As leaders in gifted education, communicating the value of gifted services and the need for resources and staff to support them can feel both the most important and the most challenging. Recently, data in the TAPR report was further disaggregated to display a filter for G/T students. Luke Hurst, Richardson ISD, will help equip you with practical strategies to leverage this data to tell a compelling, evidence-based story, support advocacy efforts, and strengthen decision-making with district and campus leaders.

Academic Acceleration: What Every School Leader Needs to Know
Every year, students return to school already knowing much of the grade-level material that will be taught in their classrooms. Research shows that in a typical fifth-grade classroom, as many as half the students are working at least a year ahead in reading, more than a third are advanced in math, and some are working several years above grade level (Peters et al., 2017; Rambo-Hernandez et al., 2024). When instruction does not meet their needs, these students can disengage, develop poor study habits, or even drop out of school.





