Guidance and Resources for Educators and Families

Gifted Education Specialty Endorsement

Specialty endorsements prepare a teacher candidate to work with a specific student population, demographic and/or subject matter area, and are created to help candidate teachers specialize beyond the required certificate endorsements. Specialty endorsements have unique endorsement competencies not found in any of the existing endorsements. The competencies are listed on the Professional Educator Standards Board website.

Teachers working in a Highly Capable program are not required to hold this specialty endorsement.

Standards for Gifted Education

• NAGC Pre-K - Grade 12 Gifted Program Standards

Early Entrance to Kindergarten

Generally, a child must be five years of age as of midnight August 31 of the year of entry to be entitled to enter kindergarten (WAC 392-335- 010). School districts may adopt regulations that provide for a screening process and/or instrument(s) which measure the ability or the need, or both, of an individual student to succeed in earlier entry according to the option for exceptions to uniform entry qualification requirements (WAC 392-335-025).

Report - Under-represented Students in Gifted Programs

• Best Practices for Student Selection, Service Delivery Models, and Support

Evaluate Your Highly Capable Program

Presentation by Pete Bylsma, Director, Assessment and Program Evaluation, to a meeting of the Washington Educational Research Association's Highly Capable Special Interest Group.

• Program Evaluation Issues

Organizations and Programs that Support the Education of Highly Capable Children

• Washington Association of Educators of the Talented and Gifted (WAETAG)
• National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC)
• University of Washington: The Halbert and Nancy Robinson Center for Young Scholars
• Washington Advanced Placement (AP) Program
• U.S. Department of Education: Jacob K. Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Program
• Northwest Gifted Child Association (NWGCA)

CEDARS Gifted Values and Exit Codes

• Code your HCP Data Code your HCP Data Presentation

Revised Code of Washington (RCW) and Washington Administrative Code (WAC)

Washington's Highly Capable Program is established in state law and administered through program rules codified in the RCW and WAC. The need to guide and support districts as staff identify and serve Highly Capable students intensified following a landmark change in Washington State's Basic Education Act. In 2011, the Legislature acknowledged the need to widen capacity for the identification, delivery, and evaluation of Highly Capable services with state law RCW 28A 185.020, which codified the education of Highly Capable students as basic to a K–12 public education in Washington state.

• RCW 28A.150.220(3)(g)(3) The instructional program of basic education provided by each school district shall include: (g) Programs for highly capable students under RCW 28A.185.010 through 28A.185.030.
• RCW 28A.185.020 The legislature finds that, for highly capable students, access to accelerated learning and enhanced instruction is access to a basic education.
• WAC 392-170-012 For highly capable students, access to accelerated learning and enhanced instruction is access to a basic education. School districts may access basic education funds, in addition to highly capable categorical funds, to provide appropriate highly capable student programs.