This is why, to date, we have mostly enriched at home, and supported the school as they worked with him on how to see when he is in trouble and how to control resulting impulses. Honestly - whenever he wants to learn something academic, it happens instantaneously. So I figured that if I could keep the spark alive at home, it was OK to work on the 2nd-e at school for now.
I am not quite sure I understand how the school can help him with his 2e though, if they don't know about it? That's confusing me a bit. Do they know he's dysgraphic, and just accepted what you have told them without seeing the actual reports?
But this school district - in the heart of Silicon Valley mind you - has NO gifted education services of any kind. There is no gifted ed rep, no gifted specialists anywhere,
Which may very likely mean... no matter how hard you advocate you'll get nowhere. I don't meant to sound like Nancy Negative about that - I definitely am not saying don't advocate! Just realistically thinking you may be stuck in a place that has a rigid mindset and/or lack of funds or something beyond you're capability to change the situation.
and they have an allergic reaction any time "gifted" is mentioned.
I had to giggle over that one. Long story why, but it made me lol!
And "gifted" is all over DS's assessments. I just don't even know how to raise "gifted" in the SST or share his cognitive assessments without having everybody just shut down.
I think (and this is just guessing since I am not there and don't actually know the people involved at your school)... but... I think you can raise it by showing them the assessments and introducing them as "these assessments show what ds' challenges are" (don't use those words, just highlighting the approach. Use the evaluations to explain the dysgraphia and stealth dyslexia, but within that explanation they see the data (and you can explain it) that shows he's PG. Point out that that exacerbates the challenging situation.
I don't have any research or articles at hand that show that 2e students learn how to overcome their 2nd e challenges quicker or easier or better if they are placed academically where their intellect should place them, but we saw that with our 2e ds - in a huge way. He was a kid who could not generate ideas to write *at all* when faced with an open-ended question. It was a huge issue for him, took literally 5 years of speech therapy to get past it, and he's still working at it. But - there was a huge upswing in progress when he was given work at his intellectual level and taught/accommodated what needed to be taught/remediated in order to work at that level. If anyone out there has anything you could take pointing to an actual scientific validity to that idea, it would be really useful to have with you at the meeting.
So this meeting is all about behavior because I've never uttered the word "gifted" and you can bet your last dollar that they won't!
Refocus - this meeting is all about behavior because there is a behavior issue. I hope that doesn't sound harsh - that's not my intent at all
I just think that's the way to look at the meeting, and use this approach:
Behavior challenge exists -> You share past assessments showing challenges and IQ -> You tie behavior to the challenges -> You advocate that the best way to alleviate the problem behaviors is to accommodate and remediate *at his appropriate instructional level*.
Memorize some key phrases before you go into the meeting, to be sure you get your point across. I actually used to write my "key phrases" down in my notes for the meetings so that I wouldn't forget to toss them out somewhere in the heat of the moment! One key phrase for you would be to, first, get through the chunk of the meeting where you try to get the school staff to see the correlation between challenge, frustration, and behavior, and then you throw out your key phrase such as "Imagine functioning at this level cognitively and not being able to write a complete sentence (or whatever the challenge is). It's no wonder ds is having a difficult time in class." Then direct the discussion back to how accommodation or remediation might work for challenge x, and bring in the request of higher level of intellectual challenge here.
[quote[Maybe though it's time for me to buck up and trust them a little. The assessment results were so helpful for us at home. If they'll just SEE them without barfing at "gifted" (or heaven forfend - "profoundly gifted"), it could really help. [/quote]
My guess is they'll see the other (dysgraphia) etc over the IQ. I've found that anything written out in straightforward language in an assessment garners more attention from teachers and school staff than either IQ #s or achievement test #s.
I might consider highlighting the specific concerns and/or recommendations in the reports that you'd like to focus the school staffs' attention on.
I also have another key phrase that I take to these meetings, in the event anyone questions the validity of a diagnosis or report etc: "So, let me clarify. You are saying you don't trust the opinion of a degreed, certified, etc neuropsychologist who is highly respected in our community?" That little phrase usually stops the report-attacks on the spot
Be brave! You're doing a great job thinking through all of this
polarbear
