GATE

GATE is Gifted and Talented Education.  The purpose of a GATE program is to meet the unique needs of gifted children.

The GATE program will promote complex levels of thinking by working collaboratively, seeking innovative solutions, and challenging students’ creative abilities. Students will become critical thinkers and problem solvers. Students will use increasingly complex levels of thinking and production.

The GATE program meets the needs of gifted learners by enhancing the standards with depth, complexity, novelty, and acceleration.  The program also meets the social and emotional needs of gifted learners.

GATE students are asked to develop scholarly behaviors like pondering, considering different perspectives, taking intellectual risks, striving for excellence, and perseverance.  GATE teachers focus on developing these skills by using:

• Novelty
• Depth and Complexity of Knowledge
• Acceleration

Because gifted children are so diverse, not all exhibit all characteristics all of the time. However, there are common characteristics that many gifted individuals share:

• Unusual alertness, even in infancy
• Rapid learner; puts thoughts together quickly
• Excellent memory
• Unusually large vocabulary and complex sentence structure for age
• Advanced comprehension of word nuances, metaphors and abstract ideas
• Enjoys solving problems, especially with numbers and puzzles
• Often self-taught reading and writing skills as preschooler
• Deep, intense feelings and reactions
• Highly sensitive
• Thinking is abstract, complex, logical, and insightful
• Idealism and sense of justice at early age
• Concern with social and political issues and injustices
• Longer attention span and intense concentration
• Preoccupied with own thoughts—daydreamer
• Learn basic skills quickly and with little practice
• Asks probing questions
• Wide range of interests (or extreme focus in one area)
• Highly developed curiosity
• Interest in experimenting and doing things differently
• Puts idea or things together that are not typical
• Keen and/or unusual sense of humor
• Desire to organize people/things through games or complex schemas
• Vivid imaginations (and imaginary playmates when in preschool)

 *National Association of Gifted Children (NAGC)

No gifted individual is exactly the same, each with his own unique patterns and traits.   There are many traits that gifted individuals have in common, but no gifted learner exhibits traits in every area.  This list of traits may help you better understand whether or not your child is gifted.

Julien Elementary School and Cunningham Elementary School

TUSD offers GATE ELA courses for 7^th & 8^th grades at Dutcher Middle and Turlock Junior High Schools.  Additionally, both sites offer accelerated math course, which include Integrated Math 7, Integrated Math 8, Math 7 e, Math 8 e, Integrated Math I 8 Honors, and STEM Math 7 and 8.

GATE Identified students will have the opportunity to enroll in the GATE ELA courses at Dutcher Middle School and Turlock Junior High School.

Parents apply for their student(s) to be in the STEM Program at Turlock Junior High School.  Students’ grades and California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) scores are considered; there is a lottery process to make final selections.

All students at the high school level have opportunities for the following classes/courses or exams:  Honors and Advanced Placement, Advanced Placement Exams, Modesto Junior College Dual Enrollment, and CSU, Stanislaus courses.

The focused framework in GATE classes is Depth and Complexity, which is a set of tools that allow teachers to differentiate for any grade level or content area in a way that is straightforward to implement and effective. It is composed of eleven elements represented by a set of icons or pictures.

The most recognizable part of the Depth and Complexity framework is the set of eleven icons that represent the eleven thinking prompts.

At this time transportation is not provided to the District’s GATE schools.

Enrollment of siblings is based on space availability.

Yes, both the common core state standards and adopted core are taught in GATE classes.

GATE students are grouped with their intellectual peers with the goal of building the capacity for highly complex thinking and analysis in an interactive environment.

Acceleration does not mean more homework or more assignments.  Acceleration means altering the pace or speed of learning and providing more sophisticated resources for learning.  Homework is the same as regular classes.

All third-grade students, unless parents/guardians “opt out”, are administered the Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test 3 (NNAT3).

Two pathways are used to determine GATE Identification:

Score of 110 or higher on the (NNAT3)

Score of 100-109 on the NNAT3 and multiple measures

Based on the highest scale score ranking on the NNAT 3 and/or consideration of multiple measures.  Parents are mailed a qualifying letter with their student’s NNAT 3 score sheet and an Enrollment form for GATE placement at Cunningham or Julien. Depending on the number of qualified students wishing to enroll, there could be either a waiting list to enroll in a self-contained GATE class or a GATE strand offered within a self-contained 4^th grade class.

If your child was identified as GATE eligible, you would have two choices:

To keep your student at his/her current school, and the District will document GATE Identification in your student’s profile in our student information system. No further steps to complete. 

If you would like the opportunity to enroll your student in the GATE class, the process includes parents completing and returning the GATE Enrollment Form.

Depending on the number of qualified students wishing to enroll, the class could either be self-contained or a GATE strand offered within a self-contained 4^th grade class.

Yes, there is a waiting list to enroll.

Yes. The GATE Parent Orientation Night is held in January/ February.

See District’s Testing Calendar. Testing occurs at each elementary school.

January/February

Once students have been identified as GATE, they will not have to retake the test.

Yes.  All students are graded on their report card using the State Grade Level Standards and the District’s Standards-Based Report Card.

Yes. GATE students participate in all grade-level school activities.

California Department of Education
National Association of Gifted Children