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    Joined: Sep 2012
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    New here but not new to gifted education. I have a 14 year old who was accelerated. In kindergarten, a very astute teacher recognized Tyler and helped get him on the right track. We moved out of that district, realized the school we moved to wasn't going to serve him, so we enrolled all our children in parochial. They were all served well in that environment.

    However, we have moved again. We are back in public school in a new community. My second grader is very bright. He cries when he has to do saxon math homework every night. He cries that the teachers don't know anything and he wants to learn something new. I'd heard that they had an accelerated math program and testing was required to get palcement in the program. The school year is new.

    School is only in the first semester and yesterday we had a parent teacher conference. My son tested into the accelerated program but they weren't placing him in it till he can show that he pays more attention in class. The kids in the accelerated program have to be more focused than my son. They know he wants to do harder math so they think this is a good incentive for him... a reward for better behavior..

    This is a kid who has never studied for a spelling test and gets 100%. He sits in class bored silly as the rest of the class learns to spell. He is only 7. They KNOW how much he wants to learn and they are going to use the "right" to learn as the incentive for better behavior. HOLY COW.. what do i do? We live in Nebraska and have a few policies in place for identification. Once the kids are identified however, there is nothing in place.

    I am still in shock over the stupidity of their behavior strategy.


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    http://www.portage.k12.in.us/cms/li...685/pdfs/April/Whatachilddoesntlearn.pdf

    This popular "what a child doesn't learn" article is concerning the same things the school is telling you- your kid needs to learn work ethic and responsibility. But the article is more in line with the other gifted articles, the skills are learned by doing work at an appropriate level of challenge, it's called "the zone of proximal development", it's the ready-to-learn zone. It's where all the other kids are taught.

    LoL scroll down to where the left handed story in the link is:
    http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/harm.htm

    Last edited by La Texican; 09/28/12 04:12 PM.

    Youth lives by personality, age lives by calculation. -- Aristotle on a calendar
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    I can sympathize although I'm not sure how much help I'll be. Although our school district states right up front that twice exceptional children, underachieving gifted kids, and those who are showing behavioral challenges are to be included in the group they serve in GT programming, they go on to state that,
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    Gifted identification, however, does not guarantee specific GT services
    and
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    An ALP [Advanced Learning Plan] does not mean that your student will automatically be in an advanced class.
    and
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    ...an advanced class might have different criteria than gifted identification. Because advanced classes have a faster pace and require a student to go deeper into the content, certain skills and characteristics (such as work habits, attendance, past performance, and motivation) are considered before enrollment in an advanced course.
    I've long held that the programming is essentially "hard worker, high achiever" programming rather than gifted programming. They even state that an IQ test alone, regardless of how high, does not necessarily mean that the child is gifted. We could, for instance, have two fictional kids:

    Child A gets a low advanced score on the state NCLB tests (achievement) and As in classes (performance) and a 50th percentile IQ score. He could be ided as gifted and tracked into advanced classes b/c he shows the requisite characteristics such as good work habits and performance.

    Child B could have a 99.9th percentile composite IQ score and a defiant challenging attitude. With high achievement on state tests, he might get ided as gifted if the parent fights for it, but it is quite possible that he'll be excluded from GT/advanced classes b/c he doesn't show the required characteristics.

    So, after my long complaint...

    I've fought for a Child B b/c I have one of those. Mine is twice exceptional. Yours may not be (nothing you've said sounds like it thus far).

    What I wound up having to do was:

    Take my fight for identification to the district & got the policy changed on accepting IQ tests (previously they would only accept group tests like the CogAT). We gave them the results of multiple IQ tests with 99th+ scores on the subtests they accepted plus a full neuropsych eval. It sounds like you've gotten past that hurdle already or it wasn't a hurdle in your ds' instance.

    Thankfully, like you, I have an older child who is the stereotypical recognized GT kid who is also grade accelerated. That bought me some credibility with the school GT coordinator. I met with her and dd's teacher and insisted on a change in the placement and was prepared to change to a different school if it didn't happen. My dd is not a behavior challenge, just 2e so they actually wanted to keep her at their school and the GT coordinator went ahead and moved her into the subject accelerated math class despite erratic performance.

    The change in placement was a challenge initially b/c she hadn't been adequately challenged in math for years, but by the following year, her performance skyrocketed and she's done really well with continued acceleration.

    Do you have anything you can hold over them (a different school you could change to, talking directly to the district regarding their policies, etc.)?

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    LOVE, love, love the vegetables analogy!

    Would they consider a trial in the advanced math program? If he's still "struggling to focus" then the placement can be reconsidered.

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    Originally Posted by Evemomma
    Would they consider a trial in the advanced math program? If he's still "struggling to focus" then the placement can be reconsidered.

    I think this is fantastic idea, given that the fact that he's under challenged is probably the reason for his attention difficulties.


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