By: Shanovia Daniel, Marcela Crowe, Laurie Powell, and

Missy Rankin

 CISS stands for Characteristics Instrument for Screening Students

CISS is Fulton Countys instrument for screening students who may be

eligible for the TAG (Talented and Gifted) program

Teachers will work on identifying students that demonstrate any of the

following 10 characteristics (students do not need to fall in all categories)

Motivation
Interests
Communication Skills
Problem-Solving Ability
Memory
Inquiry

Insight
Reasoning
Creativity
Humor

 The screening process takes place for the entire school

over a 10 day period in January

This is 1 of 2 full school screenings that take place throughout

the school year. The other one is in the fall using test data.

Students need to meet 5 out of the 10 characteristics. These may

come from any teacher.

(For example: Daniel may see 2 characteristics, Rankin may
see 1 characteristic, Crowe may see 1 characteristic, and
Powell may see another characteristic totaling 5 different
characteristics)

Every teacher in the building participates in the CISS process!

10 Characteristics of the CISS Screening Process

MOTIVATION

INTERESTS

Evidences an intense desire to

achieve
Strives to satisfy a need or
attain set goals
Student may

be persistent in
pursuing/completing
self-selected tasks

be a self-starter

be an enthusiastic
learner

aspire to be
somebody/do something

Intense (unusual interests)

Activities, avocations, objects,
etc. have special worth or
significance
Student may

demonstrate unusual or
advanced interests in a
topic or activity

be beyond age-group

pursue an activity
unceasingly

demonstrate
perseverance in pursuit
of an interest

INQUIRY

INSIGHT

Questions, experiments,
explores
Seeks in-depth knowledge,
understanding, or information

Quickly grasps new concepts

and makes connections
Sudden discovery of the
correct solution following
incorrect attempts
Student may

demonstrate exceptional
ability to draw inferences

appear to be a good
guesser

be keen observer

possess capacity for

seeing unusual and
diverse relationships

integrate ideas and

disciplines

Student may
ask unusual questions for
age
play around with ideas
demonstrate extensive
exploratory behaviors

COMMUNICATION
SKILLS
Highly expressive and
effective use of words,
numbers, or symbols

Student may
demonstrate unusual
ability to communicate
(verbally, physically,
artistically, symbolically)
use particularly clever
examples, illustrations or
elaborations

REASONING
Logical approaches to
figuring out solutions
Forward-looking, goal
oriented thought.

Student may
make generalizations
use metaphors and
analogies
think things through
logically
think critically
be an excellent planner

PROBLEM-SOLVING
ABILITY

MEMORY

Effective, inventive strategies

for recognizing and solving
problems

Large storehouse of
information
Innate ability to retain and
retrieve information
Student may
Student may
devise or adapt a

need only 1-2 repetitions

systematic strategy for
for mastery
solving problems or

have a wealth of
change the strategy if it is
information
not working

pay attention to details

create a new design,

manipulate information
invent

remember experiences
understand what
from the past (e.g.,
questions to ask to solve
When I was one)
the problem

CREATIVITY

HUMOR

Inventiveness
Conveys and picks up on
Problem-solving through non- humor
traditional patterns of thinking Ability to synthesize key ideas
or problems in complex
situations in humorous ways
Student may
Student may

show ingenuity in using

exhibit keen sense of

everyday materials
humorgentle or hostile

exhibit wild, seemingly

see relationships and

silly ideas
create jokes or puns

produces ideas

extreme sense of fairness

fluently/flexibly

sensitive to feelings of

be curious
others

use inappropriate humor

(class clown)

HTTPS://WWW.YOUTUBE.COM/WATCH?V=B210JXNPZCK

 A grade level representative will collect all CISS forms and

submit names of students who are not in TAG that have

demonstrated 5 out of the 10 characteristics to Eligibility Team
Chair
The eligibility team chair will divide the list of students among
eligibility team members.
The eligibility team members will gather supporting
information on assigned students.
The team members will check student data to see which
students meet the criteria.
Students are only eligible to be tested for TAG every 2 years.
Any test score used to establish eligibility shall be current
within 2 years of the date of the eligibility team meeting.

 Fulton County TAG Manual

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B210JXnpZck