Gifted Education
Orange County Public Schools parents, guardians, and school staff may refer students for screening for the gifted program in Kindergarten-12th grade at any time during the school year.
All students will be screened for gifted in second grade using the Universal Gifted Screening Process. Exceptions to this include students who have already been staffed into the gifted program; have already been evaluated and found ineligible for gifted services; or have had a cognitive evaluation as
part of consideration for another program.
Referred students are screened at the school by completing a standardized paper and pencil group intelligence test. Those students who score at a high level on the group test are scheduled for a more lengthy and in-depth evaluation by a school psychologist.
A school psychologist administers an individualized test of intelligence to determine a student’s intellectual ability. In Florida, a student must score two standard deviations above the mean or higher in order to meet the intellectual criterion for the gifted program.
In conjunction with the psychologist’s testing, a checklist of gifted student behavioral characteristics is completed by one or more teachers familiar with the student. All information is then reviewed by an eligibility staffing committee at the school to determine if the student has a need for the gifted program and meets eligibility criteria.
Parents may also choose to contract with a private psychologist for their child's evaluation. The private psychologist must be licensed. When a private psychologist is used, the child’s school psychologist will review copies of the evaluation. The staffing committee will then determine eligibility according to the same criteria mentioned above.
All other Exceptional Student Education Programs
Orange County Public Schools parents, guardians, and school staff may request that a students be evaluated in Kindergarten-12th grade at any time during the school year.
A list of eligibility criteria and required student evaluations for all 14 available ese programs can be found in the
2020-2023 Orange County Public Schools Exceptional Student Education Policies and Procedures (SP&P) starting on page 60.
The SP&P can be found by
clicking here or by visiting the
Orange County Public School’s ESE Policy and Procedures Special Programs and Procedures page.