Our Gifted and Talented Magnet Program is the only ECE-8 school available in the Green Valley Ranch area. Our GT program is designed to enrich our advanced learners in a setting. We provide students with advanced enrichment all through kindergaten to 8th grade.
Florida Pitt Waller was recently awarded new GT magnet status for our commitment to serving gifted students, including those who have been excluded from gifted programming due to systemic inequality. We are in our planning year before our official magnet status begins in fall of 2026. Florida Pitt Waller was selected as a new magnet for many reasons including:
By implementing an HGT Magnet program, we will address the barriers that have historically excluded Multilingual Learners and other underrepresented groups from gifted education. This program will challenge students academically, affirm their cultural and linguistic identities, and prepare them for leadership in a diverse, global society.
Gifted and Talented Information Presentation
Gifted & Talented (GT) Universal Screener
All DPS students in First and Fifth grade will take a universal screener each Fall. The assessment is the Naglieri General Ability Test (NGAT) which is designed to measure cognitive ability in three domains: Verbal, Nonverbal, and Quantitative. DPS uses it as a universal screener because the NGAT is designed to be linguistically and culturally neutral.
Highly Gifted & Talented (HGT) Testing and Nomination
There is a Fall and a Spring HGT nomination window. Parents of students in any grade not included in universal screening can nominate their student. Nominated students will be given the Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT) which is a robust measure of cognitive ability.
Identification
For GT identification, test scores are not stand-alone indicators; they must be part of a comprehensive body of evidence, per state guidelines. For both the NGAT and the CogAT, cut scores of 95-99 percentile can be part of the body of evidence for GT identification. Other assessments used for gifted identification include:
CMAS (exceeds expectations)
STAR (95%ile or higher)
ACCESS (95%ile or higher)
Observation Scales: Scales for Identifying Gifted Students and Gifted Rating Scales (95%ile or higher)
Anecdotal data indicating giftedness