It is mandated
by state law (as you've seen). Districts must now report their TAG membership as part of the Spring data collection
on an individual student basis. It will be easy to find the districts that are not following the law. TAG
will also be a category for reporting on the next school and district report card. (Your local patrons will be able
to see how TAG-identified students are doing on the state assessments.) Also, TAG identification and services are part
of the Division 22 assurances a district superintendent signs each year showing that the district is meeting state standards
for operation. Schools that are found to be out of compliance with state standards can, ultimately, lose their state
funding.
Do districts provide information to you about services they
provide to these students?
The law does not require that districts
submit their TAG plans to ODE unless they are applying for a TAG grant, which means that I can only require them to provide
me a copy if there is a complaint or lawsuit. But the law says that districts must have this plan.
What happens
to districts who don't provide opportunities for TAG students?
They might be sued by parents and
students. They might be found out of compliance with the Division 22 standards which could result in loss of state money.
Many districts provide their TAG services by differentiating instruction in the regular classroom.
We are all operating with limited
resources. But you probably noticed that the TAG laws and rules do not mention "money" when they require compliance.
The mandate is simple: 1) Districts and schools will identify TAG students, and 2) TAG students will be educated at
their rate and level of learning. Since this is not something included on the Report Card, services for these students,
or lack of services for these students, will become much more obvious. Since it is now possible to link the
identification data to the state assessment data, it will also provide parents with a better view of whether their TAG students
are showing growth in their learning. I suspect that parents will be looking for increasing RIT scores for these high-end
learners.
For more information about TAG, contact:
Andrea Morgan,
Education Specialist
Office of Educational Improvement and Innovation (OEII)
Oregon Department of Education
255 Capitol St. NE
Salem,
OR 97310-0203
(503) 378-3600 x2289
andrea.morgan@state.or.us
TAG program notes
from a conversation with Lara Rehkonen, TAG Coordinator for the Department of Education on 6/28/02.
Lara
works 32% of her time on TAG, 68% of her time is spent on Special Education.
School districts are required to identify
TAG students in grades K-12. They decide how they will identify these students. But usually, it's by IQ tests
or students who score in the 97th percentile on state tests. Occasionally a student is identified as having "potential"
by a teacher.
School districts must assess the student's abilities, adjust their level of instruction and
move students quickly through their program so that they are challenged. State law requires that they must be learning
new material on a regular basis. School districts are also required to have a meeting with teachers, parents and counselors
to develop an individual education program.
TAG student programs must be evaluated on a regular basis. TAG kids
must be with students of like ability (putting them in a classroom with average students and handing them an advanced math
book is not in compliance with the state law). They must have interaction with other gifted students.
One thing
that Lara said was that it is especially important for TAG students to be with other TAG students so that they have peers
they can relate to. Otherwise, they tend to be embarrassed by their difference and it makes them want to hide their
intelligence.
If a student is not being challenged, these are the steps Lara suggested that you take to remedy
the situation:
