MAGE is now accredited!

Las school year, MAGE completed a 2-year process to receive accreditation from the Illinois State Department of Education as a recognized private elementary and High school for grades junior kindergarten through twelfth grade.

In addition, MAGE completed the relocation to a new facility at 900 North Franklin Street, Chicago, IL 60610, in order to increase the number of students that MAGE is able to serve. The facility now includes 2 STEM labs, a library with over 5,000 titles, a cafeteria and a gym, among many other features.

CPS Accelerated Placement+Illinois GIFTED/AP REPORTING

State Advocacy and Gifted Legislature Info:

A big win for Illinois Gifted families! The GIFTED/AP REPORTING bill that we’ve invited you to support via witness slips passed both Illinois Senate and House and now sits with the Governor. You can follow the bill here.

CPS Advocacy ad Gifted Policy Info:

If you think that your chance to advocate for gifted children is on now on hiatus, think again. A very important window to enter public comment on the CHICAGO PUBLIC SCHOOLS ACCELERATED PLACEMENT ACT closes tomorrow, Monday, May 22nd. There is no progressive policy happening, if anything, it’s a regression.

• This is the link for the current rule:

• This is the link for the amended rule:

• This is the link for public comment, open until some time on Monday, 22 of May.  

• This is the link to our previous coverage and analysis of this policy:

Since we did the analysis and work up, CPS dropped single and whole grade acceleration for grades 3 and 7. We missed the memo on that one.  Now, only grades 4-6 are included, though students still can get early K and early 1st entry;  

The disappointments in this policy are:

• IAR is required and is not objective, alternatives are not included.

• No whole grade or single subject acceleration outside of grades 4-6

• Still no multiple year skips

• No local norms

• No appeals and a limited application window 

• Nothing for kids new to CPS from outside the district, or those wanting to switch schools.

• There is an interesting note about PSAT and SAT and elementary students, which makes no sense since CPS doesn’t administer those and it is hard to find those for elementary students that are not attending gifted private schools.

If you wish to leave public comment about the changes OR, alternatively, lack of changes or considerations, you only have until Monday, May 22nd, 2023. Sign up for our newsletter to not miss out on future notices.

Coronavirus STEM: Part 4

We have been sharing some math activities around coronavirus. Some fresh problems:

Problem 1. It takes, on average, 4.5 days to develop symptoms of coronavirus from the time the person is infected and the person may already be contagious before showing symptoms. It takes about 14 days to recover from the time you show symptoms. The person continues to be contagious for up to 2 weeks after all symptoms are gone. How long is a person with coronavirus contagious from the time they are exposed to the virus, and should practice social distancing?

Problem 2. The federal government has limited every federal site to 250 tests per day in Illinois. We have 3 Federal sites. How many tests is the federal government making available in Illinois daily at this time?

Problem 3. Using the current doubling rate, use the graph below to estimate the number of cases in one week.

Problem 4. Using the communicability rate of 2.2 infections for every infected person, how many people will the currently ill people will infect? Compare that to the answer from problem 2 and discuss the similarity or difference.

Coronavirus STEM: Part 3

Here are some fresh Coronavirus STEM problems for you, in order of difficulty.

Problem 1. 4-digit subtraction word problem. You can increase the difficulty of this and choose to make this more of a science/language arts project by a. having the students find the data online themselves or reading the article without having the data component pointed out to them.

In the latest article from Crains, the following data is available. “As of today, 63 percent of the 2,589 intensive care unit beds in hospitals across Illinois were occupied, as were 59 percent of medical/surgical beds and 32 percent of ventilators, which are used to help patients with severe COVID-19 symptoms breathe, according to data from the state’s Department of Public Health. The state has slightly increased its capacity of beds and ventilators since March 16, when 73 percent of the 2,578 ICU beds and 40 percent of the 2,144 ventilators were in use.“

Use the previous Crains article for this data.

By how how many units did the state increase ICU and Ventilator Capacity in Illinois in the last week?

Problem 2. Multiplication/percentage problem: Same as above for data, but with a % increase.

Problem 3. For students with more skills, same as above, but use our previously posted data under this category to update the chart to see how many days it will be before the state will run out of these two resources given any available rate for ICU and ventilator use.

Problem 4. Building on problem 3, by how much will we be short of scarce resources by March 30 and April 6? You can find rates of ICU, Ventilator and Hospital Bed use in our previous post article links. Now, compare this data to the latest Governor update, and write a sentence about your findings.

Problem 5. Using the data on the City of Chicago Web site, compare the rate of hospitalization for coronavirus to the rate of hospitalization globally. What do you notice about the rate of hospitalization in Chicago, vs. in China, or the world, etc? Why do you think the numbers are same/different? Use the previously posted articles and sources if needed, and here’s another good source of data. Use the hospitalization rate in Chicago (pls note that more people will be hospitalized for coronavirus but not counted in the hospitalization number because only some of those people are tested, so these are not accurate as we are not testing everyone that should be) to estimate the real number of Coronavirus infections in Chicago. If you make the assumption that the numbers of under or over-estimation of cases evidenced by your answer are mirrored in the rest of the state, calculate a more realistic number of cases of coronavirus infections statewide, using the Illinois Coronavirus State Dept of Public Health data.

Coronavirus STEM: Part 2.

If you are following along, our students have been doing some basic collecting and modeling of Illinois Coronavirus stats. We recently created a petition for shelter-in-place a part of our study of civics, and of course, we claimed “victory” as the shelter-in-place was achieved.

If you read our previous article here with some Coronavirus Math problems, here is a sample current graph. The data was collected from the Illinois Department of Public Health which relies primarily on the Federal Coronavirus Test and has just recently started to report some private test facility data, with a lack of clarity as to the completeness of that integration.

Some possible facts:

We should run out of ICU beds on 3/30 at latest, unless capacity has been expanded in the last week.

We should run out of ventilators on 4/3 at the latest, unless new ones have been purchased by IL hospitals.

Take the shelter in place to heart, people. Even if you don’t get coronavirus with complications or pass it to someone who is vulnerable, if you have some serious injury, there may not be space for you for whatever else that may befall you, like normal flu complications.

As the number of cases increases, the number of available supplies such as ICU beds and ventilators runs out, and then the death toll starts rising more rapidly.

Coronavirus Math+Civics+Science+ English+SEL all in one!

Moving class online for the outbreak does not remove the need to discuss the outbreak. Students really want to understand the purpose of social distancing. Students are worried. Students want to know how long before things return to normal, are they going to catch the virus, and is anyone they know going to die. Some students are too sensitive to talk about their strong feelings in the classroom, yet others need the classroom as a safe space to explore their strong emotions.

Our students are very interested in the progression of the outbreak, and they want to feel like they can do something about it. And they can! They are launching a petition to help stop the spread of Coronavirus. They have been asking all sorts of questions and have been doing some very cool math based on current events and articles. We want to share some of these with you and we wanted to share your students’ cool Coronavirus math with us. It is terrifying, and it is terrible, but talking about their emotions while processing the complex information about the virus in a cross-disciplinary approach is powerful, and provides a creative and appropriate outlet. They are reading the news anyway, and they are already concerned, and this gives. them the outlet to manage these concerns and information.

The data and information coming in about the pandemic is rich in opportunity for a multidisciplinary study. Here are some examples:

Problem #1. Calculate infection or death doubling rate in your state and graph it. Our state is Illinois. Our state has now reported 16 days worth of data here. The way the data is reported, is that you can’t see it. You can mine it from the press releases the state publishes daily, but mostly you have to copy it daily. This is something that even the younger students can do at 3PM Central Time for the day, or the next morning here in Illinois and could easily be done with regular math students in 5th grade and up completely, and the graphing can be done with even the younger students, if you are following US Common Core.

Problem #2, building on Problem 1. How many days before the infection rate in your state reaches 1 million at the current doubling speed?

Problem #3, building on Problem 1. Using the articles in citation below, and the doubling rate from Problem 1 (feel free to use your state/country data instead):

• How many days before we run out of beds in ICU, assuming that patients using the beds have not died and have not gotten better (are continuing to use the beds).

• How many days before we run out of ventilators, assuming that patients using the ventilators have not died and have not gotten better (are continuing to use the ventilators).

• In 30 days, what magnitude fewer will there be available equipment vs. need?

• Civics bonus: what can/should be done about this?

Citations:

1. Guan WJ, Ni ZY, Hu Y, Liang WH, Ou CQ, He JX, et al. Clinical characteristics of coronavirus disease 2019 in China. N Engl J Med. 2020. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa2002032.

2. Coronavirus threatens health system capacity, STEPHANIE GOLDBERG, Crains Chicago Business, March 17, 2020

Please, send us links to your math problems and solutions below. We will update this shortly with our graphs and answers.

5 Fun Online Class Community-Building Activities

Did your classroom suddenly find itself immersed in online instruction? Your students are starving for social interaction. Your academic instructional success is now even more dependent on building community and shared experience. It’s the glue that will hold your classroom together and bring cooperation and respect during this stressful time. Time to roll out some fun.

1. Break up your week with show-and-tell. Your students will forever try to wave items at the screen as they get used to the new normal. Tell them up front that they will have a certain number of minutes on a specific day to show and share instead. They will look forward to that day and save up their sharing.

2. Run a remote class project: civics, yearbook, or cookbook, dance-off.

3. Yoga and mindfulness. Focus your students at the start of the school day with this 2-minute, 5-finger breathing technique (and 4 others bundled in). You can start building your students mindfulness and meditation with this fun and easy entry-level activity. For tomorrow, send a note to the parents to ask them to find a thick blanket or yoga mat for the use of their student. Pro-tips: Don’t let your students do this on heights, join them, and remind them that trying something new is hard, and every body can do different things, especially the first time. Tomorrow, you can level up with some Harry Potter Yoga. For older kids, try grown-up yoga options.

4. Students can play students remotely with some old-fashioned battleship. Draw your own grid board on a piece of paper, you need not have more.

5. Themed days: crazy hair, pajama day, favorite literary character, and so on. Just because you are online, doesn’t mean that you can’t do it.

About MAGE: We are a not for profit, parent-and-teacher-volunteer founded private gifted school in the City of Chicago. As a school, we have been hard at work on Blended Classroom option for our fall term, due to demand from down-state and out-of-state students within day-trip driving distance who need acceleration. Suddenly, we had to implement our plans 7 months early! This took some creativity and hard work, but we thought we’d share some of our successes and lessons learned with you as you are going through this hard time. Our full-time program, including the new online option has open enrollment. Students must qualify as per our Admissions Criteria that can be found here. There is a parent interview and a required shadow, along with a teacher recommendation component and a qualifying test document submission. Our process is slow because of our all-volunteer admissions team but we are working to streamline the process.

Pam Katz joins MAGE Advisory Council

In January, MAGE welcomed a new Advisory Board Council member, Pam Katz. Pam is a practicing Licensed Clinical Social Worker for over 20 years. Pam developed her passion working with individuals with educational, social, and emotional needs when working as a school social worker for 15 years. During her tenure as a school social worker, Pam helped develop and implement social emotional learning curriculum with students and support staff in the delivery of these programs. Pam also worked with students with varying learning needs including students with learning disabilities, gifted students, and twice exceptional students. 

Pam transitioned to her private practice 7 years ago, where she works with children, adolescents, adults, and families. She specializes in working with individuals with anxiety, depression, ADHD, learning differences, and trichotillomania. Pam tends to use Acceptance and Commitment therapy as her theoretical framework, and actively serves on an international and Chicago board in the larger Acceptance and Commitment Therapy community. Pam is also a trained educational advocate, having attended two summer institute programs as William and Mary Law School and earning a certificate in special education advocacy. Pam has provided trainings to organizations, schools, and parent groups on topics related to advocating for children, anxiety and emotional management. Pam has lived in the Chicagoland area all of her life, and is the mother of three teenagers, included a twice exceptional child.  

Pam will sit on the Social Emotional Committee of the Advisory Board. To learn more about the MAGE Professional Advisory Council, please click here.

Local Davidson Events

The Davidson Academy in Reno, Nevada, serves profoundly gifted students in grades 6+ for FREE with residency local to them. They also have a paid online school. Davidson Young Scholars is a free program that supports PG kids and their families also run by the Davidson Institute. Joining DYS requires IQs over 145 or equivalent achievement, roughly, and they now take the PSAT scores as well as SAT. You can find out more about talent searches from Northwestern CTD at our Free Chicago Gifted Resource Fair on January 12!

Davidson will be at our our Free Chicago Gifted Resource Fair on January 12, but if you are missing the events, you can also go see them at these two alternatives:

• Friday, January 3, 4:30-7 p.m. at Capital One Café, 3435 N Southport Ave, Chicago, IL 60657

• Friday, January 10, 4:30-7 p.m. at Panera Bread, 25 Rice Lake Square, Wheaton, IL 60187

If you are interested in attending, please RSVP at bit.ly/2020daoopenhousereg.

They also have virtual open houses.

Why are we, a local gifted school, plugging other schools? Because there are enough gifted kids to go around, and then some - there are not enough seats anywhere for all of them and not enough services. If we can’t meet the needs of your student, we sure hope someone will and are happy to help you find that path. More options is great for all! We are an option for gifted students in grades K through 12, with both full and part time, live and in person classes at all grade levels, running in January. We are the only gifted K12 private school in Illinois, and we are the only 130+ one as well. In fact, we specialize in HG+ students whose needs can’t be met in the regular classroom and who routinely need many years of acceleration in one or more areas. We are grade and homework free. We focus on fostering the love of learning. We do not measure compliance. We believe in encouraging students to follow their unique interests. We are low pressure - the gifted put enough pressure on themselves as it is. We believe that young students, especially, benefit from daily social interaction with intellectual peers and an in-person teacher. We also believe that because these kids learn so quickly, there is time in the day for proper recess, and time in the week for some fun. Each of our students has a unique individual learning plan developed in a team approach between teacher, student, and parents. You can come learn about us, or Davidson, or Northwestern at the Chicago Gifted Resource Fair. The more resources for the gifted, the better!

And that's a wrap for our first term!

Yesterday, we wrapped up our first term of enrichment classes in our first commercial space. A big thanks to all of our students, supporters, and teachers, for making it all happen, we couldn’t have done it without each and every one of you. What a year 2019 has been! Not bad for an organization that will turn 2 in March.

We have done so much! We have participated in a bunch of math contests, including AMC, for the first time as an organization. We have started 3 teams - Lego/Robotics, Odyssey of the Mind, and Math. We have ran several free Parent Education Workshops, including Gifted 101, “What is 2e”, and Gifted Legal Rights. We held free elementary math circles for grades 1-4. Students learned Latin, how to build a fire and an outdoor hoop house, stood on the continental divide and identified prairie plants, fished, made an arrowhead, ran in the woods, searched for fossils, cleaned up a beach, participated in mathematical research, and created amazing comic books.

We are back on January 11th with auditions for Hamilton, January 12 for the Chicago Gifted Resources Fair, and then on to our second term of enrichment starting on January 13th.

In addition, January 13th will bring us to another extremely exciting milestone - our first day of full-time school, Elementary through High school. We didn’t think we would have all 3 - Elementary, Middle and High school running in our very first full term, but that’s how our enrollment went. We do have plenty of room still at every grade level as we are still brand new. Our programs are catered to and built around our admitted students.

Is your gifted child ready for a change? January 8-12 are the last days to have family admissions interviews if you would like to not miss that first day of school on January 13th, 2020. On on, MAGE! Adventure awaits.

Admissions is standing by the phone to help answer any questions that you might have. (312) 600-5571.

November blues-part 2

Our phone has been ringing off the hooks with - “it has been so hard!,” “wow, we just can’t go back,” or “I don’t know if we can make it even to winter break.” Welcome to the week after Thanksgiving. We just wanted to share that you are not alone. If your child’s school is not a fit and we had to rank the hardest weeks of the year in school, this would be the second hardest week of the entire school year.

What happens is this. The other, regular children, may have had a great start or not, to the school year. By October, everyone mostly settles in to their classroom. The gifted child, especially with new hope in a new school, may have had a great time for 1-2 months. But now the honeymoon is over, and they are going out of their minds from boredom and infinite busy work.

In September, gifted children hear: “you will get to learn after assessments in 2 weeks.”

In October, when they ask again, they hear “we will start differentiation in November, after everyone has settled in.”

In November… well that’s when it all falls apart. The empty promises, the holding it together while doing busy work, are about enough. Behavior and emotional turmoil start escalating leading up to Thanksgiving break, and on the other side of the holiday, kids start to really flip.

You are not alone. We are here to help. Whether it is helping you find the right language and resources to advocate for your child in their school, finding enrichment options to make the lack of learning in school more bearable, or giving you a fresh new school option focused exclusively on the needs of gifted students all the way through profoundly gifted and or multiple years ahead in one or more subjects, we will pick up the phone and help you if you call. If you have to leave a message, then please be patient, we are probably helping another tearful parent. November sucks. But if you don’t fix it now… The second week of January is coming and it’s a whole lot worse. We know because we’ve been there and that’s why we created MAGE.

What’s at risk is the child’s self image, love of learning, and their emotional state overall. What’s worse than unwanted behavior in the classroom? Shutdown. Depression. What may be fun and enjoyable for neurotypical children can amount to nothing short of torture for the gifted. If you don’t have a strategy, now’s the time to call. (312) 600-5571.

Weekend, evening, and home-schooler winter enrichment enrollment for is now open!

MAGE January Term weekend, evening, and homeschooler enrichment enrollment is now open. We have a unique line-up of programs that will surprise you. Hands-on Archaeology, Hamilton the Musical, Robotics and Math Teams, Latin, and much more. With over 30 options to choose from, we are here to support your child’s unique interests. Of course, full-time admissions for January are still an option, should your child be experiencing a mismatch and you find yourself ready for gifted education.

A full list of programs is here.

View winter schedule at a glance here.

View fall schedule at a glance here.

November blues

“Give it until October,” say most teachers, experts, experienced parents. Your child will settle into their… new school, classroom, routine, etc. Funny thing though with gifted kids. They are actually frequently fine in September, and October. But come November - they’ve had it. That’s when our phone starts ringing. Now’s a good time to be one of those callers, if you need advice or to make a change. If you are hurting, we are here. The other time when sometimes it gets hard, is half past January. The longer you wait, the more school damage there will be for us to undo. Usually, our first priority is to help your child feel safe, decompress, and get them back to having self agency and a desire to learn. Once kids are burned out, it’s very hard to engage them. Some shut down, some show other ways to express their anxiety and or depression. We are here to put the fun back in school. We will pick up the phone and it’s ok if you cry.