Gifted Jaguars and Eagles

I wanted to take this time to tell you that I have stepped down as the high school gifted and talented coordinator for next fall. I have worked with the GT dept since 2012 and I have loved growing as a teacher by working with this departement, GT students and their families. I am really excited that I was a part of expanding our program to both high schools and to junior year. This pandemic has been hard on all of us and I have decided to return to the classroom full time next year. I will continue to teach the DA 9 and 10 social studies classes at Kennedy. Your students will be in great hands! Lisa Kiner, who is a DA teacher at OGMS, will be our new high school GT coordinator. She has a lot of experience as a teacher and as a parent which will help her serve our students well! Please welcome Lisa in the fall into this new role. I will just be an email away so please always feel like you can reach out! I hope your school year is wrapping up well and that you'll have a

ON May 23rd 41 Dimensions Academy 9th graders (from both the STEM and Humanities programs) went on a campus visit and tour to the University of MN Twin Cities. Students had the opportunity to ask questions and to start thinking about what they want in a college and in what colleges are looking for in applicants. I will take the sophomores to Macalester in June. We have historically done campus visits but because of COVID this was our first one in a long time!

In May I'll be taking DA students to the U of M and to Macalester. One of my goals is to help them think about what types of questions to ask on a tour. I thought this article was helpful: https://grownandflown.com/14-best-questions-to-ask-on-campus-tours/?utm_medium=socialflow&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR2nnhj6RsZ34zZU-Cq2RtSY9iKUpIO2wweCl4-4pOhpku7Q_mkh5Yh3iq8

A lot of juniors are thinking about upcoming college visits and seniors are in the process of deciding their plans for next year. I found think article very interesting: https://grownandflown.com/what-students-should-look-for-choosing-college/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=socialflow&fbclid=IwAR3V-uf1Kgqn-hQhg04yhUISlxyoILpIPBSfgIKQvK7uYjF31vwzij1zJlM

I am taking the DA 10th graders to Macalester College for a campus tour and visit on June 3rd .  I will give out the permission slips this week.  The GT dept asks for $7 to cover transportation but no one will be required to pay.  But I DO need the permission slip signed by a parent or guardian.  Students will need to bring money for lunch or their own lunch because we will also have lunch on campus.  My expectation is that students will miss periods 1-4 that day.  Thanks.  Meredith

DA 9 Humanities On March 17th students in AP Comparative Politics did a conflict in Ukraine role play. As a part of the course we are covering Russian, Chinese, and British politics. In the role play they discussed the current conflict in Ukraine from the perspectives of Sergey Lavrov (Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation), Sergiy Kyslytsya (Ukraine's U.N. Ambassador), Anthony Blinken (US Secretary of State), Jens Stoltenberg (NATO Secretary General), Wang Yi (Chinese Foreign Minister), and António Guterres (UN Secretary-General). It was an interactive and engaging way for students to see how the different points of view on the conflict make it challenging to resolve.