Early Entrance Procedures

Acceleration is one option for meeting the needs of high ability/high achieving students. The Accelerated Placement Act requires Illinois public school districts to adopt and implement policies on acceleration, specifically:

· Early entrance to kindergarten and first grade,
· Acceleration in a single subject area, and
· “Whole grade” acceleration (sometimes referred to as “grade skipping”).

The goal of the Acceleration Act is to ensure that districts adopt equitable and effective assessment and placement practices. Accelerated placement is not limited to those students who have been identified as gifted and talented; it is open to all students who demonstrate high ability and who may benefit from accelerated placement.

The full text of the Accelerated Placement Act can be found on the Illinois General Assembly website. 

Current research suggests that children who start school at an older age do better than their younger classmates and have better odds of attending college and graduating from an elite institution (Dhuey, Figlio, Karbownik & Roth, 2019).

In general, for early entrance into Kindergarten, students need to perform at the 98th national percentile on measures of achievement and aptitude as administered by District personnel and demonstrate advanced fine motor skills and social-emotional functioning.

For early entrance into First Grade, students need to perform at the 85th percentile or above on measures of achievement and aptitude as administered by District personnel. Additionally, the student may, but is not required to, have attended a non-public preschool, continued his or her education at that school through kindergarten, and been taught in kindergarten by an appropriately licensed teacher.

For subject area and grade acceleration, the student must demonstrate the ability to access appropriately challenging learning opportunities based on a review of the student’s current performance in class and/or on various standardized assessments.

For more information about District 64’s procedures related to these acceleration options, please see the contact information and links below:

· Early Entrance to Kindergarten - Contact: Stephanie Rosales, Student Services Department, 847-318-4333

· Early Entrance to First Grade - Contact: Stephanie Rosales, Student Services Department, 847-318-4333

· Subject/Grade Acceleration - Contact: your child's School Principal (consult Staff Directory here)