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Q: What is the Primary Talent Pool (PTP)?
A: The PTP is a group of primary students (Kindergarten through Third Grade) who are informally selected by the district as having characteristics and behaviors of high-potential learners and who have been further diagnosed using a series of informal and formal measures to determine the desirability of differentiated services during the primary program.
Q: What is a high-potential learner?
A: Students who learn and comprehend at a faster pace and more complex level than their age peers are considered high-potential learners. These students often acquire skills earlier and progress at an accelerated rate.
Q: How are students selected for the Primary Talent Pool?
A: A minimum of three informal assessment measures are used to provide evidence that students should participate in the Primary Talent Pool. Evidence can be gathered from teacher, parent, and community member observations of student behaviors and work samples. A school committee reviews the evidence to determine if a primary student is a high-potential learner and should be included in the Primary Talent Pool. The committee should consider environmental, cultural, and disabling conditions. Students can be placed in the talent pool at any time during their primary years. It is recommended that school committees follow the principle: When in doubt, err on the side of inclusion.
Q: Describe the membership of a school committee that would make decisions about the Primary Talent Pool.
A: Membership of the school committee could consist of an administrator, gifted education personnel, primary teachers, guidance counselor, special area teachers (art, music, dance, drama), parents, and community members.
Q: What is meant by informal assessment measures?
A: Informal assessment measures rely on observation and professional judgment rather than being standardized or norm-referenced with numbers and scores. Examples of informal assessment measures used to determine high potential in primary students include: primary portfolios, behavior checklists, anecdotal records, parent interviews and questionnaires, teacher assessments, work samples, products, and performances.
Q: What is the benefit of selecting students for the PTP?
A: The benefits of selecting students to participate in the PTP are to assure continuous progress, minimize underachievement, and provide early enrichment for those students whose gifts and talents need to be nurtured in order for those talents to develop further. Provision of Primary Talent Pool services provides essential early recognition of student abilities matched to differentiated services. Additionally, PTP talent development may assist in the formal identification process in fourth grade.
Q: When students become eligible for formal identification in the fourth grade, are PTP students automatically identified as GT?
A: PTP students are not automatically identified as GT once they reach the fourth grade. Specific and more stringent criteria must be met to formally identify a GT student.
Q: Can formal testing be used to select students for the PTP?
A: Data from formal, normed measures shall not be used to eliminate eligibility for services to a child in the primary program; however, these measures may be used to discover and include eligible students overlooked by informal assessment. Formal, normed measures may be used for diagnosing the level of instructional service needed by a student and for evaluation of student progress.
Q: What percentage of primary students is recommended to be selected for the PTP?
A: According to 704 KAR 3:285, “high-potential learners” are students who typically represent the top quartile (25%) of the entire student population in terms of the degree of demonstrated high-potential characteristics and behaviors.
Q: Why should 25% of primary students be involved in the PTP?
A: It is important to cast a wide net to find high-potential learners.
The PTP may represent the top 5% in each of the five areas of GT (general intellectual ability, specific academic aptitude, leadership, creativity, and the visual and performing arts) for a total of 25% of the entire primary school population.
Q: Can a student be selected for the PTP one year and not the next? A: No. Once a student is in the PTP, the student remains in the talent pool until exiting the third grade (P4). The levels of service will vary based on student need and target areas for service. Those services may need to be adjusted periodically to fit the individual child’s specific needs.
Q: Are parents/guardians to be notified that their child is in the PTP?
A: There is no reference in the GT regulation that parents/guardians are to be notified of student selection for the PTP. Individual schools/districts may decide whether to notify and this can be addressed in the school’s/district’s policies and procedures.
Q: How are services delivered to PTP?
A: For a student in the primary grades, services shall allow for continuous progress through a differentiated curriculum and flexible grouping and regrouping based on the individual needs, interests, and abilities of the student. Emphasis on educating high-potential students in the general primary classroom shall not exclude the continued, appropriate use of resource services, acceleration options, or other specific service options. A recommendation for a service shall be made on an individual basis by matching services to student interests, needs, and abilities.
Some PTP students may need to be cluster-grouped for reading and/or math and served by a regular classroom teacher who compacts the curriculum. Acceleration by subject or grade is appropriate for some advanced PTP students. These students may need to receive services in a classroom at a higher grade level for specific subjects or subjects. PTP students selected in the area of general intellectual ability might be in cluster groups in math and/or reading and also meet with the primary talent pool specialist. Seeing the specialist once a week would not be an appropriate service delivery option for students requiring services in math. Math is a daily subject and services need to be delivered daily. Other PTP students requiring services in leadership development may meet with the guidance counselor and be mentored by an older student identified in leadership. A student placed in the PTP for visual art may be served by an art teacher who would cluster group the visual art students and serve them in a pull-out program that meets one hour each month. There should be multiple service delivery options at each grade level. One size or one service does not fit all.
Q: Do Primary Talent Pool students have a Gifted Student Service Plan (GSSP)?
A: GSSPs are not required for PTP students, but the teacher(s) providing services to PTP students should have a record of differentiated and enrichment services provided for each student.
Q: Is it necessary to nominate students for the Primary Talent Pool in the five areas, or is being in the PTP all-inclusive of the areas?
A: PTP students should be nominated in the specific areas where they show strengths. Once a student is selected for the PTP, he/she should be served in the area(s) of specific strength.