What percentage of HGC students go on to the magnet middle programs? Is this listed somewhere?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have the handout for the HGC overview night (my child is currently in 7th grade) it states on the page it's a more advanced science, math, and all the humanities classes. This was given out when my child was in 3rd grade. Sorry people starting the program now because MCPS definitely watered down the excellent program.

Oh, hey, look at what the HGC page on the MCPS website says:

"The Elementary Center Programs for the Highly Gifted provide a learning environment for Grade 4 and Grade 5 students that enriches, accelerates, and extends the MCPS curriculum. It is designed to meet the needs of highly gifted and motivated learners in mathematics, language arts, science, and social studies. The program focuses on critical thinking skills, problem-solving skills, and communication skills. "

http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/curriculum/specialprograms/elementary/highly-gifted-centers.aspx

How about that.

They need to get their act together. Report cards clearly show it is only a reading and writing program. Even social studies isn't marked CPHG. In addition, this is being communicated by staff at the open houses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have the handout for the HGC overview night (my child is currently in 7th grade) it states on the page it's a more advanced science, math, and all the humanities classes. This was given out when my child was in 3rd grade. Sorry people starting the program now because MCPS definitely watered down the excellent program.

Oh, hey, look at what the HGC page on the MCPS website says:

"The Elementary Center Programs for the Highly Gifted provide a learning environment for Grade 4 and Grade 5 students that enriches, accelerates, and extends the MCPS curriculum. It is designed to meet the needs of highly gifted and motivated learners in mathematics, language arts, science, and social studies. The program focuses on critical thinking skills, problem-solving skills, and communication skills. "

http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/curriculum/specialprograms/elementary/highly-gifted-centers.aspx

How about that.

They need to get their act together. Report cards clearly show it is only a reading and writing program. Even social studies isn't marked CPHG. In addition, this is being communicated by staff at the open houses.

Not at the one I went to.

Also, why do you think the "CPHG" on the report cards mean that it's only a reading and writing program? It seems to me that the "CPHG" is there to indicate the standards the N/I/P/ES is being judged by. Otherwise you'd get endless people complaining about their fourth-grader who is reading at level Z but only got a P.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

+1 and my kids both went to the (one) HGC that is split between two schools.

At one of those schools, one of the teachers in particular is a math guru. No matter what the curriculum might say, she is teaching the kids very advanced math.

Yep, I posted up stream and was speaking of the same person.

One of my children had her too. I think the difference from before is that they were allowed to accelerate beyond where they can accelerate now so that teacher had more sections of math bc the students were accelerated at different rates. But both Mrs. Salazar and Mrs. Houston told parents at the open house that the HGC was a humanities program. My child who is still at an HGC has a teacher who has been there more than a decade. She has mentioned that there are only certain subjects that are HGC and that has always been the case. If you look at the report card it is now marked (starting this year) with CPHG for subjects that are HGC. Some of the teachers are excellent and go beyond the curriculum though. For example, in 5th grade my child did an electricity city project in science. This was not a party of the HGC science curriculum bc there is no HGC science curriculum. But this teacher ôknew that the students could handle/needed science enrichment so provided it. I think that there are some HGC teachers who really go beyond the curriculum (which is great).

Yes, my child did that too. That teacher definitely goes beyond the curriculum to levels the kids need.

I asked that teacher once about the curriculum and teacher looked at me like I had two heads and said "I just make sure these kids get what they need." My child loved that class.

Mine did too. duck said that math teacher is the best math teacher ever. Which is sayings lot since child went to the TPMS magnet and is now in the Blair magnet.

[Anonymous]

Lol! Not "duck," *DC*.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have the handout for the HGC overview night (my child is currently in 7th grade) it states on the page it's a more advanced science, math, and all the humanities classes. This was given out when my child was in 3rd grade. Sorry people starting the program now because MCPS definitely watered down the excellent program.

Oh, hey, look at what the HGC page on the MCPS website says:

"The Elementary Center Programs for the Highly Gifted provide a learning environment for Grade 4 and Grade 5 students that enriches, accelerates, and extends the MCPS curriculum. It is designed to meet the needs of highly gifted and motivated learners in mathematics, language arts, science, and social studies. The program focuses on critical thinking skills, problem-solving skills, and communication skills. "

http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/curriculum/specialprograms/elementary/highly-gifted-centers.aspx

How about that.

They need to get their act together. Report cards clearly show it is only a reading and writing program. Even social studies isn't marked CPHG. In addition, this is being communicated by staff at the open houses.

Look at the report card

Not at the one I went to.

Also, why do you think the "CPHG" on the report cards mean that it's only a reading and writing program? It seems to me that the "CPHG" is there to indicate the standards the N/I/P/ES is being judged by. Otherwise you'd get endless people complaining about their fourth-grader who is reading at level Z but only got a P.

[Anonymous]

I did look at the report card.

[Anonymous]

The designation is only on humanities subjects. Not science, math, social studies or anything else. This combined with several years of having kids in the program and being told repeatedly that there is no HGC curriculum for other subjects and that it's a humanities program is what leads me to the conclusion that it's a humanities program. To the extent it is more it is because the teacher is going beyond the curriculum and the kids are having a different experience than what they would have at the home school because of the peer group.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The designation is only on humanities subjects. Not science, math, social studies or anything else. This combined with several years of having kids in the program and being told repeatedly that there is no HGC curriculum for other subjects and that it's a humanities program is what leads me to the conclusion that it's a humanities program. To the extent it is more it is because the teacher is going beyond the curriculum and the kids are having a different experience than what they would have at the home school because of the peer group.

More correctly, that designation is only on reading and writing. Presumably because, unlike in the other subjects, the students are graded against different standards. If you graded the HGC students on reading at grade-level standards, presumably every one of them would get an ES. Does that mean that the HGC is a "humanities program" No.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The designation is only on humanities subjects. Not science, math, social studies or anything else. This combined with several years of having kids in the program and being told repeatedly that there is no HGC curriculum for other subjects and that it's a humanities program is what leads me to the conclusion that it's a humanities program. To the extent it is more it is because the teacher is going beyond the curriculum and the kids are having a different experience than what they would have at the home school because of the peer group.

More correctly, that designation is only on reading and writing. Presumably because, unlike in the other subjects, the students are graded against different standards. If you graded the HGC students on reading at grade-level standards, presumably every one of them would get an ES. Does that mean that the HGC is a "humanities program" No.

Which HGC is providing a different curriculum for subjects other than reading and writing? My child's HGC says that those are the only subjects where an HGC curriculum has been written by MCPS.

[Anonymous]

It used to be all classes were higher at HGC, now it's Humanities. But if in compacted math with a great teacher, your kid is still ahead of most coming out. No more Alg in 6th grade, which is what my older kids got.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It used to be all classes were higher at HGC, now it's Humanities. But if in compacted math with a great teacher, your kid is still ahead of most coming out. No more Alg in 6th grade, which is what my older kids got.

I think it's a good thing that 99% of 6th graders don't take Algebra in MS. There are studies that find that Algebra (as it used to be) is not appropriate for young teens/tweens, and if these younger kids are taking Algebra, then it's usually watered down, and that could be why they have a much harder time when they hit HS math.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Which HGC is providing a different curriculum for subjects other than reading and writing? My child's HGC says that those are the only subjects where an HGC curriculum has been written by MCPS.

I guess that depends on how you define "curriculum". For example, my fourth-grader at the HGC did settlement patterns in the US in the first marking period, but the fourth-graders at the home school were not doing the stuff related to settlement patterns that the fourth-graders at the HGC were doing.

[Anonymous]

My 4th grader didn't study settlement patterns last quarter

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It used to be all classes were higher at HGC, now it's Humanities. But if in compacted math with a great teacher, your kid is still ahead of most coming out. No more Alg in 6th grade, which is what my older kids got.

I think it's a good thing that 99% of 6th graders don't take Algebra in MS. There are studies that find that Algebra (as it used to be) is not appropriate for young teens/tweens, and if these younger kids are taking Algebra, then it's usually watered down, and that could be why they have a much harder time when they hit HS math.

The ship has sailed on that one, what's called Algebra today is not the same course as what was taught before graphing calculators and this is why it is now taught to younger kids. Making kids wait to make it will not bring that rigor back.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My 4th grader didn't study settlement patterns last quarter

See here: http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/curriculum/elementary/parent-guide-traditional-grade4-en.pdf