Identification for Gifted &  Talented Services 

To identify students in need of Gifted & Talented services, the district will assemble a committee and train its members annually for the purpose of identifying students demonstrating gifted behaviors.

District Identification Committee 

Members of the committee will include representation of educational professionals from across a variety of curriculum areas and district roles. The District Identification Committee will meet annually, in the fall of each year, to review students’ educational profiles in comparison to the local (school) peers.  The Gifted & Talented teachers will support the committee by providing identification training to the committee and coordinating the identification process. The Gifted & Talented teachers do not serve in decision-making roles.

Equity in Identification

To ensure equity and fairness, the District Identification Committee will utilize an anonymized identification process that includes multiple measures of developmentally-appropriate, culturally-fair, valid, and reliable data points. All information provided during the identification process is completely confidential. All identifying student information is redacted in order to prevent the possibility of influence, coercion, and/ or bias in the identification process.

Identification Criteria

Fair Lawn Public School’s identification criteria includes multiple measures of student data. No singular measure will automatically include or exclude a student from the program. 

Eligibility criteria include:

• Standardized norm-based assessment of aptitude (CogAT Complete) at or above the gifted range, as compared to their local (school) peers; 

  • CogAT Complete assesses general, abstract reasoning skills while providing reliable, valid, and accurate data for all students, regardless of language, ethnic background, and socioeconomic status. 

  • All students are administered the CogAT Complete in the fall of Third Grade. 

• Standardized norm-based assessments of student growth and performance (Link It! Benchmark Assessments, NJSLA);

• Standardized norm-based creativity assessment (Torrance Test of Creative Thinking) at or above the gifted range, as compared to their local (school) peers;

  • The Torrance Test of Creative Thinking measures the cognitive thought factors of fluency, flexibility, elaboration, and originality associated with high levels of divergent thinking capabilities.  

  • All students are administered the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking in the spring of Second Grade. 

• Alternative test data, where appropriate;

• Teacher Feedback Form;  and

• Parent input - All students will be considered for gifted and talented services with or without a parent referral form completed.  Parents may complete a Gifted and Talented referral form to accompany a review of eligibility. Gifted and Talented referral forms can be found by clicking here and will be accepted through September 23rd.  Completion of the Gifted and Talented referral form does not guarantee eligibility, but merely provides the identification committee with additional information.