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Muscogee County updates gifted identification and services; Saint Elmo reports growth and improved diversity
Summary
District gifted program leaders reported identification, referral and qualification statistics and described outreach and screening practices that increased identification of underrepresented students.
Jennifer Rowe, director of the Saint Elmo Center for the Gifted, briefed the board on identification, enrollment and program strategies for K–12 gifted services in Muscogee County.
Rowe said the district uses multiple, state-approved screeners and assessments — including the Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT) in first grade and the PSAT in eighth grade — to capture different areas of student strength. “We use a variety of the state approved assessments that actually assess different areas of strength, not just 1 area,” she said.
Rowe reported that in 2024 the district identified 317 students for gifted services overall; spring 2024 referrals numbered 800 with 198 qualifying, and the fall 2024 window produced 416 referrals with 94 qualifying. She said the district’s identified gifted population has increased by 212 students over six years and the percentage of underrepresented students in gifted services has risen by 11.6 percentage points — trends she attributed to teacher professional development and an online referral process that replaced a paper system.
Rowe described operational practices intended to protect test validity, saying testing schedules are broken into short sessions for young children and test proctors receive district training. She also said accommodations required by 504 plans or IEPs are followed during screening and testing.
Board members asked for more detail about accommodations and how the system follows up when test results conflict with classroom performance. Rowe described additional monitoring and quality-control steps including training for staff who administer the battery and district support teams that can assist schools during administration.
Rowe noted that 30 elementary schools send students to Saint Elmo for services while two elementary magnets — Clubview and Hannon — provide in-house gifted instruction. Rowe also highlighted Saint Elmo’s expanded pull-out resource model, ongoing professional development and extracurricular success (Odyssey of the Mind regional winner heading to state).
