"Gifted or talented" is a student exceptionality category that in many states requires a formal eligibility procedure to qualify for specialized school programming (Gallagher et al. 2014). Researchers agree that there is a historical overreliance on IQ in determining service eligibility; however, no brief parent rating scale appears in the empirical literature to support the decision-making of school evaluation teams. Items of the "Characteristics of Giftedness Scale" (Silverman 1993) were selected and expanded upon to create a brief 20-item instrument. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) revealed that the modified scale was best characterized as having a two-factor structure. Furthermore, group differences were found between students eligible for gifted school programming and those without gifted status at school. Taken together, present findings suggest that this modified scale may be a suitable evaluation tool for school-based use.