Seriously, why is it so hard to advocate for GT kids?
Why don't teachers and administrators "get" it?
We have struggled all year to get DD8 challenged in school. She has never had to work much at school, and we've begun to notice she's developed a laziness regarding challenge. If it looks hard, better to skip it or guess.
We talked to the principle last December about acceleration. Surprisingly, he was all for it. This would have put her in 4th grade for the last half of the year. But there was concern from the school she wouldn't qualify for 5th grade honors math by the end of the school year. So they gave her the placement test to see how she would do. Unfortunately, she didn't score well. Then she was given a 3rd grade math test which she aced.
So the principle said DD8 clearly understood 3rd grade math and needed to move onto 4th grade math topics. Hooray! But then he delegated duties out and it all fell apart. By the time a plan was put into place for DD8 to learn 4th grade material in her 3rd grade class, it was March. Plus the teacher insisted on re-evaluating her on 3rd grade math concepts even though she demonstrated good conceptual understanding of the material.
By April, another meeting with the teachers took us another step back. Now DD8 would be doing 3rd grade math lessons when the teacher felt it was a good fit. And all that 4th grade learning she was supposed to be doing in class? Well, now that has to be done at home. Grrrrrr.
Now it's May. I asked to have DD8 re-tested for placement into 5th grade honors with the hope she can skip grade 4 math next year. I had looked through the 4th grade standards the teacher provided and felt like DD8 would do well. She didn't have a lot of formal teaching on the conepts, but like a lot of GT kids, she apparently picked it up anyway. But the administrator said he couldn't keep giving her the test over and over, so he could give it to her one more time and the results would determine placement next year no matter what. Not that I was going to take this guy's word as gospel, but I decided to wait until mid-summer to have DD8 retested just to make sure (we'll review the math in the meantime).
So frustrating. Whenever DH and I talk to the teachers, they treat us like we're pushing DD8 instead of advocating. They insist on re-evaluating her on material she already proved to understand. And they fell through on their plan to enrich her during class. Now we have an ultimatum regarding math placement testing: pass the test or stay in 4th grade math.
Why is it so stinking hard to get through to these people?
