18 DAYS AND COUNTING

I have so much to accomplish in these final 18 days before the Fulbright-Hays Summer Abroad program begins with pre-departure orientation (PDO) at UT in Austin. With only one week of school remaining, my most urgent task is to complete the eligibility process for gifted education so that we can notify the parents of these students. Standards of Learning (SOL) testing, later than in previous years, has severely impeded the gifted education eligibility process. Multiple criteria are used to determine eligibility for gifted education services. The servers, burdened as they were with SOL on-line testing, were operating at a snail's pace as teachers attempted to enter data and return students' behavioral scales in a timely fashion. An eligibility decision cannot be made until we have input from teachers and parents in addition to portfolios and the hard data from standardized testing. I have been working out of two offices--my regular office at the Instructional Services Center and my temporary office at our Laboratory School for the Academically Gifted--and have been staying late and even bringing files home. I left all of it at work this weekend where I'll face it on Monday, June 8.