WA State Laws

• RCW 28A.185.020 The legislature finds that, for highly capable students, access to accelerated learning and enhanced instruction is access to a basic education.

• WAC 392-170-012 For highly capable students, access to accelerated learning and enhanced instruction is access to a basic education. School districts may access basic education funds, in addition to highly capable categorical funds, to provide appropriate highly capable student programs.

• WAC 392-170-035 Definition—Students who are highly capable. As used in this chapter, highly capable students are students who perform or show potential for performing at significantly advanced academic levels when compared with others of their age, experiences, or environments. Outstanding abilities are seen within students' general intellectual aptitudes, specific academic abilities, and/or creative productivities within a specific domain. These students are present not only in the general populace, but are present within all protected classes according to chapters 28A.640 and 28A.642 RCW.

• WAC 392-170-036 Definition—Learning characteristics.

As used in this chapter, the term learning characteristics means that students who are highly capable may possess, but are not limited to, 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 chronological peers;

(3) Creative ability to make unusual connections among ideas and concepts;

(4) Ability to learn quickly in their area(s) of intellectual strength; and

(5) Capacity for intense concentration and/or focus.

• WAC 392-170-025 Board approval. The district's plan for students who are highly capable shall be annually approved by formal action of the district's board of directors.