I'm looking for a school to help very slow learning child

TAG pull-out honestly means "very few TAG services" because usually the schools have the school reading teacher / testing coordinator or librarian add on teaching TAG pull out to their regular duties and no one has time for that, especially because TAG kids are seen as being kids who will do OK no matter what, so they aren't high priority. The pull out program is a separate curriculum which focuses on some problem solving group activities (kids, see if you can build a structure that will support an egg out of newspapers!) which is fine, but it isn't the same as having enriched math and language arts opportunities.

TRC is TAG in the regular Classroom and they want to have at least 7 TAG Identified kids to be placed in one classroom to form a little "cohort" so the kids can get a bit more attention.

TAG in a center program is better, but there are two types of center programs and all are available only through lottery to about 30% of the kids who apply. for Elementary School, Glen Arden Woods and Heather Hills have ONLY TAG-identified students... so for instance there might be 5 TAG 2nd grade classes, 5 TAG 3rd grade classes, etc. in those schools. As a result those schools can put their strongest math students in one class and offer more advanced math classes. The other schools have just 1 TAG class (I think) per grade, and the other grades are comprehensive (neighborhood) kids.

The county uses all 4 types of TAG instruction (pull out, TRC, one class in a center and whole center school) but makes no attempt to match students' needs with type of program. For example, TAG pull out is most useful for students who are moderately gifted while the center schools are most useful for the highly gifted, kids whose needs really can't be met in the neighborhood school.

(the 12-13 you noted, OP, refers to the 2012-2013 school year)

Following up on Anon 17:58 ...

TPO is TAG Pull-Out: There is (usually) one teacher who is handles TAG enrichment and kids are pulled out of their regular classroom for special TAG instruction/programming.

TRC (TAG in the Regular Classroom) is a form of differentiated instruction. The teacher providing TAG services is required to have taken a PGCPS-run class on differentiation and TAG. This ends up clustering TAG kids in one classroom, but it also can allow for high-achieving kids who might have missed being TAG identified to benefit from the additional academic opportunity.

TRC = TAG in the Regular Classroom - in a nutshell they try to group several TAG identified kids together and give them some sort of services that are TAG targeted, but it is in the regular classroom.

Center= full day TAG for those students. Some of the centers have no comprehensive students, others are a Center within a school model I think. They don't bring kids in from other schools to center, it becomes the child's home school if they are selected for it via lottery.

Hope that helps.

The PGCPS on TAG has a list of schools. Some are listed as "Pull Out", Pull-Out/TRC", "Center" and TRC". What is the difference among these? While I understand the Pull-Out part, I don't understand the other ones? Does the one identified as a "Center" mean the entire school population is composed of TAG students or do students from others schools come to visit once a week?

Also, there is a heading of 12-13, which I don't understand as well.

If someone can please explain, I'd appreciate it.



http://www1.pgcps.org/tag/index.aspx?id=32646


Thank you