Leaving PGCPS TAG

[Anonymous]

Every year there has been a cohort of students from our zoned school that leave the TAG center early to return to our zoned school. We are considering the same. Does anyone have experience with this? Were you able to create opportunities at your local school for more advanced work?

[Anonymous]

I've had TAG kids in comprehensive schools through 5th grade and I don't think there is a huge difference in the rigor of the curriculum compared to my youngest who is at a TAG center. The TAG program has a lot more projects.
My older kids went from a comprehensive ES to a TAG center MS and were straight A students so I don't know that they came in behind their peers who went to a TAG center.
There are a lot of benefits to staying in your neighborhood school and we were really on the fence about moving our youngest.

Your local school should be differentiating for higher achieving students already. Not all TAG students leave and not all high achieving kids are TAG identified. Our comprehensive school clustered all the TAG students in one classroom so that the teacher could accelerate instruction and/or go beyond the prescribed curriculum.
Another option to ask if your child can go to a higher grade for Math and/or Reading if they are testing at the higher grade.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for this reply. Very helpful!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thank you for this reply. Very helpful!

I will add that I think that the Middle School TAG program curriculum is significantly more rigorous than the comprehensive program. My student finished middle school with 4 high school credits (Spanish 1, Spanish 2, Algebra 1 and Biogeochemical Systems) and some kids are able to earn a 5th credit (Geometry). The Honors English and Social Studies are no joke. They had to read Shakespeare, UNESCO policy and articles from The Economist. They are in comprehensive high school now and they report that even the honors courses aren't as difficult as what they had in Middle School TAG program.