Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Seeking snappy comeback to baffling admin-speak

My kids are in a public middle school, in a district that participates in a regional hg program for language arts. Its an online/pull out hybrid - participants work independently most of the time, but on a weekly schedule synched with other kids in the class. They meet in person once a month, and each class lasts one quarter.

Nominations must be made by the LA teacher. This quarter, our dd is participating for the first time, after we (parents) very gently nudged the LA teacher to nominate dd. Since she is doing the online hg course, dd goes to the library to work on it during LA, and thus does not have contact with her old LA teacher.

So I recently dropped dd off at the monthly in-person meeting, and had a chance to briefly speak to a district level coordinator for the hg classes. So I asked the obvious question of what happens next quarter, when the current hg class is over. The reply (finally to the baffling part):

"Well that depends on whether the regular LA teacher is still unable to meet her needs in the regular LA classroom."

(I puzzle over this for a moment - if the hg course is a success, shouldn't the regular LA class then be a *worse* fit compared to the previous quarter, before the hg class?)

Then she asks, "Has the (regular) LA teacher spoken to you about it?"

Me: "Umm, well dd isn't in her class this quarter because she is doing this hg class instead, so we haven't had *any* contact with the LA teacher."

Then the coordinator offered to contact the teacher and get back to me the same day, which of course she didn't.

My dream is a world where school administrators feel okay about trusting me with the truth. I felt like if only I knew the magic word, I could have gotten a straightforward answer from her. I can handle the truth, really!

Or at least if I had had a snappy comeback, I wouldn't have walked away feeling so stupid. Any btdt, or other creative suggestions?

Yeah, um. I'm not sure there is an answer to that one. Maybe the LA teacher has been on a magic course while your daughter has been otherwise engaged.

On the other hand, who wouldn't want to take Potions at Hogwarts?

I don't think I'd have had a good response to that either...like she's hinting there's some process in place but one they can't really...tell.. you....about.?

You should contact someone right away I guess to find out if your child needs to be re-nominated to continue another hg course; seems bizarre, but it might be the case.

The hg teacher certainly doesn't seem to have the answer.

Like you, I would have very much wished to have a snappy comeback to that...but I don't think that would have been in your (or your DD's) best interests. In that I think taking (or trying to take) the high ground is always better in the long run. If you had said something cutting, you might have felt better in the moment, but if that person is really insidious, she might have just used that as evidence that you are one of 'those parents' and used it to write you off as well as bandy it about the school to convince others to write you off as well. Maybe just my past experience, but I think the more polite you are, the better. Surely if this person had any decency they realized (possibly even as they were speaking) that their answer didn't make any sense, and you being polite gives them the opportunity to come back later to talk to you without as it were losing face. Maybe it's just me, but in my experience it has never helped to be confrontational, or even in a case like this, honest/direct. Unfortunate but true. On the other hand, I can't really be sure that this approach has worked--except that we did end up getting DD back into a school we had previously been kicked out of, and I am certain beyond a doubt that if we had told them what we thought at the time that would never have happened. But you must do what you think is right. Best of luck!

You all made me smile over this. You got me to thinking that *maybe* the "regular" LA teacher has done a teacher development workshop this quarter at Hogwarts. That could totally explain the TAG coordinator's comments. This training may have given the teacher magical powers that enable her to see whether she can meet dd's needs even though dd isn't in her class, AND, dd has never studied Potions before, so if that's what's on the syllabus for next quarter, dd will definitely have something to learn.

Seriously though, what we actually did was to sign dd up for a digital comic art course for next quarter at the local community college. This looks to be an opportunity for instruction/mentoring for dd by a successful professional in an area she is passionate about... So we won't care so much whether or not she is getting anything out of her LA class.