§1989.7.  Registry of prospective students

A.  The Department of Education shall assist the director in identifying candidates for admission to the program, as follows:

(1)  By the thirtieth of October of each year, the director shall notify the state superintendent of education in writing of the grade levels or ages, or both, of the participants in the program for the session or sessions in the subsequent year.

(2)  By the fifteenth of December of each year, the state superintendent of education shall furnish to the director information regarding each student currently in the grades or of the ages specified whom the state Department of Education's records show to have achieved a score in the ninetieth percentile or higher on any generally administered achievement test or other instrument designed to measure academic or intellectual performance.  A test or instrument shall be deemed to be generally administered if it is administered to at least forty percent of the students in any given grade or age group in the state in any particular year.  Such information shall include the student's name and that of his parents, his last known address, and the name of the school in which he is enrolled.

B.  The director shall treat this information as confidential and shall not disclose it to any person outside the program, nor distribute it to persons employed by the program except as reasonably necessary.

C.  If the state superintendent of education is not in possession of the information he is required to provide to the director in this Section, he shall gather that information at no charge to the program and shall maintain that information in his office as a central registry of gifted students, which registry shall be used by the state in its efforts to provide educational opportunities to gifted students.  Inclusion in this registry shall not be determinative of whether a child is gifted, which fact shall be determined by means specified elsewhere by law or by regulation.

Acts 1999, No. 595, §1, eff. June 30, 1999.