Navigating Annual Gifted and Talented Program Evaluations

Conducting a Gifted and Talented (GT) program evaluation is essential for ensuring that your services meet the needs of the gifted students in your district. This article guides you through navigating annual GT Program evaluations, setting goals, and working through the step-by-step evaluation process to enhance program quality and student outcomes. Whether you’re refining an established program or starting fresh, we can help you navigate this state requirement with confidence.

Setting Goals for Your Program Evaluation

Before conducting a program evaluation, take some time to reflect on the overall quality of your GT program. In our experience, three major components drive its success.

1. Your program is built upon goals that meet the needs of your community and your students.
2. You identify students to serve in your program.
3. You develop and implement services for students that help all stakeholders achieve the goals you’ve set.

Understanding Your Gifted and Talented Program

One program evaluation goal should be to ensure that these three components work well together. The more they align and support each other, the more successful your program will be.

Understanding the Requirements of State Law

The Texas State Plan for Gifted and Talented Students (State Plan) outlines the requirements for conducting annual evaluation activities. Focusing on standard 1.5, we can consider the opportunities provided by the state for conducting an evaluation in a way that best meets the needs of the local district.

This standard states that: “Annual evaluation activities are conducted for the purpose of continued service development…. “What this standard does not specifically state is what to evaluate, how often to evaluate, or who is responsible for evaluating. Let’s discuss each of these in more detail.

What

The State Plan contains all of the standards essential to a successful GT program and required by law. Using the State Plan as our evaluation rubric, we can make decisions on what to evaluate by focusing on its six sections.

How Often

We recommend conducting annual evaluations on a three-year cycle, using the State Plan for guidance. This allows district coordinators to spread out the work and also review major components of your program often enough to maintain a program that runs smoothly. An example of a three-year cycle might look like this:

• Year 1 – evaluate Student Identification,
• Year 2 – evaluate Service Design and Curriculum,
• Year 3 – evaluate Fidelity of Services, Professional Development, and Family/Community Involvement.

The Texas Association of School Administrators (based on CMAT Level 1 training) recommends performing an in-depth evaluation every three to five years. In our experience, this indicates that after a three-year cycle of local evaluations, the district should consider conducting a comprehensive evaluation of all standards in the fourth year. The purpose of the comprehensive evaluation is to focus on overall program quality and the goals of current stakeholders.

Who

The responsibility of conducting GT program evaluations often falls on the coordinator assigned to the program. That does not mean they are the only person involved in the process. District and campus coordinators should work with a selection of GT teachers, GT parents, and community members when gathering information related to program services.

If the district makes local decisions allowing for annual evaluation activities to be spread out, then it should be reasonable for district staff to conduct their own evaluations a majority of the time. This is why it is essential to have resources like this article available to support coordinators as they work through the process.

Occasionally, a district leader may find it necessary or beneficial to arrange for an outside organization (such as an Education Service Center (ESC)) to conduct a comprehensive evaluation. Reasons for this may include a major shift in the implementation of district-wide services or widely varied opinions in the district related to your program. Outside organizations bring the benefit of an unbiased opinion and an ability to identify needs with suggested expertise in identifying workable solutions.

The Program Evaluation Process

Conducting program evaluations is not just an opportunity to check boxes on a rubric and demonstrate program effectiveness. It is an opportunity to tell a story about your gifted program and how it serves your community. As we work through the process, we’ll show you how to change your narrative so your focus remains on storytelling rather than looking for failures and successes.

Step 1: Gather and Review Resources

It is always good to start your process by allowing yourself the time to reflect on the current state of your program. Several documents are available to help with this.

Board Policy EHBB should be the foundation for your gifted program. The legal document will align with statements and standards embedded in the State Plan. The local document will outline details specific to your services that should be implemented. If you find during your review that your board policy does not align with your current services, you will need to make adjustments. Remember that it is typically easier to adjust your internal documents and services than it is to adjust board policy.

Your district website and district GT program manual will provide detailed implementation plans for your services. Check your website to ensure it provides the information parents and staff need to understand the major components of your program. Then, check to ensure that everything is aligned and tells the same story.

The district improvement plan may or may not have a goal aligned to gifted students. If there is a GT goal, then it may be beneficial to look at campus improvement plans to understand how campuses are approaching the district goal to better serve gifted students.

Other materials that may be helpful while conducting a program evaluation include:

• Internal documents used for identification,
• GT surveys for staff and/or family members, and
• communication provided to parents/family members.

Step 2: Develop an Evaluation Plan

You will continue to use the State Plan as the rubric for your program evaluation. Here is a free program evaluation tool developed by ESC Region 13. Note that the tool includes the following:

• The accountability and exemplary standards as they appear in the State Plan.
• Columns to indicate a final score for each standard, with a key to explain the abbreviations used.
• A column to allow you to share where you found evidence aligned to the decision.
• A column to share notes related to the standard. This can also be used as a space to develop an action plan related to standards that have not been met, or partially met, and accountability.
• A summary of the evaluation is on the last page of the document.

Take a close look at the section(s) of the State Plan you will be evaluating this year. What themes or categories can you find in the section that will help you to build a narrative?

For example, if we look at the Fidelity of Services section, we see there are several standards related to the following:

• The program evaluation process.
• Funding.
• Evaluation of the curriculum.
• The program manual.
• Forming GT communities.

Thinking about the standards in broad categories, such as the ones listed above, helps you gather information related to your program in a conversational way. Your focus shifts from finding a way to “check the boxes” to understanding what is implemented and whether it is successful or not.

Step 3: Create a List of Relevant Questions

Now that you have identified the categories in the section(s) you are evaluating, you should start to create specific questions aligned to those categories. You will find that these questions need to be posed to specific stakeholders within your community. This could include campus staff, GT parents, and other central office staff.

In the previous step, we identified categories related to the Fidelity of Services section of the State Plan. Let’s continue with this example and look for questions related specifically to curriculum evaluation.

Once your questions are developed, create the tools needed to gather the information. Use surveys and forms to help expedite and break up the process. You can also develop and schedule emails to send to appropriate groups. In some cases, you may find it beneficial to schedule an in-person conversation with your campus representative. Oftentimes, those in-person conversations allow staff members a better opportunity to share ideas or information they want highlighted during the evaluation.

Step 4: Gather and Review Evidence

This step of the process has the longest completion timeline. Allow yourself several months to gather information. You will need flexibility to ask initial questions and then to follow up if you do not receive immediate feedback or when you have additional questions based on responses.

As you gather evidence, start using the program evaluation tool to score your district’s performance on each standard. Remember, this program evaluation is shared with other stakeholders, so it is important to be specific when taking notes on the tool.  

Use the evidence column to capture notes and information, so if questions arise on how you scored a standard, the evidence that led to your decision is readily available. Notes in this column can be a simple listing of the documents/questions used to gather the information. 

The notes provided in the recommendations column should be specific and directly related to the wording provided in the aligned standard. Write notes in a fact-finding manner with a neutral tone. This keeps communication on this tool professional and clear. 

Let’s take a look at an example of using the rubric in response to evidence gathered on Standard 1.2, which requires that policies be reviewed quarterly by an advisory group. In the evidence column, we could note that evidence was obtained when we reviewed the information ground in the GT program manual and the GT website. We would then make notes in the recommendations column that state, “The district advisory group meets quarterly to provide feedback, including feedback on the GT program.”

Step 5: Plan for Program Improvement

Look at each recommendation made on the program evaluation report and begin to develop an action plan. Your action plan should be separated into three categories such as:

• Items you can accomplish within the next two weeks (easy fixes for big impact).
• Items you will accomplish within the next semester (priority needs).
• Items you will accomplish before the next evaluation (goals that require additional resources, buy-in, etc.).

Give yourself permission to make adjustments to your program in a sensible timeline. Improvement will be more successful when it is intentionally planned, developed, and implemented. This process is NOT an audit of your program requiring immediate compliance with the State Plan. Instead, it focuses on continual improvement for your district program, and that type of improvement may take time.

Step 6: Share Your Program Evaluation With District Stakeholders

Other stakeholders will be interested in the findings of your GT program evaluation. Be prepared to share your report in different ways to accommodate the needs and wants of each unique audience.

Campus principals and central office staff may want to review the detailed report that includes the rubric you used for evaluation. Keep in mind that these staff members may not have the same degree of understanding of the State Plan that you do. Before you share the details, you should go over the formatting of the State Plan embedded in the evaluation tool. Explain to staff why some standards have an accountability expectation without an exemplary expectation. Also, explain why there are some exemplary standards that do not have an accountability standard.

The State Plan requires “the summary of the evaluation with program highlights be provided to the school board upon completion.”

The Texas State Plan for Gifted and Talented Students

This presentation should focus on what your program does well and what goals you are working towards. Use data to highlight your achievements in the area evaluated. This is an opportunity for you to share the narrative of your program’s identity and why it is important for your district.

Conclusion

By taking a thoughtful, step-by-step approach to your gifted and talented program evaluation, you’re creating stronger, more responsive services for your students. Remember, you don’t have to navigate this process alone. Education Service Center (ESC) GT Specialists across the state are ready to support you every step of the way. We are your partners in service!

Our website provides more information about the services ESC Region 13 provides to districts, including program evaluation services. Subscribe to our mailing list to stay up-to-date on the latest news.