Clark County School District GATE testing and NNAT® guide.

GATE is Clark County School District's Gifted and Talented Education program. TAGS is the district's Title I Alternative Gifted Services program. Both exist because CCSD screens every full-time 2nd grader for gifted identification, then places qualifying students into one of two service tracks depending on whether their school is a Title I campus.

This guide is written for CCSD parents across Las Vegas, Henderson, North Las Vegas, and the wider Clark County community who want to understand how the screening works, what a qualifying score looks like, and how to prepare a 2nd grader calmly before their school's testing date arrives.

What Clark County School District says about GATE identification

CCSD's Gifted Education Services page states plainly that the division conducts universal screening of all full-time 2nd grade students enrolled in the district. That is a district-wide policy, not a school-by-school option — every CCSD 2nd grader is screened regardless of which campus they attend.

What differs by school is what happens after a student qualifies. Outside Title I schools, an identified student is placed in the standard GATE program, which requires a minimum of 150 minutes of gifted services per week. At Title I schools, an identified student is placed in TAGS, the Title I Alternative Gifted Services program, which requires a minimum of 50 minutes per week. Both are real gifted programs; they differ in service intensity, not in whether a child was fairly screened.

CCSD also identifies students as Highly Gifted starting at age 7 through a separate pathway. Public reporting on the district's identification criteria describes a qualifying benchmark near the 98th percentile on a cognitive ability measure such as the NNAT3 or KBIT-2, or a matrix score of 15 or more compiling multiple pieces of evidence. Because CCSD did not publish exact current-year cutoffs on its own page, families should confirm the specific criteria in effect this year with the Gifted Programs Office.

The NNAT® is the Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test, a visual reasoning assessment built around shapes and patterns rather than reading passages, vocabulary, or arithmetic. If CCSD's current test for your child's school is the NNAT3, a 2nd grader will encounter Level C: 48 questions in about 30 minutes, covering Pattern Completion, Reasoning by Analogy, Serial Reasoning, and Spatial Visualization. For a parent-friendly walkthrough of those four formats, see our guide to the four NNAT® question types.

Why the GATE vs. TAGS distinction matters

It is easy to assume a school's Title I status affects who gets tested. CCSD's own page says otherwise: every full-time 2nd grader district-wide is screened the same way. What Title I status changes is the service level a qualifying child is placed into afterward — 150 minutes a week of GATE service versus 50 minutes a week of TAGS service.

That distinction matters for a parent conversation with the school. If your child qualifies, the useful question is not "was my child properly screened" — CCSD says every 2nd grader is — but "which program track applies at our school, and what does that mean for weekly service time."

Questions Clark County parents should ask

1. Has my child's class completed 2nd grade universal screening yet, or is it still scheduled?
2. Which assessment is being used at our school this year?
3. Is our school a Title I campus, and if so, does that mean TAGS applies if my child qualifies?
4. What score or matrix result is CCSD using as the current qualifying benchmark?
5. If my child does not qualify in 2nd grade, is there a later re-screening or Highly Gifted pathway?
6. Who in CCSD's Gifted Programs Office can confirm our school's exact testing date?

Our broader questions to ask your school guide can help you turn those into one clear conversation with the office or program contact.

How to prepare without adding pressure

The best preparation for a 2nd grader is short, consistent, and calm. Start with format familiarity: show the child the kinds of visual tasks they might see, then talk through the thinking after each question. A useful explanation should name the rule, not just reveal the answer.

If your child has not seen the NNAT® before, start with a short session rather than a full-length test. Then add complete timed practice only after the format feels familiar. Our guide to how to prepare for the NNAT® gives a simple structure for that progression.