OFT members are asking us whether legislation requires any teacher who has a gifted child in his or her classroom to complete 30 hours of professional development on educating gifted students. The short answer is no.
A PowerPoint presentation by the Ohio Department of Education is causing the confusion.
Some districts are interpreting a PowerPoint slide to mean that if you have even one gifted student in a teacher's classroom, the professional development is required. This has cause the spread of inaccurate information that all general education teachers must have this PD "in case." This is false.
In the slide from that PowerPoint presentation, note that the general education teacher is listed in the column named "My Gifted Education Assignment." This means that the teacher is reported to EMIS as the gifted intervention for a specific student. The teacher must be assigned as the gifted instructor of record and be providing gifted services.
This does not apply to a general education teacher with no gifted students in his or her class or with a gifted student but the teacher is not the person providing the specific service on the WEP.
The teacher must be reported as being the teacher of record providing gifted services.
In the case of AP or IB classes, PD is required to be designated as the gifted services educator on the WEP, but the training required to teach AP or IB includes the necessary training. In the case of lower grades and special areas, the required PS is locally determined.
According to Ann Sheldon, executive director of the Ohio Association for Gifted Children, when a child is accelerated and the acceleration is in a particular content area, the teacher serving that student does not need to have the professional development.