Discussing Sage Oak's Program for Advanced and Gifted Education (PAGE) with Christy Hartman

Exploring Sage Oak's PAGE Program with Christy Hartman

In this episode of Sage Studio, host Tiffiny Webster welcomes Christy Hartman to discuss the Program for Advanced and Gifted Education (PAGE). Christy explains the PAGE program's goals to cater to the educational needs of gifted students from third to eighth grade, its similarity to the GATE program, and offers insights into PAGE-specific activities including STEM and English Language Arts classes, one-on-one advising, guest speakers, field trips, and parent support groups. The episode also provides information on how students can qualify for the PAGE program.

00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:25 Christy's Background and Role at Sage Oak
01:07 Overview of the PAGE Program
02:21 Comparison Between PAGE and GATE
03:38 Opportunities and Activities for PAGE Students
06:14 One-on-One Advising and Additional Support
09:31 Qualifying for the PAGE Program
12:16 Conclusion and Contact Information

 For more information, contact chartman@sageoak.education or visit the Sage Oak website at www.sageoak.education.

Thank you for listening to the Sage Studio podcast presented by Sage Oak Charter Schools and hosted by Tiffiny Webster, M.A.Ed. We invite you to follow the show and leave your review below. Sage Oak Charter Schools is an independent study nonclassroom based TK-12 personalized learning public charter school serving students in Southern California. Visit sageoak.education for more information.

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Transcript

0:14

Welcome to another episode of Sage Studio. I'm Tiffiny Webster and today I'm joined by the lovely Christy Hartman. Welcome to the show, Christy. Hi, I'm happy to be here. So glad to have you here. Now, if Christy looks familiar to you, it's because she's been here at Sage Oak for a little while, took a break, came back, has a new role, and I'm going to let her tell us all about it. Christy, if our audience is new to you, tell us a little bit about just your history here at Sage Oak, and what you're up to now. I've actually been an educator and an administrator in traditional private and charter schools for about 20 years, mostly charter schools. When I was at Sage Oak previously for four years, I worked in the student services department and helped launch the virtual learning academy during COVID. That was a super fun project. Very busy. Yeah, and it's so neat to see how many kids are enrolled and how well that program is doing. And now I am back and I am actually heading up our PAGE program here, which is our Program for Advanced and Gifted Education. I am so excited to dive into this today because I know this is something that is really meaningful to our students and to our parents for students that qualify to be part of this program. It's a really significant way for them to participate in some unique learning experiences, learning opportunities, field trips. So start us off and just explain what does PAGE mean to you? What for and what is the program about? Yeah, so PAGE stands for Program for Advanced and Gifted Education and it's a program that is specific to Sage Oak Charter School, so we're really proud to offer that. And what we're trying to do is target our students who are gifted and talented and really meet the needs that they have as learners. The program is for students in third through eighth grade And we are trying to provide a community for those students and their families and parents and meet their educational needs and help them to just reach, you know, the highest point of their potential. Now something you said it's for gifted and talented students, which is very similar to GATE, which might be another program that our families are familiar with. So how does PAGE and GATE, are they the same or how are they different? Yeah, great question. So GATE is the term that most students use. It's a program that most families are familiar with, which stands for gifted and talented education, and it's a program that is available in some public traditional schools for gifted and talented students. PAGE is very similar to GATE. PAGE is just Sage Oak's version, I would say, of a GATE program. So if a student was previously in a GATE program at their old school and they come to us, they automatically qualify to be part of PAGE. Okay, and how about is the does it go the other way as well? If students are identified as PAGE students at Sage Oak and they want to transfer to another school, would they be accepted into a GATE program at another school? Yes, most likely, because We designate them as a gifted and talented student in our database, and that would be part of the student's record that goes with them. So when the new school receives their file, they'll see that student was assessed and determined to be gifted and talented, and that should qualify them to participate in any programs like GATE at a new school. Let's talk about what does PAGE offer here at Sage Oak. I know there's a wide range of opportunities. So walk us through some of the things that Sage Oak offers the PAGE students. Sure. So the first thing that we're offering that we're really excited about is our Oak School classes. Sage Oak offers a ton of classes through Oak School, and so we have catered a few of those just to meet the needs of our PAGE students. Okay. So each quarter we're offering a STEM Oak School PAGE class. And in quarter two, which is coming up shortly, the students are doing a STEM food truck class where the students actually get to create their own food truck business. So they get to learn all about advertising and creating a menu and, you know, How do we calculate profit and loss? And how would we design our logo? So we love to blend the science and technology and math and all of those skills together. And students have been having a really fun time in those STEM classes, and then we have a second class for our middle school students. And this is an English Language Arts focused class, because we want to make sure that our gifted and talented students are ready when they get to high school to take advanced coursework, such as AP classes, dual enrollment. And take advantage of all those opportunities, but we want to make sure they have the skill set to be able to do last quarter, or I guess this current quarter, they're learning all about persuasion and rhetorical devices, and then in quarter two, they'll be building on that knowledge, and they'll be doing high interest persuasive writing challenges, like writing letters to persuade people. Wow, that sounds it's a lot of work, but a lot of fun and a lot of integration of a lot of different skills, which I think our students really because there's a way for them to find kind of the nooks and crannies of those types of assignments that they really enjoy while also challenging themselves with some of the newer aspects, Cool. Now with those Oak school classes and some of the other classes that you mentioned, do those take the place of other classes that they would be taking or these PAGE classes kind of supplemental and enrichment types of classes? Yeah. These PAGE classes are supplemental and enrichment. You don't cover all of the standards or have enough material to stand alone. So it's kind of just an extra opportunity for our students to really just engage and to challenge their minds and to kind of think outside the box. I love it. Okay. Now, in addition to some of these Oak School classes that you mentioned there's also some one on one opportunities. There's some guest speakers, some field trips, dive into some of those other opportunities that are also available. Yeah, so another thing that we offer to our PAGE families is one on one advising sessions. And those sessions are with me and they can be booked at any time. during those sessions, we cover things like course selection or curriculum the college admissions process, or just any challenges that parents or students are, you know, having or encountering with their academics. I know as a parent who just sent a student to college, it can be really overwhelming knowing should they take AP or dual enrollment or what should we do now as a seventh or eighth grader to really prepare them? Because what I learned is sometimes. Ninth grade can be too late if you're looking at applying to a competitive college and you really want to start thinking about that as a seventh or eighth grader. So I'm here to share my knowledge and help parents with those one on one advising sessions the best way that I can. And then we're excited to also offer guest speakers for our students. We do have field trip designations. So when the parents go online to sign up for field trips, They can see what field trips really cater to the needs of gifted and talented students. I'm also excited to offer some parent support because as a parent of a gifted student I remember what it was like, and I was like, if she rips up one more writing assignment, I'm just like, I don't know what to do with myself. So we really want to find that. Help parents find that community. So we'll be offering parent support through webinars on different topics that impact gifted and talented students, and we also just got up our Facebook group. So we're really excited. It's a private group just for parents of PAGE students at Sage Oak to share ideas and help encourage each other. I really love that idea because I think that it really is a team effort here, as you mentioned, between the teacher, the student you as the coordinator of the program, the parent, like everyone really has a piece and a role to play in supporting the student. So providing parents. With that extra support. I think it's great because things are going to look a little bit different at home when their child is gifted and has those different needs and those different ways of working or those different expectations on themselves. And maybe the parents having different expectations as well. So I'm glad to hear that you put those things in place. Yeah, definitely. And then we're also excited to offer some virtual classes and workshops opportunities for those students to just engage with each other and do some fun things. And this year, I really want to hear from the parents. So be a lot of surveys of what do parents want? What do they need? We've heard that parents would really like to get together in person. I think definitely since post COVID, we're all just we're never going to take that for granted again. So we're figuring out where would good locations be since we span pretty much all of Southern California. But I'm really excited to kind of start with these basic offerings and then build the program based on what the kids and the parents love and need and want. That when it comes to supporting our students, We always go to the source. We ask them what they're looking for, ask the parents what they need help with, what their interests are, and then build in ways for them to get together and share ideas or to share feedback with you. So I love this. I think this is going to be a really successful program. With that in mind, I'm sure there are many families who would like to know how would they go about qualifying their student to participate in this program? How does that work? Yeah, great question. So a parent can fill out a request to be evaluated for PAGE. They're welcome to contact me directly. They can, through email, chartman at sageoak. education. Or they can just ask their teacher and their teacher can put them in touch with me as well, but basically, they'll review the requirements based on that form. So some of the things that we're looking for our report card history. So we like to see that students are on target or if they're in middle school, they're receiving A's. We're also looking at I ready scores, which should be above grade level and ideally in the 90th percentile. And for students that are old enough to has have cast. Scores. We're looking for students that are predominantly scoring fours on cast, but we realized that not all students fit into that little box. So one of the most important pieces that we get is information from the teachers. So we have the teachers fill out a recommendation form and really give us that anecdotal information about a student so that we can really see the full picture, I would say of that. Any like initial indicators that a parent or a teacher would be on the lookout for, especially at a young age if you're not quite sure, if this is a, something that your student will qualify for, what would be like some of the work habits that you might see, or some of the indicators that you might start to notice where you're like. I think maybe my student might qualify for this type of program. So typically we see that these students are really quick learners. They don't require a ton of direct instruction. You can kind of get them started on something and they roll with it. A lot of these students are strong readers. They maybe were early readers. If you have a younger student and they read above grade level and have good comprehension. Sometimes it's more math focused, right? And we see students that are just, they solve problems very easily. It comes naturally to them, I would say. Oftentimes these students are very inquisitive. So they're the ones that ask us 10, 000 questions because they want to know all about how the world works. And they need to know, they need to know the whys behind everything. And what type of characteristics would you be looking for? Like what, aside from the academic side and the intellectual side, like what other types of characteristics would make a student a great fit for this program? I would say students that are high achievers. they're self motivated. They love to learn. They like a challenge. They're interested in learning new things, just kind of have that thirst and hunger for knowledge. I love that you have put together such an amazing program to address those curiosities. I'm really excited to see where the PAGE program goes. Okay. We will definitely add your email into our show notes so that if any parents want to contact you, they can directly. Also our Sage Oak website is always a great place to go sageoak. education. So parents, if you're interested, we'll have you check that out as well. And then EAs, this always starts with a great conversation when it comes to you know, just being curious about what Sage Oak offers. Talking to your EAs or your TFS about this is a really good spot. Thank you so much for stopping by the podcast today. Again, parents, you can grab Christy's email address at In the show notes below, and please check out Sage Oak. education. If you have any more questions, we would love to help you see if your child qualifies for the PAGE program as well. All right, Christy, thank you so much for stopping by and keep us posted. All right. Thank you. We'll see you on the next one.