Talent Development, Academic Challenge & Gifted Support (TAG)

Rigorous and enriching opportunities are provided for all students. These opportunities may include classroom lessons, Makerspace, Genius Hour, engineering projects, guest speakers, community building or community service events. Lessons are focused on creative thinking skills, analogies, growth mindset and mindfulness. In addition to classroom lessons, schoolwide enrichment activities occur at each site. 

The TAG specialist supports classroom teachers as they differentiate instruction to provide all students with challenging learning opportunities that help them discover their unique interests and strengths.

All students are placed in heterogeneous classrooms. “Clustering” is used to create instructional groups in each third through fifth grade classroom. This practice will reduce the range of the instructional groups within a classroom, allowing the teacher to better provide a differentiated learning experience for each student. This “clustering” approach is based upon the Total School Clustering Model developed by Marcia Gentry at Purdue University.

Enrichment and enhancement opportunities are provided through pull-out seminars offered in grades 3-5. Each seminar focuses on specific student strengths.

• Nonverbal Seminar: Students strengthen problem solving and reasoning abilities through use of hands-on activities.
• Verbal Seminar: Students enhance oral, written and artistic forms of communication, recognizing students' cultural context.
• Quantitative Seminar: Students deepen mathematical understandings.

In order to provide the right services at the right time for each student, scholars are identified for services using multiple measures, including:

• The CogAT 7 (Cognitive Abilities Test)
• Fastbridge Reading and Math assessments
• Teacher recommendation
• Student interest

Students are involved in independent investigations which are designed to provide opportunities to investigate a special area of interest. Students will develop a project and share their findings. These independent study projects will be facilitated by the TAG Specialist. In addition to independent investigations, the following may be an option for some students:

• Early entrance to kindergarten
• Full grade acceleration
• Participation in advanced coursework through university partners or other agencies

Additional after-school enrichment opportunities are available at many sites, including:

• Math Masters
• Destination Imagination
• District 279 Children’s Chorus
• WordMasters
• Community Education classes