((applause))
Sorry to hear about the early days, I had the same treatment! I think it's great that you spend time on meta-cognition! I also had that thing were when I finally had to work to succede at school, I thought that I had stopped being smart! It took me years to overcome my 'laziness.'

Smiles,
Grinity

I've never heard of ISETP+, but you can use it as a screener, even though way above level kids often are too bored to do well on this kind of test. If you can use old copies to bring the 3rd grade test to the first graders and see how they do at the begining of the first grade year on a test designed to measure kids at the end of 3rd grade, that will give you a cheap ID, and a more accurate way to find kids with 'special educational needs.'

Based on my personal experience, I would screen every trouble maker from K to 3, 'just to be sure.'

I don't want to be a downer, but a key problem is that you have funding, or at least political will for ID, but not for accomidation, so I think your first job is to start building interest in meeting the needs of the teachers who will get these clusters. BUT we all have to start somewhere. Actually - the parents themeselves might be a great source of support - once the children are IDed perhaps you can get the parents to come to school and do math or literature pull outs?

Smiles,
Grinity

ISTEP is the name of the grade-level testing in Indiana, Grinity. Just FYI. So everything you say is right on target--boredom, not necessarily a good screener, etc.

This is an interesting conversation, and "hats off" to you, Ducky. I'll give my experiences as a parent (two school districts in two different states) in a sec, just had to jump in to add a specific childhood experience to Grinity's comment above. In seventh grade I spent a few weeks seriously considering whether I was actually well below average in IQ and just so good at pretending to be smart that I had fooled everyone. This was largely based on my klutziness, lack of social grace, the fact that I didn't fit in at all, and the various other ways in which I resembled some of the kids who I didn't think of as bright. (The other basis for this was my parents laughing off an indirect a request to bracket my IQ score.) Eventually I realized that if I was doing that good a job at fooling people that that effectively implied I wasn't too dumb and I should just keep on going. However, you can see how this leads directly to that feeling of being an "imposter" which is frequently noted by successful women in particular.

Anyways, back to the subject at hand...
ID in our first district was AFAIK based on a combination of teacher, parent, or child request for consideration and test scores. That district had separate pull-out programs in elementary for math, writing, and reading. If the student had high interest and achievement in an area, they were in - no IQ score necessary. If a student scored above a threshold in math screeners, they were in that group - may have been regardless of desire. I believe same may have been true in reading. Not sure what the math screening test was when DD was in 1st grade - may have been a test put together by the district. Later grades - NWEA MAP test scores were used. Oh, and the pull-outs started in 1st. I don't know what happened if a student had high IQ score and low achievement - probably depended on interest level in the subject. I liked that the pull-outs were subject specific.

ID in our second school district is different depending on the grade level of the child. GT programs don't start until 5th (Argh!) so the 4th grade year is when they make determination of who goes in 5th. For 4th graders - portfolio and teacher recommendation based. If the child is present at the school during the lower grades - verbal OLSAT scores are put into the record. There was talk last year of using MAP scores too/instead (last year was the first this district used that test), not sure where that stands currently. I've only had experience as parent of a new-to-the-district 4th grader. In that position, and I think this goes anytime you look at portfolio, it is nice to let parents know that they should bring in previous work from the child to add to the portfolio.

I really like Kriston's idea of a meeting between parents and GT staff of some sort. For one thing, if one child is identified there may be younger siblings who are also going to need services and it might be useful to get that process started early. But, sounds like that is probably beyond what can happen right away for you.

This is exactly what I hoped for. People with the kids impacted by our decisions to make ME think.
But oh my, Grinity, do you really think they would let us talk about how much we can spend per one hundred children? This will, my dear, be a non-budgeted endeavor. Now, understand, the state does have some grant money that they hand out, but this year that money was received in January. It must be spent by the end of July. I can do a little higher level thinking, but it doesn't take that to figure out that leaves nothing to start programming for the fall.
Our grant writer is heading our committee to get going. The first proposal was that we would identify in the fall to start programs in January to match the grant. I sent him my revised thoughts on that plan last week. This needs to happen this spring and start something this fall.
I teach in a semi rural setting and a fairly small school system. When I came here they were just starting a pull-out program for 4th, 5th, and 6th graders. I was in two buildings. The larger one was my assignment for three days and the smaller one was the other two. You know how budgets are..... and we were in trouble on year number 5 of my career. Guess whose job was the first to be in the proposed cuts. (Here I am meeting with the coordinator arguing to increase the program and the superintendent is with the board eliminating it FIRST!!!) The building level administrators and coordinator SALVAGED the program to part time. Not great, but still something for the kids. (I also taught Title 1 reading for half the day after that decision. That may be where my penchant for the split I proposed came from.)
Although it was okay, I was not happy in the position once it was watered down so- time wise. I requested a move to the classroom.
My understanding, over the next few years (as the program was simply a stepping stone to something full time), the quality dwindled until the current superintendent insisted that it should just be eliminated.
We have pretty much ignored the GT or high ability as Indiana now wants to call the group, until the state stepped in with this new law. Any questions parents had were always sent my way. My former students are now parents and asking questions about THEIR program. It is really kind of cool having those "kids" reminding of the things that we did. It makes me feel like I did make a difference in their educations. But my answering questions and sending parents to outside sources was our involvement.
I know that you already are aware of this, but parents are usually much more in tune with the child's giftedness than the teachers involved. I can't tell you how many times I had to argue that it really didn't matter to me if the child was getting a D in history while in the regular classroom. While with me, he was the leader in the discussion on "whatever the days topic" or the one providing my latest challenge (before the days of internet) on where to find information on an adult type topic. His independent study was usually the most thorough and he had the most understanding of what he was to do. NO, I WILL NOT ASK THE PARENTS TO REMOVE HIM FROM THE PROGRAM.
"Why should the child have to come back to your room and do the paper with 50 addition problems? You are a "cluster teacher" and are supposed to be doing curriculum compacting!" It was constant with some teachers. I honestly felt like it was a punishment to be bright at times. I was expecting more out of them than they had ever produced and their classroom teachers, I swear, did more worksheets in that 2-3 hours than they did the rest of the week altogether.

Yes, there are times for complete sentences and sometimes my answer is, "Because I said so." Yet most of the time who cares? I am really just happy to get the thoughts down.
I had that discussion on getting others to change their ways with a fellow teacher today--one that UNDERSTANDS- and she simply ended with......what are you going to do???? (Probably pull my hair out.)

Wow!!! I had actually forgotten those headaches over the years!!

By the way, I am also quite sure that our definition will be very broad (probably too much so) if we end up clustering. Those with high ability in one area will definitely be part of the mix.

One thing that I am sure is going to have to happen is that more screening will have to be done prior to kindergarten entry. We have that all wrong right now too. We offer full day Kdg. to the neediest kids. Yet we wait until they are settled into the half day routine and then screen a couple of weeks into the year and totally change their schedule--sometimes including sections (classmates.) Just what I think you want to do to an adjusting kindergartner.
(One of these days I may decide that I don't have enough influence from the four walls of my classroom and go after that administration degree. By then, though, my ideas will probably be stale.)

Grinity--I am so glad that someone helped define ISTEP+. My stupidity was in thinking, that just because it IS MY LIFE right now and not in a positive way now that we have the results, everyone knows this test.
As achievement tests go, it does have a few little challenges called "applied skills." I can be a pretty good motivator when it comes to test time, so I truly believe that most of my best kids take the test VERY seriously--wish I could say the same on the other spectrum. I am even convinced that they have to do a little thinking on parts of it.
Want to see a sample? Check out the Indiana Dept. of Ed. website and the past two years of all the applied skills (the more challenging part of the test) are available online along with the scoring guides.

I sincerely doubt it!

I appreciate your whole post, but I wanted to comment on this particular item since it applies to my GS8. The reason to make complete sentences is so the child learns to communicate his thoughts to others who are reading it. If the child knows it, but does not know how to pass knowlege to others, what good is it, unless the child lives his life in solitary confinement? It is a stretch for some to communicate their ideas in more than a short phrase, especially when answering a question pertaining to a paragraph just read; but it's good practice that leads into being able to write complete essays or theme papers.

Grandma,
I know that it sounded like writing sentences was never important to me, but I am referring to the mundane times when a short answer is more than sufficient. I guarantee that correct grammar and being able to communicate in complete sentences are both more than trivial things to me. In fact, I have been told that correct grammar is referred to as "my name's English" because I do have such high expectations.
There are simply times, though, that sentences are not important to know if the child has a concept. G/T kids, especially, see through that sentence requirement as a time filler when it is used in that way. Essays and composition are totally different stories.
One example of the times that I would seldom require the students to write sentences is in English practice with certain skills. The book will generally tell the student to copy the sentence and then "underline the nouns." I find that I really get better results with focus if I simply have the kids write the nouns from those sentences.

Actually JD,
what I would love to see you doing is running a small school for the offspring of "your" students who have grown up and become parents...Neat thing is that you could 'teach' about 3 hours a day, and then offer babysitting for those who's parents can't do it themselves.

Other than that, I agree with casting the net broadly, particularly if there isn't money for actual programing - I'd go as far as to take the top 10% and any kid of any parent who asks. Then you can refine from there as you go - but essentially, if the school isn't providing money, you are going to have to organize the parents to cough it up. In the meantime you main job is going to be creating alliances with the teachers. Yes, it's difficult, but by pulling out a larger chunk, you will have less of an uphill battle. You want to find a way to avoid those interpersonal battles from the past...being the boss and doing the hiring is one way...being the coach and offering a hand to help the other teachers get training in another, KWIM?

Is your community the type that would pay for an afterschool program to give the really 'farthest out' kids some more individualized work?

Anyway, I'm delighted that you are here!
Wish you lived closer...
Grinity