School-level Activities for GATE Students

Although identification of GATE students is managed at the District level, programming and activities for gifted students are managed at the individual school level. Individual school programming includes differentiated instruction in the regular classroom and/or before/after-school enrichment opportunities.

For information about programming and activities for GATE students at your school, please contact our Teacher Specialist Kelly Stubbs kstubbs@gusd.net.

District Level Activities

GUSD participates in four annual competitions for GATE-identified and other high achieving students:

Invention Convention – Glendale Unified School District (GUSD)

Each fall, GUSD hosts an Invention Convention open to all GATE-identified fourth- through eighth-grade students. Students are invited to use their problem-solving and creative thinking skills to invent new products. Students display their inventions at the annual Invention Convention. Inventions are judged by a panel of community members, which in the past has included staff from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Awards are given out by grade level.

Math Field Day – Glendale Unified School District (GUSD)

Every fall, each elementary and middle school in GUSD identifies high-achieving math students to participate in math enrichment activities in order to prepare for the District-wide Math Field Day competition. Identified students in fourth through sixth grades practice math skills including computation and problem-solving. The District-wide Math Field Day competition is held each spring. The winners of the District-wide competition are invited to represent GUSD at the Los Angeles County Math Field Day competition, which is also held each spring.

Math Field Day – Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE)

The Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE) hosts a county-wide Math Field Day competition each spring. County Math Field Day is designed as an enrichment activity to promote mathematical reasoning, teamwork and a balanced mathematics curriculum for students in upper elementary and middle school. Participation allows students to demonstrate their math knowledge through competition. The competition covers computational and procedural skills, conceptual understanding and problem-solving.

Scholastic Bowl – Glendale Unified School District (GUSD)

Scholastic Bowl offers high-achieving high school students in GUSD an opportunity to represent their school and participate in academic competition in the areas of Fine Arts, Language Arts, Mathematics, Social Science and Science. Scholastic Bowl competitions are held each spring. Each of the four high schools in GUSD sends a team of five students to the competition. The first phase of the competition is an essay contest. Team members are given 60 minutes to write an essay addressing an assigned prompt on a controversial issue. The second phase of the competition (typically held one week after the essay competition) is held in a quiz format. During the first part of the quiz, team members collaborate to come up with answers; during the second part of the quiz section, individual students respond to questions.

Community businesses and organizations generously provide scholarship awards each year for Scholastic Bowl winners. For the spring 2016 competition, Scholastic Bowl Scholarships were made possible by generous grants from: the Glendale Educational Foundation; Parker Anderson Enrichment; Knapp, Petersen & Clarke; Sylvan Learning Center; Glendale Oakmont League; and the Kiwanis Club of Glendale.

Parent Meetings

GUSD holds two meetings each year for parents of students who have been identified as meeting the District’s GATE criteria. These meetings feature guest speakers who have expertise in topics related to the education of gifted and talented students. Meetings are typically held in October and May.

Identification of G.A.T.E. Students

California law places Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) programming under local control. This means that each district established its own guidelines and policies regarding the identification of, and programming for, gifted and talented students.

In GUSD, multiple measures are used to identify gifted and talented students. Students in 4th, 5th and 6th grades who achieve a specified benchmark in Mathematics and/or English Language Arts/Literacy on the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) are invited to participate in further testing to determine whether they meet the gifted and talented criteria established by GUSD.

Students who meet the CAASPP benchmark are invited to take the Otis-Lennon School Ability Test, Eighth Edition (OLSAT 8). This test assesses a student's ability to reason abstractly using verbal and nonverbal skills. The test is based on a student's innate ability to reason: no preparation or instruction is necessary prior to testing. A student must score in the 92nd percentile or higher on the OLSAT in order to receive gifted and talented designation within GUSD.