We moved states this December from one high achieving school district to another. In our old district my son who is currently in 3rd grade was formally identified as gifted in 1st grade after some testing and classroom projects. (WISC-V score 148). He is naturally talented in Math. He skipped 1st grade math after acc. exam at the beginning of 1st grade and starting doing 2nd grade math. His math teacher in 3rd grade recommended 4th grade math acceleration test. That test is very rigorous and the students are required to explain their thinking. He passed that and started doing 5th grade math as a 3rd grade. He became the 2nd student in 10 years to get accelerated twice.This is when he finally started learning new things, the pace and the content was just right for him. His NWEA scores went up.
We moved due to job change, this school doesn't have a pull out gifted program but they have ability grouped classes and the 3rd graders in high ability class do 4th grade math. it has been 3 weeks now and my son feels like he repeating what he did previously and it is all so easy. He mentioned that he was getting good grades in 5th grade math so why he has been put back in 4th grade at this new school.
The administration here is not very responsive or receptive to this idea of advancing him in math. Initially they simply refused to even look at it. Then they administered NWEA MAP. His composite score is 246 and the subset scores are 263,264,244,243,244 and 223. Now they are saying that he has gap in algebraic thinking area where he scored 223 so they won't accelerate him. We have been trying to advocate for him through emails but it has been very difficult.They are finally meeting us next week but mentioned that they will answer questions about what kind of math instructions he will get with his current teacher. So basically they are not open to this idea. They say that they are re-evaluating their policy around this. He really needs to be at the level where he was. He has this intuitive understanding in this subject and figure out things without any instructions. How can we advocate effectively? Do we even have a chance? my only fear is that he will become disinterested. He already said that he daydreams during math lesson. Has anyone experienced this kind of situation? Are the schools allowed to change/lower student's grade like this?
Thanks!
