August 30th, 2021
Dear Gifted & Talented Parents and Families,
Welcome to the 2021-2022 school year! Hopefully, the year is off to a good start for both you and your student. We are excited to have our hallways and classrooms full of energized and enthusiastic young people!
This year will be my second year as the Facilitator for Gifted and Talented Programming at RHMS. I also serve as the Professional Learning Specialist for our building. I am fortunate to have both of these roles at Rocky Heights as they allow me to work with, and support, our amazing teachers AND our awesome students. It truly is the best of both worlds!
One important focus for us this year will be helping our students create meaningful and purposeful academic and affective ALP goals. We want our GT students to be passionate about the goals they set and pursue. We never want our students in a place where their goals are meaningless, dull, or cumbersome. In the next few weeks, I will be partnering with you, your students, and our classroom teachers to start the process of creating new academic and affective ALP goals for this year. If your student has not already accepted an invitation to join his or her grade-level GT Google Classroom course, please have them do this as soon as possible. We would love for our students to invite you, their parents and guardians, to be a part of the Google Classroom as well! Google Classroom will be our primary platform for news, resources, goal-setting activities, and progress monitoring activities this year.
I want to also encourage you to check out our new GT Programming page on the Rocky Heights MS website. You can find this page under the “Parent Information” Tab. This page is a work in progress, but we hope to continually build on it as the year progresses so that it becomes a “one stop shop” for updates, information, opportunities, and resources related to all things GT. This page also lists contact information for our entire GT team at RHMS. We have many incredible people who are specifically invested in the success of your GT student. Please feel free to reach out to any of us at any time.
As we navigate this year together, please encourage your student to seek assistance from me, their classroom teachers, and/or their counselors as needs arise. I look forward to working with you and your student this year!
Best,
Emily Manuel
Professional Learning Specialist
GT Facilitator
Email: [email protected]