High Ability Identification Process

High Ability Students working with manipulatives

South Bend Community School Corporation is committed to meeting the needs of all of its students. Through our High Ability program, we strive to identify and serve students who fit Indiana’s definition of high ability - students who demonstrate advanced achievement and/or who possess advanced potential. Our High Ability program is reviewed annually to ensure that it is in continual development, ever improving its identification and its service of those promising students. One 2017-18 goal is to broaden our identification to include students who more fully match the Indiana definition of high ability. We will do this by using NWEA achievement data alongside measures of potential. To date, we have identified as High Ability those students with advanced potential who perform at or above the 95th percentile on the Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT). Students who scored at or above the 95th percentile on the verbal battery have been identified as high ability in English language arts. Students who scored at or above the 95th percentile on the quantitative battery have been identified as high ability in mathematics.

Students who scored at or above the 95th percentile on the composite quantitative/nonverbal battery have been identified as general intellectual high ability. In an effort to serve students of color in numbers commensurate with our demographics, we created a watch group of African American students who scored in the upper stanines on CogAT but who missed the cutoff.

These students have been included in our high ability classes. 2017-18 will see the inclusion of achievement data for the first time.