Highly Capable

2025 Summer Referral Window

Between June 2 and July 24, 2025, students who enrolled in the Kent School District (KSD) after March 1, 2025, and are currently registered at their boundary school may be referred for possible identification for Highly Capable services beginning in the 2025-2026 school year using the online referral form. Parents/guardians must give permission to test and review students’ data by signing the referral form and completing the Parent Inventory Survey.

Students referred for the summer identification process are required to take the CogAT assessment on Monday, August 4, 2025, at 9:00 a.m. at the KSD Administration Center. Please note that students who do not participate in the CogAT assessment on this date will not be evaluated for HiCap services during the summer identification process.

Grades 1-12 Summer HiCap Referral Form
Elementary HiCap Programs
Middle School HiCap Programs
High School HiCap Programs
Transfer HiCap Students
HiCap Exit Policy & Procedure

Mission

The mission of the Kent School District’s Highly Capable (HiCap) Program is to provide an equitable, quality education for all students in a safe environment that nurture and support the academic and social-emotional strengths and needs of our Highly Capable Learners. 

Vision

We believe that students receiving Highly Capable services natural abilities translate to educational needs that require differentiated and modified instructional programming from trained teachers that address individual needs.

We believe that the district’s Highly Capable Program must have a broad base representation of students and recognize that Highly Capable learners come from all ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic backgrounds.

Students in need of highly capable services are present in grades kindergarten through twelve and demonstrate readiness and/or potential to benefit from advanced grade level curriculum in one or more subject areas. These students require accelerated learning and enhanced instruction beyond the general education curriculum in order to achieve social, emotional, and academic growth. Students receiving highly capable services may have advanced learning abilities in general intellectual aptitude in all academic subjects, or in one academic subject area such as literacy or mathematics.

Students who are highly capable may possess these learning characteristics:

  1. Capacity to learn with unusual depth of understanding, to retain what has been learned, and to transfer learning to new situations.

  2. Capacity and willingness to deal with increasing levels of abstraction and complexity earlier than their peers.

  3. Ability to learn quickly in their area(s) of intellectual strength.

The Highly Capable State laws and our Board of Directors' commitment to ensuring high-quality services for all students led the Kent School District to offer a continuum of appropriate Highly Capable Program services available to students K-12 that includes both programs in neighborhood schools and self-contained specialized programs. These programs support our commitment to be more inclusive and provide equitable practices.

Family Resources