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Hernando Today

Gifted: Definition Varies Widely

Definition varies by area.

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LINNEA BROWN

HERNANDO TODAY

Published: February 11, 2008

BROOKSVILLE - BROOKSVILLE - With the Hernando County School Board's recent decision to place the district's future centralized gifted education center at Explorer K-8 — the new, 2,100-student school set to open this August off Northcliffe Boulevard — local officials are banking on the county becoming home to a premier educational program for students with higher-than-average IQs.
Officials hope to sharpen the county's means of identifying local gifted students, and also hope the new program will become an attractive option for families with gifted children who are looking to relocate from elsewhere.
However, the definition of "gifted" varies greatly by area.
While an average IQ is thought to be in the range of 85 to 115, a student is defined as "gifted" throughout the state if he or she scores at least two standard deviations above the mean IQ score of 130 (minus the standard "error of measurement" of three points) and meets at least one characteristic of a gifted student on a standard scale or checklist.
This year, the district reported 2.5 percent of its 22,708 students as gifted. The current state average is 4.9.
But individual counties may also use their own alternate criteria, known as Plan B.
In Hernando County, a student can also qualify for "gifted" status if they have a mean IQ score of 120 and are a member of an underrepresented group, such as a low socioeconomic level or if English is not their first language.
Officials in Miami-Dade and Hillsborough Counties reported that they could not identify the requirements used for current gifted identification, implying that their Plan Bs have changed since their last submission to Florida's Department of Education in 2005.
However, in 2005, their alternate criteria consisted of achieving an IQ of 115, being among the 80th percentile on total SAT scores and meeting several other characteristics on a district-developed checklist.
In Alachua County, where 14 percent of the district's children have been identified as gifted, the IQ cutoff is 118, in addition to other district-directed characteristics.
There are even larger discrepancies between states, with some states not even requiring an IQ score as an identifying factor. While Florida has kept its standard high by labeling its program as "gifted," other states have a program known as "gifted and talented," in which teacher recommendation — not IQ — is the determining factor.
Alabama is one such state, where nearly 23 percent of its students were identified as "gifted and talented" in 2004-05. Current data was not available at press time.
An IQ test itself has nothing to do with academics. It typically consists of verbal and nonverbal activities, such as visual puzzles.
And while initial identifying requirements may vary by region, a student who is considered gifted (or gifted and talented) elsewhere is automatically considered eligible for Hernando's gifted services.
Once identified, students who qualify as "gifted" fall under the umbrella of exceptional student education, or ESE, and bring in about $2,100 more in state per-student funding.
Set to open in August, the center will aim to place more than 400 of the county's kindergarten-through-8th grade students in gifted classes in one location, instead of the district's current means of offering separate classes at each school.
The number of gifted students whose parents actually decide to switch to the new school is yet to be determined.

Reporter Linnea Brown can be reached at 352-544-5289 or lbrown@hernandotoday.com.

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