Thank you so much for the good wishes! I needed them and I think they helped:) Sorry for the delay in responding but our internet was out last night.
We didn't get everything we wanted but we did make significant progress.
First, the school has seen no signs of Bi-polar or ADD/ADHD behaviors that are impacting his school success. They are going to keep him in the emotional support program 1 more year as a safety net. The school psychiatrist thinks and DH and I tend to agree, that most of that diagnosis was caused by DS acting out due to the nightmare school situation the past couple years.
Second, The gifted coordinator sees him as progressing well and getting challenge. DH and I could see that in the work she showed to us. They are going to do something for him for math. It will either be a compacted curriculum or a subject skip to 5th for math. He is already effectively subject advanced a year in reading due to the reading level groups.
Third, they are going to place him with a teacher that has experience in both gifted and emotional support needs for his homeroom next year and DS is already familar with this teacher and likes him.
Fourth, the gifted program is changing to more like a special class that meets more often and I think that will be really good for him. He will be able to keyboard most of his assignments there and handwrite his regular class assignments.
The overall impression was that he is doing well and they do want to provide more for him. I didn't get the "he has to learn how to handle being bored speech this time"
Now it is about what more they can do for him. They even admitted that the gifted part of his IEP is the most important to controlling poor school behaviors. I'm sure it helped that his school test scores are high and that his performance in the pull-out appears to be on the advanced side.
We will have a follow up meeting in the summer after they do some testing with him to firm up the math placement and get the IEP written and signed. We also agreed to meet again in the late Fall to review how things are going and if anything else needs to be tweaked:)
Without alot of the suggestions and btdt stories from all of you, I would have had a much harder time figuring out what to ask for and how to get it
Thanks Again!
