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Many parents of talented and gifted kids, also known as TAG students, struggle with giving their children the appropriate levels of academic challenge and support. While public schools are striving to create greater TAG programs and courses, many parents are seeking out enrichment opportunities to supplement their child’s public school experience.

Parents looking for additional educational opportunities for TAG kids in public schools can take advantage of an array of community organizations, private institutions, events, and programs.

How Parents Can Support their TAG Child

As many TAG children may exhibit a greater desire for academic challenges and new opportunities, experts assert that parents should strive to balance a child’s academic activities with social ones. The balance will ensure that each student develops not only mentally, but personally and socially as well.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement, most gifted kids generally benefit from spending time in settings amidst peers of similar abilities. Subsequently, many TAG children can benefit from skipping grades or engaging in accelerated classes. If TAG children stay in regular classrooms, they may need alternative opportunities to enhance their overall development.

TAG children require both mental stimulation and access to cognitively equal peer experiences. Therefore, parents, in addition to taking action with a child’s school, can also expose their child to alternative support opportunities as well.

This video from Raising Children's Network offers suggestions for supporting your talented and gifted child.

While nearly all public schools are required to provide specific programs to help support the needs of struggling students, many public school leaders and parents assert that students with gifted abilities should be entitled to the same opportunities.

With the success of these special needs programs, which include one-on-one support, smaller class sizes, and modified curriculum options, many public schools are beginning to apply the same approach for gifted children, creating programs and classes that are targeted to their unique needs and abilities. “TAG” programs, which stand for “Talented and Gifted,” are growing in popularity in public schools. Proponents believe that TAG programs will help gifted students to enhance their own diverse learning abilities.

This video explains what gifted education entails.

Who are “Gifted” Students?

Each TAG student possesses unique and diverse abilities, and subsequently, many public schools and states have their own forms of “gifted” assessments. For example, the adhere to a strict state-mandated law regarding the assessment and qualifications of TAG children. According to Des Moines Public Schools, TAG students are required to meet an array of criteria, including:

• Students who require classroom/curriculum modifications, including differentiation, advanced class placements, and/or accelerated pacing.
• Students who demonstrate a high potential for advanced learning.
• Student performance scores within the 95^th percentile on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, the Cognitive Abilities Test, and/or the

In recent decades, public schools find themselves facing the greater needs of diverse student populations, with varying cognitive abilities, maturity levels, and academic strengths and weaknesses. While most typical elementary, middle, and high school students find themselves immersed in a classroom of twenty to thirty peers with one lead teacher, most public schools also have “self-contained” classrooms to provide alternative settings for enhanced academic support for the children whose needs cannot be fully met in a general education classroom.

What are Self-Contained Classrooms?

Unlike standard classrooms with a large number of peers, self-contained classrooms are typically smaller settings with a fewer number of students. Created to help foster enhanced support for students with special needs or specific difficulties, self-contained rooms are generally comprised of about ten students with unique struggles who are most commonly instructed by a lead teacher with a certification in special education. Self-contained classrooms will also have at least one paraeducator who provides instructional support under the guidance of the classroom teacher.

Due to recent curriculum shifts, some self-contained rooms cater to the diverse needs of students, such as those coping with autism spectrum disorder. A lead teacher, who is highly trained to help support students with autism, is able to provide greater assistance than what these students would typically receive in a classroom with a larger student-to-teacher ratio. Other examples of students who may be enrolled in self-contained rooms include students with developmental issues, behavioral concerns, students with specific academic struggles (i.e. in math,

To provide students with academic, social, and personal enrichment opportunities year-round, many public schools and national institutions have created unique and diverse summer programs. With programs focusing on core subject areas, such as math and language, in addition to programs that spotlight team development and leadership skills, students of all ages can benefit from the exclusive perks of summer programs.

Stimulate Academic Advancement and Cognitive Development

For students who struggle in specific academic areas, or for students who demonstrate exceptional academic abilities in core areas, summer programs that focus on academic instruction allow students to enhance their cognitive skills and abilities. For example, as the American Mathematical Society reveals in their list of summer camps and programs, there are hundreds of local universities, public schools, and community colleges that provide kids with the opportunity to engage in mathematical practice, research, and investigations.

While these opportunities, in any subject area, will provide students with unique and engaging intervention activities and lessons, many of the academic programs also help support personal development and social development advancements as well.

In this video, Socratica offers 5 reasons for attending summer school.

For example, in thoroughly investigating the array of summer math programs across the country, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) directs an academically rigorous math camp with a unique social twist; the UNL camp caters specifically to young girls ranging from grades 10 through 12. Striving to