’t been locked out of public school for over a year in mcps. I’m all out of grace. No patience for errors that make my child look incapable.