Overview
The vast majority of gifted students, who are underachieving and/or working with learning disabilities, are served in their home schools with varying degrees of support and accommodation. These students tend to have excellent compensatory skills and only a small percentage of GT/LD students require a separate setting and structure. For those students who do require more intensive services, MCPS has established special settings for elementary, middle, and high school GT/LD services.

Goals
To provide students who are simultaneously gifted and learning disabled with both:

• Instruction and strategies to improve the skills affected by their disabilities
• Access to rigorous instruction including Honors classes, Advanced Placement classes, and to the components of acceleration and enrichment that are in the instructional guides.

Population
Research suggests that as many as 2-5% of gifted and talented students may also have a learning disability. It is crucial for the development of the potential of these students that they be identified and receive access to rigorous instruction in their areas of strength. In order to receive this access they require appropriate adaptations and accommodations, as well as instruction in skills and strategies that are affected by their disabilities. The majority of GT/LD students, when provided access and supports, can receive appropriate programming within their home school.

GT/LD students who can not access rigorous instruction in their home school may need a special GT/LD program that provides more intensive services. The GT/LD programs serve students with documented superior cognitive ability. The majority of students placed into the program score two standard deviations above the mean on the verbal comprehension index or perceptual reasoning index of the WISC-IV, or comparable intelligence scales. Students demonstrate a significant learning disability with academic deficits that are severe enough to support the need for more intensive supports than found in the typical home school program. Students who are placed in this program have not been able to succeed in less restrictive settings, particularly in light of their exceptional potential.

Program Placement Process
The instructional specialist for GT/LD services with the Division of Accelerated and Enriched Instruction provides consultation to schools about appropriate programming options for individual students. Students who are GT/LD and are not able to access accelerated and enriched instruction in their home schools despite efforts at intervention and support, may be referred for consideration of alternative placement by their school IEP team. An IEP team meeting will be convened to review all available information, including information from the parents, and make a final determination regarding appropriate special education services.

Service Model
Most GT/LD students receive access to rigorous instruction in their home schools, while receiving appropriate adaptations, accommodations and specialized instruction. GT/LD students who can not access rigorous instruction in their home schools, despite their home schools' attempts to provide appropriate supports and instruction, may be placed in a Gifted and Talented/Learning Disabled program. The GT/LD program provides rigorous instruction in the students' areas of strength, with appropriate adaptations and accommodations and instruction in the skills and strategies that are affected by their disability. Students receive their specialized instruction in small classroom settings and/or in team co-taught general education settings or mainstream settings. Elementary school students are served in three regional special classrooms housed in neighborhood elementary schools. Middle school and high school students who continue to need more intensive supports than found in their home schools may be served through a GT/LD program housed in neighborhood middle and high schools.

GT/LD Special Settings:

Elementary
Each of three regionally located elementary schools (currently Lucy Barnsley, Wyngate, and Thurgood Marshall) serves as home to special GT/LD classrooms. Students typically spend a majority of their academic day in these special classrooms; each staffed with one special education teacher and one paraeducator. Class sizes vary, but on the average are from 8-12 students.

Middle School
Each of three regionally located middle schools (currently Col. E. Brooke Lee, North Bethesda, and Montgomery Village) serves as home to GT/LD students who need special education support for a majority of their academic day. The Gifted and Talented/Learning Disabled (GT/LD) program currently located at Montgomery Village Middle School will be relocated to Roberto Clemente Middle School for the 2008-2009 school year. The current seventh grade GT/LD students will continue to receive GT/LD services, if they are recommended by the Individualized Education Program (IEP) team, at Montgomery Village Middle School for eighth grade. In 2009-2010, all grade levels of the GT/LD program will be located at Roberto Clemente Middle School. Students may be placed in a special education classroom for instruction in their areas of disability. Most often this includes classes in English and reading, and may also include math. Students typically are placed in the mainstream with their non-disabled gifted peers for social studies and science. A special educator often provides direct support in these classes, sometimes through a team-teaching approach. Depending on the strengths and needs of an individual student, math may be delivered in either a self-contained, special education supported, or fully mainstreamed setting.

High School
Students who need the more intensive support of a special GT/LD setting, may be served at one of two high school locations (Walter Johnson and Watkins Mill). In addition to the secondary resource period(s), students may receive specialized instruction, in a variety of academic course offerings. GT/LD students in these settings have access to the special education technology center. Teachers at these locations have the oportunity to participate in staff development opportunities on best practices for teaching GT/LD students.

Contact information:

More information and resources on GT/LD students, programs, and services:

Twice Exceptional Students: A Guidebook for Supporting the Achievement of Gifted Students with Special Needs. (957K PDF)

Twice Exceptional Students: At a Glance (2 MB PDF)

Twice Exceptional Students: A Parent Guide (666K PDF)

WINGS Mentor Program
Please see this web page to learn more about WINGS Mentor Program and to link to an MCPS Cable TV Cover To Cover segment about this Program.