GATE Program In San Jose Unified School District

San Jose Unified submits a written plan to the California Department of Education based on the most current GATE standards. The Department of Education evaluates the plan and provides funding for between one and three years depending on the quantity and quality of standards met in the plan.

All schools in SJUSD receive state funds for Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) services. Each school prepares a GATE plan outlining services and the expenditure of funds using guidelines provided by the District GATE Office as part of the school plan. The guidelines are based on the State GATE Standards, student assessment needs and current research on the needs of gifted students. The school plan must be approved by the School Site Council and submitted to the SJUSD School Board through the District Office. Each school should include a parent of a GATE student on the School Site Council.

The District GATE Office staff is composed of an administrator, resource teacher and secretary assigned to provide coordination, staff development, identification services and assistance to schools. The resource teacher works with other curriculum resource teachers under the direction of the Director of Curriculum.

The District GATE Advisory Committee (DGAC) meets monthly between September and May according to the committee¹s by-laws. It is responsible for overseeing district wide informational parent nights, revising the district GATE plan, revising the GATE identification process, and serving as a sounding board for GATE issues. Meetings are held at the district office and are open to all district parents. A Site GATE Advisory Committee (SGAC) is optional but encouraged. The SGAC may be a separate committee or a subgroup of the School Site Council and must report information regularly to that group.

Information about gifted students, programs and parent meetings are provided to parents and staff in The GATE Way, a trimester newsletter written by the District GATE Office and distributed to the schools to be sent home to all GATE families. The GATE Way is distributed in English and Spanish. The District GATE Office also writes a column for Curriculum Matters, a quarterly staff newsletter that addresses ways to meet the needs of students in the classroom. School sites are encouraged to include noteworthy GATE news in school newsletters.

Meeting the Needs of Gifted and Talented Students
Since it is likely that all teachers will have GATE students in their classrooms, it is essential to continue to develop the SJUSD staff¹s knowledge and skills in implementing differentiation strategies and instruction to meet the needs of the gifted. Workshops led by the District GATE resource teacher and guest experts address a wide variety of instructional strategies and tools to differentiate the curriculum for GATE students. Staff development occurs in the following ways:

- school site afterschool training
- staff development days
- GATE liaison (teacher representative from each school site) meetings
- Instructional Coach trainings at the secondary level
- Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment (BTSA) trainings
- modeling differentiation strategies in classrooms
- release days for teachers to write differentiated curriculum
- open workshops during the school year as well as the summer

Resource books that facilitate differentiated instruction have been purchased for each school site. The District Office has an extensive library of video tapes for teachers and principals to check out that address; differentiating instruction, social and emotional needs and brain and learning implications for the classroom.

Meeting the social and emotional needs of the GATE students is also part of staff development. GATE liaisons attending the district meetings focus on the social and emotional needs of gifted students. Guest speakers provide information on topics such as underachieving gifted, perfectionism, and counseling. Resource books focusing the social and emotional needs of gifted have been purchased for each school site professional resource library.

State GATE Standards require teachers working with GATE students to have GATE Certification. GATE Certification classes are offered through Santa Clara University and the California Association of the Gifted. SJUSD is planning a district GATE certification process. Teachers are also encouraged to attend the California Association of the Gifted Institutes and Conferences.

How Is Curriculum Differentiated To Address The Diverse Learners In The Classroom?

Differentiating instruction can occur in a variety of ways. There are three student characteristics that may indicate a need for modifications in curriculum and instruction. These characteristics are readiness, interest and learning profile. The content, activities and products can be adjusted in response to learners¹ needs.

What to Look For:
Essential question: What does the student already know?

Pre-assessment determines how to plan lessons to meet the needs of students approaching standards, at standard and those that exceed standard

Essential question: How does the student learn best?

Learning Profile
Learning Modalities (auditory, visual, kinesthetic)
Multiple Intelligences (verbal/linguistic, logical/mathematical, visual/spatial, rhythm/musical, bodily-kinesthetic, naturalist, interpersonal, intrapersonal)

Essential question: What is it I want students to know, use and learn?

Bloom’s Taxonomy of Cognitive Development (knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation)

Essential question: What strategies will differentiate the curriculum?

Questioning Strategies (open-ended where possible, adjust complexity, abstractness, degree of mental leap required, connections required between topics, Socratic questioning)

Varied texts, media, software (multiple reading levels from basic to advanced, wide variety of subjects)

Tiered Assignments (modified in various ways such as: simple - complex, concrete - abstract, single facet - multiple facets, more structure - more open, less independent - more independent, slower - quicker)

Curriculum Compacting (plans for learning what is not known and excusing student from what is already known or mastered - time is spent in enriched or accelerated study)

Anchor Activities/Extension Menus/Independent Contracts/Centers (build on student interest, encourage independence, allow work with complex and abstract ideas, allow long-term and in-depth work on topics of interest, tap into high motivation)

What Can Parents Do At Home?

- Consider using ‘bibliotherapy’ as a way of addressing some of the things that worry children. This involves the use of suitable books to help children work through social-emotional problems, books where a main character exhibits the same problem(s) as the child. For some children the use of such a book allows them to confront and deal with an otherwise painful situation by looking at it through the eyes of the book character. It also may help for children to see that others, whether real people (as in biographies) or fictional characters, experience and cope with similar fears or pressures to theirs.

- If your child exhibits negative forms of perfectionism (e.g., fear of failure, not trying new or difficult tasks), examine your own behavior, for many perfectionist children have at least one perfectionist parent. Do you set unrealistic goals for yourself? Are you overly critical of your own achievements, including your performance as a parent? Do you do too much for your children, implying that they can’t do things well enough? Help children to see the difference between ‘the pursuit of excellence’ (which is achievable) and ‘the pursuit of perfection’ (which is not).

- Be aware of how you use praise. Too much praise may cause children to believe that they will only receive your love or acceptance if they earn it through their achievements. Praise effort as well as success, congratulate the child for handling failure positively, and give praise for actions unrelated to ability, such as sharing or being considerate.

- Allow your children to be children, rather than gifted children, for parts of their life. Allow them time to daydream or ‘just do nothing’.

Perhaps imagination is only intelligence having fun.
George Scialabba

- Teach your child to delay gratification (i.e., not to expect that goals or wants will be met straight away). Talented children often become accustomed to success and quick results. By learning to cope with difficult challenges, where success is not immediate, your child may develop enough persistence or ‘grim determination’ to handle the increasing demands of schooling and life in general. You can help by showing your child how to break seemingly unmanageable tasks into smaller steps where effort brings success. You can also help your child by teaching her/him time management skills.

- Be an active listener to your child, particularly when problems arise. That is, ensure that you understand the child’s concerns and point of view before trying to offer advice. Active listening may involve paraphrasing what you have heard, to ensure that you have understood the child’s intention e.g., “Do you mean that…?” or “Are you saying that…?”

- Do not worry if you cannot always answer your child’s questions but do try to help him/her to find answers. Also, ask lots of questions yourself, including those where there are no clear cut answers. Creativity may be fostered by showing children that we value their ideas and questions, including their unusual ones. It has been suggested that it may be more important to learn what questions to ask than what the answers to questions are. € Similarly, encourage children to think of different ways to accomplish a goal and then choose the best method.

Parents sometimes contribute to these pressures, usually without realizing they are doing so. A few suggestions to support children in developing their talents are:

- Beware of re-living your own life through your talented child. Naturally you will want your child to share your vision of the ‘good life’, but not necessarily in every detail, nor only as defined by you.

- Do not do for children things that they can do (or can be helped to do) for themselves. Parents and teachers do children no favors by prolonging their dependence upon them. This is not a matter of ‘throwing children in at the deep end’, but of helping them acquire the skills and confidence necessary to take increasing responsibility for their own actions. For example, teach them how to find what they want in a library, rather than find things for them; help them with planning, instead of planning everything for them.

How Can Parents Help Their Children Make The Most of Schooling?

Children whose needs are not being met at school may vent their anger and frustration at home. Parents who see their child distressed by inappropriate provision at school may understandably begin to develop a negative attitude toward that school, or even toward schooling as a whole. However, there is considerable evidence that home-school cooperation is the best way forward, if a means of achieving this can be negotiated. Advice on how to promote home-school cooperation, and make your child’s schooling as positive an experience as possible, often includes the following:

- Learn as much as you can about talented children and how to care for them. Perhaps subscribe to periodicals about gifted/talented children and their education and pass these on to interested teachers.

- Where possible, offer concrete, practical suggestions to the school, including advice about the types of learning experiences that seem to benefit your child and those that seem unsuccessful.

- Share with the school information about special interests or hobbies displayed at home or in other nonschool settings. Having specific examples of your child’s advanced abilities will be more convincing than just stating that she/he seems gifted, or is ‘bored’ at school.

- Establish a positive relationship with the school by letting teachers know when your child is feeling positive about school and specific activities, as well as when you are concerned about something.

- Encourage your children to attempt and persevere with things they do not do especially well. This may help them accept that they need not always perform at a very high level, while also developing empathy for others who find it difficult to excel, and appreciation for those whose talents are different from their own.

- Help your child to see the link between effort and success. Underachievement can become chronic if children attribute their successes to outside factors (e.g., luck, easy work, the teacher liking them), but their failures to lack of ability. Encourage children to take (reasonable) responsibility for both their successes and their failures.

- Avoid overreacting either to the child’s successes or to her/his failures. Gifted children should not be given the impression that they are only valued for their high achievements.

- Gifted children are more likely to live up to their potential if parents give clear, consistent and positive messages about school effort and expectations.

- Become knowledgeable about matters of state and school policy regarding provision for gifted children, so that you are well informed when acting as an advocate for your child.

We all have the ability.
The difference is how we use it.
Stevie Wonder

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GATE Program In San Jose Unified School District