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Meeting Date:
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9/12/2019 - 6:30 PM
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Category:
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Items Pulled from Consent Calendar
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Type:
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Action
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Subject:
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SY 2018-2019 Talented and Gifted Advisory Committee (TAGAC) Annual Report
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ACPS 2025 Strategic Plan Goal:
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Objective 1.1
Educational Excellence ACPS will regularly assess and respond to the needs, interests, and abilities of individual students. Objective 1.2
Achievement Gaps ACPS will target academic achievement gaps and increase positive educational outcomes across race/ ethnicity, income, disability, and language subgroups. Objective 1.4 Educational Equity ACPS will provide each student with opportunities to be challenged and supported.
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Funding Source or Fiscal Impact (where applicable)
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File Attachment:
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Agenda Item Summary:
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This report represents a high-level overview of our activities for the 2018-2019 school year. Per the ACPS subcommittee operating guidelines, TAGAC has approved minutes for all of our meetings in the ACPS archives.
The ACPS school year and the TAGAC year started strong in September with a sizable number of the ACPS School Board candidates in attendance to learn more about TAG and the role of TAGAC in ACPS. TAGAC also reviewed the Scope of Work for the 2018-2019 TAGAC year and heard a report from the TAG Coordinator, Donna Brearley, on ACPS’ efforts to survey other comparable TAG programs around Virginia.
In October, the ACPS School Board candidates participated in TAGAC along with a presentation by Mr. Jesse Mazur, George Washington Middle School Principal, on his vision for how to provide services to TAG students via a clustering model at the middle school level.
In November, TAGAC hosted Dr. Hutchings and listened to his views on TAG. There was also a live question and answer session with the TAGAC committee and members of the public who were present.
The December meeting was attended by the Office of Accountability who presented the annual metrics that the TAGAC requested to build a baseline data set for tracking TAG effectiveness/availability in ACPS.
In January, due to teacher changes at James K. Polk Elementary School, the discussion was dominated by the public comment session on the mid-year implementation of an in-class differentiation for TAG students, and how it was failing to address the needs of TAG students. This interaction prompted the TAGAC to vote to issue a position paper on the subject.
The February meeting was focused on writing a position paper in opposition to a proposal written by the elementary school principals that promoted removing the TAG different and gifted specific service model for English/Language Arts to a universal curriculum delivered through a push-in model. Additionally, a paper on the inadequacies of the middle school curriculum was also under development.
In March, ACPS had the honor of hosting Dr. Richard Cash who was selected to provide differentiation training to ACPS elementary school staff with a focus on TAG. Dr. Cash also spoke at a public forum which was widely attended with over 75 parents signing into the session. When the next TAGAC meeting was held, we had an all-time high attendance of ~45 non-committee people attending. Further development of the Elementary and Middle School position papers was conducted with this larger audience.
April saw the finalization of the position papers as well as preparation for Dr. Hutchings’ TAG Chat at T.C. Williams High School. There were initial discussions on the TAG focus for SY 2019-2020.
The May meeting was spent discussing the TAG Chat from T.C. Williams as well as discussing TAG goals for SY 2019-2020.
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Background:
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The Talented and Gifted Advisory Committee (TAGAC) for Alexandria City Public Schools (ACPS) is focused on assuring that the needs of all Talented and Gifted (TAG) students are met in ACPS. The Scope of Work for the 2018-2019 school year had the TAGAC specifically focused on what we felt were the key areas of Communications, Delivery of Services at the Elementary and Middle School levels as well as some system-wide issues in identification of TAG students at all levels and all identification areas. Additionally, TAGAC was keenly interested in the TAG Local Plan for the Gifted due to the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) in the spring of 2019, and the implementation of findings from the 2016 Audit.
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Recommendation:
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Based on the TAGAC Scope of Work, over 20 hours of TAGAC meetings, and two public forum sessions dedicated to TAG including countless hours by TAGAC and community members conducting research on their own time, TAGAC has the following recommendations for ACPS concerning the Talented and Gifted services:
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Approvals:
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Recommended By:
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Signed By:
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Dr. Terri H. Mozingo - Chief Academic Officer
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Signed By:
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Dr. Gregory C. Hutchings, Jr. - Superintendent
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