Curriculum & Instruction Departments
Academically or Intellectually Gifted
(AIG)
Orange County Schools and the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction define gifted students as follows:
“Academically or intellectually gifted students perform or show the potential to perform at substantially high levels of accomplishment when compared with others of their age, experience, or environment. Academically or intellectually gifted students exhibit higher performance capabilities in intellectual areas and specific academic fields. Academically or intellectually gifted students require differentiated education services beyond those ordinarily provided by the regular educational program. Outstanding abilities are present in students from all cultural groups, across all economic strata, and in all areas of human endeavor.” (Article 9B, The North Carolina State Constitution.)
With that broad definition as a context, Orange County Schools believes that in order for our most capable students to become effective citizens for the twenty-first century, their exceptional needs must be met. We will provide a responsive educational program beyond the regular classroom experience for these students. Our responsibility is to recognize, to nurture, and to respond to the
academic, social and emotional needs of our gifted students.
Our program for gifted students is founded on these beliefs:
• Giftedness exists within all ethnic, geographic, and socioeconomic groups.
• Students demonstrate gifted behaviors by using a variety of intelligences, and often learn and think in non-traditional ways.
• Gifted students need intellectual interaction with each other.
• The wide range of gifted students’ strengths necessitates a K-12 continuum of educational opportunities and experiences beyond, but connected to, the regular instructional program.
• Current research related to best practices for the education of gifted students should influence decisions in identification, curriculum, instruction and assessment.
• Gifted students need appropriate rigor, complexity, novelty, depth and acceleration in what they learn.
• All licensed school personnel should be capable of recognizing the needs of gifted students.
• Gifted students need teachers accomplished in:
Understanding students’ intellectual and affective needs
Engaging students in enthusiastic learning
Maximizing student achievement
• Families need opportunities to learn how to encourage and sustain the intellectual, social, and emotional growth of their gifted students.
• The responsibility for providing gifted services is shared by classroom teachers and AIG teachers who work together to collaborate, consult and provide instruction to our students.
The differentiation of curriculum and instruction must be provided on an ongoing basis to ensure a robust and rigorous curriculum.
Click HERE to read the AIG Brochure.
Click HERE to read "Procedures To Resolve Disagreement With Gifted Program Options".