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High Ability Education · Indiana
High Ability Education in Indiana: Every School Corporation Must Run a Program, Five Plans Must Be Public, and One of the Country’s Only State Grants Funds It
Indiana uses the term “high ability” rather than “gifted and talented,” a deliberate choice. IC 20-36 requires every public school corporation to operate a K-12 program with five written plans, a multifaceted assessment process covering three identification pathways, and appropriately differentiated instruction during the school day. Indiana is one of only approximately 15 states that fund this programming through a dedicated state grant.
~295
public school corporations, each required to operate a K-12 high ability program
5
required written plans filed at IDOE and available for public review at every corporation
3
identification pathways per domain, including a qualitative characteristics pathway for equity
~15
states nationwide that fund high ability programming; Indiana allocated $15 million in 2023
The terminology and what it signals
“High Ability,” Not “Gifted and Talented”: A Deliberate Philosophical Choice
Indiana statute and regulation consistently use the term “high ability” rather than “gifted and talented.” This is not a stylistic preference. It reflects a framework built around what students demonstrate or show the potential for demonstrating, across a range of domains, compared to their peers of the same age, experience, or environment. The language signals that high ability is not a fixed trait assigned at birth but a characteristic identified through performance, potential, and observable engagement.
IC 20-36-2-2 and 511 IAC 6-9.1-2
What Every Indiana School Corporation Must Have: Five Required Plans, All Public
Every public school corporation in Indiana must operate a high ability program K-12 with approval from the local governing body. The program must include five written plans, filed at IDOE and available for public review. The five-plan structure creates a transparency and accountability framework that most states lack:
1
Multifaceted Student Assessment Plan: Documents the identification process, including performance-based assessments (norm-referenced achievement), potential-based assessments (norm-referenced ability), and other forms of assessments (qualitative measures such as teacher rating scales, parent observation forms, and performance assessments). Must ensure that students not identified by traditional assessments due to economic disadvantage, cultural background, underachievement, or disabilities are included.
2
Curriculum and Instructional Strategies Plan: Describes how appropriately differentiated curriculum and instruction will be provided to identified students in the relevant core content areas (Language Arts for HA-LA students, Math for HA-Math students, both for HA-GI students). Services must be offered during the school day; after-school programs may supplement but cannot replace school-day services.
3
Counseling and Guidance Plan: Addresses the social-emotional, academic, and college/career guidance needs of high ability students. Counselors play a specific role in the exit procedure process and affective education for high ability learners whose needs can include intensity, perfectionism, and asynchronous development.
4
Professional Development Plan: Describes how staff who work with high ability students will receive training. Indiana’s HAP Grant can fund professional development in high ability education. This plan must address building teacher capacity for differentiated instruction in the core content areas where high ability students are identified.
5
Systematic Program Evaluation Plan: Documents how the corporation will evaluate its high ability program and use data to inform continuous improvement. Connects to annual IDOE reporting requirements. The Broad-Based Planning Committee reviews program evaluation results at its annual meetings.
All five plans are public: These plans must be filed at IDOE and be available for public review. Any family, community member, or journalist can request to see a school corporation’s high ability plans. This transparency requirement is unusual nationally and creates meaningful accountability. A school corporation that cannot produce its plans or whose plans do not address all five areas is out of compliance with 511 IAC 6-9.1-2.
Required and optional identification domains
Two Required Domains, Four Optional: What Every Corporation Must Identify and Serve
Indiana requires every school corporation to identify and provide appropriately differentiated services in two domains. Four additional domains are optional. Results are recorded on each student’s Student Test Number (STN), creating a statewide data record:
Required Domain
General Intellectual (HA-GI)
STN: HA-General Intellectual
Students who meet criteria for identification in both Language Arts and Math receive the HA-General Intellectual designation. IDOE defines General Intellectual as exceptional capability or potential recognized through cognitive processes including memory, reasoning, learning speed, spatial reasoning, problem-solving, and handling abstract ideas. These students receive differentiated services in both ELA and Math content areas.
Required Domain
Specific Academic (HA-LA or HA-Math)
STN: HA-LA or HA-Math
Students with exceptional skill or potential in one specific subject area. HA-LA (Language Arts only) or HA-Math (Math only). IDOE defines this as exceptional skill or potential in a particular subject area. Students identified in only one subject receive differentiated services in that content area, not necessarily both. Identification is at the corporation level, not building level.
Optional Domains (HA-Other STN)
Technical and Practical Arts
Optional for LEAs to identify and serve. Not required. Students identified in optional domains receive the HA-Other designation on their STN. LEAs that choose to serve optional domains develop their own identification pathways based on available aptitude, performance, and characteristics measures for each domain.
Optional Domains (HA-Other STN)
Visual and Performing Arts / Creativity / Interpersonal
Visual and Performing Arts, Creativity, and Interpersonal are all optional additional domains. LEAs may identify and serve students in any or all of these areas. Indiana Code includes these domains in its definition of high ability domains, but does not mandate identification or services. Optional domain students receive the HA-Other STN designation.
Three identification pathways per domain
The Multifaceted Assessment: Three Pathways, One Equity Gateway
For each required domain (Language Arts and Math), Indiana’s multifaceted assessment plan must include three pathways by which students can be identified. A student who qualifies through any one pathway meets the identification standard. The third pathway is the critical equity provision:
Pathway 1
Potential / Aptitude
Student performs at or above the LEA-determined parameter on a norm-referenced ability test for the relevant domain. For Language Arts: a verbal reasoning ability measure. For Math: a quantitative reasoning measure, or a composite of quantitative and non-verbal reasoning. Local norms recommended wherever possible. Renzulli Profiler: documents intellectual interests and engagement patterns
Pathway 2
Performance / Achievement
Student performs at or above the LEA-determined parameter on a standardized norm-referenced achievement test in the domain. For Language Arts: Reading and Language Arts subtests of a standardized achievement test. For Math: the Math portion of a standardized achievement test. Local norms recommended. Enrichment database: above-grade content providing performance evidence
Pathway 3
Characteristics (Equity Gateway)
Student scores within the standard error of measure of the LEA parameter on ability OR achievement AND demonstrates outstanding characteristics of gifts, talents, motivations, or interests on a qualitative measure: rating scales, observation, or performance assessment. This pathway captures students who narrowly miss standardized cutoffs but show clear gifted characteristics through qualitative evidence. CTC + Leadership Assessment + Profiler: qualitative characteristics evidence
Pathway 3 is the equity mechanism the statute requires: IC 20-36-2-2 explicitly states that the multifaceted assessment must ensure that students not identified by traditional assessments because of economic disadvantage, cultural background, underachievement, or disabilities are included. Pathway 3 is how this happens. A student from an economically disadvantaged home who scores just below the cutoff on a nationally normed test but whose teacher rates them as demonstrating exceptional motivation, creativity, and persistence in math can still be identified. Statutory language also requires best practices to increase the number of participants from racial and ethnic groups that have historically been underrepresented. Qualitative tools that surface strength independently of standardized tests are essential to meeting this mandate.
Universal screening recommendation: IDOE’s Coordinator Handbook recommends universal screening of all students at least twice at the elementary level, using a norm-referenced ability measure. Optimal screening grades are Kindergarten, 2nd, 5th, and 8th, timed to occur before major programming transitions. Universal screening ensures that students who have not been referred by a teacher or parent still have an opportunity to be identified. Districts that rely only on referrals systematically miss students from communities or classrooms where teachers are less familiar with high ability identification.
Program governance and oversight
The Broad-Based Planning Committee and the Identification Committee: Two Distinct Bodies
Indiana’s high ability program governance involves two different committees that serve different purposes and have different access to student data:
Broad-Based Planning Committee (BBPC) Required at each corporation. A diverse advisory group including school board members, superintendent, district and building-level administrators, the HA Coordinator, teachers, instructional coaches, counselors, social workers, students, and family/community representatives. Reviews the five required plans and program effectiveness. Does not have access to student-level data. Must meet at least once per year; IDOE recommends three times. Not a decision-making body: the local governing body retains ultimate authority and responsibility. The BBPC serves as the community-facing accountability mechanism.
Identification Committee (Separate from BBPC) Includes building-level representatives, administrator(s), and the HA Coordinator. All members should have training in high ability identification. Has access to student-level identification data. Works at the corporation level, not building level. Makes identification recommendations based on multifaceted assessment data. Because parents and students serve on the BBPC but not the identification committee, the framework protects the integrity of identification decisions while maintaining broad community involvement in program oversight.
Each school corporation designates a High Ability Coordinator, who is the primary point of contact with IDOE’s Office of High Ability Education, manages grant reporting, coordinates identification, informs building principals of identified students and their STN designations, and provides professional development resources to teachers. The HA Coordinator communicates student designations to teachers but is careful about student-level data access for BBPC members.
The HAP Grant: state funding for high ability
The High Ability Program Grant: Indiana as a National Model
Indiana is one of approximately 15 states in the country that provide dedicated state funding for high ability programming. The High Ability Program (HAP) Grant is a meaningful structural advantage for Indiana school corporations that most states’ programs simply do not have:
What the HAP Grant supports and requires: Indiana allocated $15 million to the HAP Grant in 2023. IDOE uses a formula to distribute funds to school corporations. Grant funds must support the five required program areas. Districts that receive the HAP Grant must report annually to IDOE on program results, including student achievement data and program effectiveness evidence. The grant cannot fund after-school programs as the primary delivery mechanism, since Indiana law requires services during the school day. As of 2024, 99.3% of identified high ability students passed the I-READ assessment and 99.1% completed Indiana’s Graduation Pathways, demonstrating the program’s impact on student outcomes.
Indiana has been described by advocates as “the gold standard among state gifted programs” and the example other states look to for how to fund and structure high ability education. The grant program traces to a 2007 legislative appropriation of $12.7 million, which represents nearly $20 million in 2025 purchasing power.
Exit procedures and appeals
Exit and Appeals: Protections Built Into the Framework
Indiana’s Coordinator Handbook establishes clear rules for how students can exit high ability services and how families can appeal identification decisions, reflecting a commitment to treating high ability services as a genuine educational obligation, not a privilege that can be revoked for convenience:
Exit procedure requirements An exit procedure must be in place and clearly communicated. Exit cannot be based on compliance, attitude, or behavioral concerns. These factors are not legitimate reasons to remove a student from high ability services. Exit may only be initiated when services are proving too challenging and the student will be appropriately challenged through regular educational programming. The procedure must be no less than a semester in duration and must include multiple meetings with a team: teacher, parent/guardian, administrator, counselor, HA Coordinator, and where possible the student. The goal is always to find an appropriate placement, not simply to remove the student from services.
Appeals process requirements An appeals process must be specified in the multifaceted assessment plan. The conditions under which appeals are granted and the types of additional data considered must be documented. Critically, districts may not require outside testing at family expense as part of an appeal. IDOE recommends that corporations maintain alternate norm-referenced ability and achievement measures specifically for appeals use. This provision ensures that a family’s ability to pay for private testing does not determine whether their child’s appeal is heard.
Platform tools
What Renzulli Learning Provides: Mapped to Indiana’s Five Plans and Three Pathways
Cebeci Test of Creativity (CTC), Pathway 3 (Characteristics) and Optional Creativity Domain: The CTC provides scored, documented creativity evidence that directly feeds the qualitative characteristics component of Pathway 3. For the Pathway 3 equity gateway, a student who scores just below the HA-LA cutoff but demonstrates exceptional creative productivity on the CTC meets the qualitative evidence requirement. For LEAs choosing to identify and serve the optional Creativity domain, the CTC is an appropriate aptitude and performance measure. The CTC is also relevant to IC 20-36-2-2’s mandate to include students characterized by exceptional gifts and talents in non-academic domains.
Renzulli Profiler, Pathway 3 (Motivation and Interests) and Definition Alignment: The statutory definition explicitly includes students “characterized by exceptional gifts, talents, motivation, or interests.” The Profiler is the tool most directly aligned to this clause. A Profiler showing intense, deep interests in a domain alongside motivation patterns that indicate readiness for more complex challenges provides the qualitative evidence that Pathway 3 requires. For students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds whose standardized scores may underestimate their ability, the Profiler surfaces intellectual engagement patterns that quantitative tests may miss.
Leadership Assessment, Pathway 3 (Characteristics) and Optional Interpersonal Domain: The Leadership Assessment provides scored behavioral evidence for leadership characteristics, which are part of the qualitative profile relevant to Pathway 3 across domains. For LEAs choosing to identify students in the optional Interpersonal domain, the Leadership Assessment provides structured identification evidence. Indiana’s definition’s reference to exceptional gifts and talents encompasses leadership ability, making this assessment relevant to the characteristics evidence the identification committee reviews.
Enrichment Database, Curriculum and Instructional Strategies Plan (Plan 2) and School-Day Services: Over 40,000 interest-matched, above-curriculum activities for appropriately differentiated instruction in the core content areas during the school day. For HA-LA students: advanced ELA enrichment. For HA-Math students: advanced math enrichment. For HA-GI students: both. The interest-matching mechanism aligns with the definition’s recognition of “exceptional interests” as a characteristic of high ability students. Activity logs document services for annual IDOE reporting and the systematic program evaluation plan.
Personal Success Plan (PSP), Program Evaluation Plan (Plan 5) and Annual IDOE Reporting: Generates exportable student progress summaries and program engagement logs. Directly supports Plan 5 (systematic program evaluation) by providing the student-level outcome data that annual IDOE reporting requires. HAP Grant recipients must report on student achievement and program effectiveness; PSP records provide the evidence base. Also supports the BBPC’s annual review of program results, giving the committee documented evidence of how students are being served and progressing.
Project-Based Learning (PBL) Tools, Curriculum Plan (Plan 2) and Depth and Breadth of Differentiation: SEM-based original student investigations generating authentic products. For the curriculum plan’s requirement that differentiated instruction provide depth and breadth beyond the regular curriculum, PBL tools deliver the extended investigations that go beyond acceleration into genuine intellectual engagement at high levels. PBL products also serve as performance evidence that can inform identification decisions and the characteristics component of Pathway 3 for students being considered for services.
Executive Function Assessment, Counseling and Guidance Plan (Plan 3): Assesses planning, self-regulation, and metacognition. Indiana’s counseling and guidance plan must address the social-emotional needs of high ability learners, including intensity, perfectionism, and asynchronous development. For high ability students whose executive function profile does not match their intellectual ability (including some twice-exceptional students), the EFA provides the functional data that counselors need to design appropriate guidance interventions. Connecting executive function strengths and challenges to the counseling plan creates an individualized social-emotional support layer within the five-plan framework.
Code and rule alignment
IC 20-36 and 511 IAC 6-9.1 Requirements and Renzulli Learning: Side by Side
IC 20-36-1-3 IC 20-36-2-2 511 IAC 6-9.1| Indiana Requirement | Renzulli Learning Contribution |
|---|---|
| Definition: IC 20-36-1-3 High ability student performs at or shows potential for outstanding accomplishment compared to peers of the same age, experience, or environment; is characterized by exceptional gifts, talents, motivation, or interests | The Profiler’s documented interest and motivation profiles directly address the definition’s “characterized by exceptional motivation or interests” clause. The CTC and Leadership Assessment address exceptional gifts and talents across creative and leadership dimensions. Together these build a multi-dimensional picture of the definition’s full scope. |
| Multifaceted Assessment: IC 20-36-2-2 Performance-based, potential-based, and other assessments; must include students not identified by traditional tests due to economic disadvantage, cultural background, underachievement, or disabilities; three pathways per domain | CTC, Profiler, and Leadership Assessment provide the qualitative “other assessments” and characteristics evidence that constitute Pathway 3’s equity gateway. These tools surface high ability potential in students whose standardized test performance does not reflect their actual capability due to the four statutory equity factors. |
| Curriculum Plan: 511 IAC 6-9.1-2 Appropriately differentiated curriculum and instruction in core content areas; services during the school day; depth and breadth beyond the regular curriculum | The enrichment database delivers school-day differentiated instruction in ELA (for HA-LA students) and Math (for HA-Math students), or both (for HA-GI students). PBL tools provide the depth and breadth extensions that go beyond acceleration into genuine intellectual engagement at complex levels. |
| Program Evaluation Plan: 511 IAC 6-9.1-2 Systematic evaluation of the program; annual IDOE reporting on student achievement and program effectiveness; HAP Grant reporting requirements | The PSP generates student progress records and program engagement logs that provide the evidence base for annual IDOE reporting and the BBPC’s annual program review. Activity logs connect student participation to specific enrichment content, supporting program effectiveness documentation. |
| Counseling and Guidance Plan: 511 IAC 6-9.1-2 Social-emotional guidance for high ability students; affective education; college/career readiness; addresses characteristics like intensity and perfectionism | The EFA provides self-regulation and metacognitive data that informs individualized counseling and guidance programming. The Profiler’s learning style and interest data helps counselors understand how individual students engage with learning, supporting the affective education component of the guidance plan. |
| HAP Grant Reporting Annual reporting to IDOE on program results including student achievement and program effectiveness; five required plans must be on file; grant funds must support required program areas during school day | PSP reports, activity logs, and PBL project documentation provide the organized student-level evidence that annual HAP Grant reporting requires. Exportable summaries give the HA Coordinator the data needed to report on student achievement outcomes and program delivery evidence aligned to the five required plans. |
Frequently asked questions
Indiana High Ability Education: Common Questions
Indiana statute and administrative code deliberately use the term high ability rather than gifted and talented. This reflects a philosophy that high ability is a characteristic students demonstrate or show potential for across a range of domains and comparison contexts, not a fixed label. The definition under IC 20-36-1-3 compares students to peers of the same age, experience, or environment, making it locally contextual rather than nationally normed. The inclusion of motivation and interests alongside gifts and talents in the definition further broadens the framework beyond purely cognitive criteria.
Every public school corporation must operate a K-12 high ability program with local governing body approval. The program must include five written plans filed at IDOE and available for public review: (1) a multifaceted student assessment plan; (2) a curriculum and instructional strategies plan; (3) a counseling and guidance plan; (4) a professional development plan; and (5) a systematic program evaluation plan. Programs must also have a Broad-Based Planning Committee, use a separate identification committee, identify students in the two required domains, provide differentiated instruction during the school day, and report annually to IDOE. Under 511 IAC 6-9.1-2, all five plans must be filed and publicly accessible.
For each required domain, Indiana’s multifaceted assessment must include three pathways. Pathway 1 (Potential/Aptitude): student meets the LEA-determined parameter on a norm-referenced ability test. Pathway 2 (Performance/Achievement): student meets the parameter on a norm-referenced achievement test. Pathway 3 (Characteristics): student scores within the standard error of measure of the parameter on ability or achievement, AND demonstrates outstanding characteristics of gifts, talents, motivation, or interests on a qualitative measure. Pathway 3 is the equity gateway that IC 20-36-2-2 requires to include students not identified by traditional tests due to economic disadvantage, cultural background, underachievement, or disabilities. It prevents districts from relying exclusively on standardized test cutoffs.
No. Indiana’s Coordinator Handbook is explicit: compliance, attitude, and behavioral concerns are not valid reasons to initiate an exit from high ability services, because these issues are not likely to resolve by removing services. Exit may only be initiated when services are genuinely too challenging and the student would be appropriately challenged through regular educational programming. The exit procedure must last no less than a semester, include multiple meetings with the teacher, parent, administrator, counselor, HA Coordinator, and when possible the student, and focus on finding the right placement rather than simply removing the student from the program.
The High Ability Program (HAP) Grant provides dedicated state funding for high ability programs. Indiana is one of approximately 15 states nationally that fund high ability programming through a dedicated grant. The Indiana General Assembly allocated $15 million to the program in 2023. IDOE distributes funds to school corporations through a formula. Grant recipients must report annually to IDOE on program results including student achievement and effectiveness evidence. Grant funds support the five required program areas and must be used for school-day services. After-school programs may supplement high ability services but cannot substitute for the required school-day program.
Renzulli Learning addresses each of Indiana’s five required plans. For the multifaceted assessment plan: the CTC, Profiler, and Leadership Assessment provide the qualitative characteristics evidence for Pathway 3. For the curriculum plan: the enrichment database and PBL tools deliver school-day differentiated instruction at depth and breadth. For the counseling plan: the EFA informs affective guidance programming. For the program evaluation plan: the PSP generates the student progress and program effectiveness evidence annual IDOE reporting requires. For the professional development plan: Renzulli’s research-based SEM framework supports teacher capacity-building in differentiated instruction.
Official sources
Indiana High Ability Education Resources
All identification, program plan, and grant reporting decisions should reference primary IDOE and statutory sources. Renzulli Learning is designed to complement each school corporation’s locally developed high ability plans, not replace them.
- IDOE High Ability Education Hub (state overview, grants, contacts, FAQs, STN designation information)
- Indiana Code, Article 36: High Ability Students (IC 20-36-1-3 definition; IC 20-36-2-2 program criteria and multifaceted assessment requirements)
- IDOE High Ability Programs FAQ (program requirements, five required plans, identification process, public review requirements)
- IDOE High Ability Coordinator Handbook (three identification pathways, required domains, BBPC, exit and appeals, STN designations, grant guidance)
- IDOE High Ability Program Grant (HAP Grant information, current application guidance, reporting requirements)
Explore Renzulli Learning’s gifted and high ability education alignment for neighboring states:
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