This year’s TAG Parent Meeting was held on Friday evening. I want to give a huge thank you to all the parents who came out to learn about our program.

Third Grade Parents Only

The first half of this meeting is always reserved for the parents of our new third grade students. We discussed the Second Grade Child Find process and what all the information that I gathered during it means. Any parent who was unable to attend is welcome to request a copy of their child’s Gifted Eligibility/Screening Dertermination Form (we call it the Matrix). The presentation I used is linked below and should explain the scores listed on the Matrix.

Third Grade Parent Meeting Powerpoint

Newsletters

Any third grade parent’s who were unable to attend the meeting, please check your student’s backpack for their TAG newsletter! It talks about the different online learning communities we will be using in TAG this year. At the bottom of the last page is the Student Response Form. This is a contract between you, your student, and the TAG classroom outlining the behaviors we expect while participating in online learning communities. This page needs to be signed and the bottom half returned to school. Students will earn TAG money for turning it in by their next class.

If your child’s newsletter goes missing, you may follow the link below to find the documents that make it up.

Newsletter Documents

All TAG Parents

In the second half of our beginning-of-the-year meeting we explained how our program works and all the little things that make it awesome!

The two most important pieces of information that we covered are this year’s Concept Based Curriculum topics and our continued emphasis on technology. As usual, we will be using both  Edmodo and Google Apps for Education extensively. We also touched on this year’s TAG Schedule, reviewed the money system, and talked about our extra curricular opportunities.

If you missed the meeting, or just want a refresher, you can check out the presentation I used by following the link below.

Beginning-of-the-Year Parent Meeting Powerpoint

A Few More Things

A few things that I meant to cover in the meeting but somehow didn’t manage to…

1. Make Up Work – Any work that is done in class while students are gone to TAG does not have to be made up. Many teachers still give their TAG students a copy of the work so that they know what was covered while they were out, but it does not have to be made up. Any homework assigned for that evening does need to be completed. If tests are given or work is assigned on a long term project while students are away in TAG these, obviously, need to be made up.
2. Supplies – Instead of asking for supplies to be sent in (although tissues are always appreciated) or requiring that students purchase their own binders and other materials, we ask that each student donate $10 to our program. This allows us to buy specifically what we need when we need it. It also lets us save up money to buy big ticket items, like technology resources, for our students to use. The students will receive TAG money for turning in their donation.