Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy is this too obnoxious?

We have been back and forth trying to subject accelerate or grade skip DS6 all year. It's been nuts really. DS is supposed to be grade skipped, but at the moment they don't want to do that. We are a tiny school district - no gifted mandates or policies. Would it be too obnoxious to just pull my son out of school during math and science and send him back when it's over. He CANNOT sit through those 2 classes in particular, if they are not accelerated by 2 years at least. He will go nuts!

I agree. It's likely to be seen as adversarial, and automatically constitutes an escalation in terms of your advocacy work with them.

That's fine if that is what you intend, but I'd present it alongside something that demonstrates additional good faith on your side-- as MoN describes.

What is the school's reasoning for not accelerating/skipping him?

It's not a question of obnoxiousness. It's a question of proper documentation so you do not risk presenting as a negligent parent. You need to lay the paper trail. Have you received a formal answer that your ds will not be grade-skipped or accelerated? If not, I would request an answer in writing. Then you would be able to appeal that decision and offer another option by logically presenting the necessity of pulling your ds from math/science instruction due to the harm of sitting through further instructions too far below his level. Of course, all that is contigent on whether you have the legal right to do so per your district and state laws/polices.

I agree with the previous posters, and have a few additional thoughts.


I wasn't sure what you meant by "supposed to be" grade skipped, so I read back through your posts to refresh my memory of your ds' situation. If I understand, what's up is you have asked that he be accelerated and so far the school staff hasn't agreed to do so. He also wasn't admitted into a district gifted program (?). It seems that at this point, you need to decide what your goals are for your ds - are you going to want to ultimately pull him out completely and home school him or do you want to try to work with the school? It's always important to be aware of how you present yourself to the school staff (as in, how they will perceive your intentions) - but it's doubly important when you're in the position of having to fight an uphill battle, which is where you are right now.


This confuses me a little bit, because in a previous post you mentioned your ds wasn't accepted into a gifted program (please forgive me if I misunderstood). A school district that has a gifted program option or that has at least talked to you about potentially accelerating most likely has some kind of *idea* of practices and policies for recognizing and accomodating gifted students. It's not necessarily mandated, might not be well documented, and might not be reasonable policy, but there's something there - and it's important to understand what the school staff is looking for, and also how they will react to alternative ideas you come up with.


JMO, but I think you're very close to easily landing on a "Yes" re the obnoxious perception here. I do think if you approach it from what are the regulations for homeschool in your district that's the way to go about this if it's your goal to subject accelerate in math and english at home. I know families in our district who have homeschooled for part of the day, and it's allowed. The key thing is it's something you *CAN* do potentially without coming across as obnoxious - you just don't want to approach it as "I'm doing this because you aren't offering my son what he needs" - that can come across as obnoxious. I'll also add that the families I've known here who've gone the route of part-day homeschooling did eventually run into pressure from their school administrators to bring their kids back into full-time students because of scheduling issues and because it was perceived their children didn't fit in as part of the class "group" as well when they were only at school half-day. To be honest, the parents I knew felt some of the same concerns.

One other thing I'd think through before actually doing it - what is going to happen in a few grades up if you want him to return to school full-time - is the school going to be able to accommodate advanced learning needs then? I think many of us here have found that upper elementary grades in particular are tough for subject-acceleration because of lack of access to classes at an appropriate level.


Are you absolutely positive he'll go nuts? What are you basing your thoughts on? Please note I'm not questioning your feelings at all - just wondering what specifically it is about your ds that makes you feel he needs 2+ years subject acceleration. Is it based on his performance in class so far? Work he's done at home? Based against your state curriculum guidelines? Based on test results (achievement or ability)? Those are the types of things you need to think through and have answers plus documentation for before talking to the school - I don't think it works typically (and I do think it can come across as obnoxious) simply to go in and say "my ds will go nuts if he's stuck if he's not accelerated" and only offer up a high IQ as the reason for the need. Please note - I'm not saying AT ALL that the high IQ alone isn't a good reason for the acceleration! Just saying that perception is important

Gotta run, hope that made sense!

polarbear

I did a half year partial homeschooling with my son. He had been homeschooled for three years. I approached the school and said I wanted him to go half day, starting after lunch and what would his class be doing after lunch, fine, I would teach the morning stuff. It sort of worked. Even though they had science after lunch, they might go to the science lab before lunch-randomly. Even though he wasn't doing Social studies with them in the morning they might work on their SS essay and project in the afternoon during writing time. After the winter holiday break, we started sending him full time.

Thanks for all the feedback everyone. Just to clarify, we are a district within a district. My son goes to a charter school (technically it is it's own district) and this school is within a very large district. The very large district DOES have a gifted program (that my son wasn't accepted int0) but the tiny "district" (the actual charter school) has no policies, nothing.

I have been the most supportive and positive parent that I can be. I follow up every meeting with a thank you and always make sure to say something positive, ex. "I want to thank Ms. Helper Teacher for attending the meeting. I know how busy she is and she has really gone out of her way to help my son along the way."

They school admits that my son should be grade skipped - possibly two years. We are not interested in that. We have settled on asking for subject accelerated, for a variety of reasons. They are holding back mainly because of logistics and because of other parents who will "expect the same".

We have suggested sending and paying for a tutor to come to school and tutor my son in the areas he needs to be accelerated. They were against that because, again, other parents will want to do the same.

Really, we are trying to hang in there for another 2 years. There is a great school that my son will be able to go to then. I actually worked at this particular school and know firsthand that it will be great for him.

In the meantime, what am I to do? I was going to make the partial homeschooling suggestion in the most cooperative way.

Hmmmm...

well, they want to skip 2y, and YOU want to be in a place two years hence.



That seems like it might well be the most viable solution. My prediction is that unless there is something within policy or state law that specifically PERMITS partial homeschooling, this is also going to be viewed as a non-starter by the school, with the exact same explanation-- if YOU do it, so will everyone else. In this particular instance, I can kind of see their point, in spite of the fact that such a response to subject acceleration or private tutoring is nonsensical to say the least. What about parents who have objections to particular curriculum content related to state standards, hmm? This would definitely open that door.

Why don't you consider skipping 2y to be a viable option at this point in time?

Why not completely homeschool?

What am I missing?

Thanks for the explanation. You have two things going on that I can really identify with - first, we had no desire to grade-skip our ds, and honestly, for us and for him, it was the best decision - but definitely not ideal. I would make the same choice again today even knowing the areas that ultimately were difficult because he wasn't skipped, so I can understand the desire not to go with a grade skip, and particularly a 2 year grade skip. I also see issues that a 2 year grade skip won't necessarily solve, such as classroom learning pace, and - in this case - grade skipping isn't going to make the school more flexible, so what happens when you still need to do something extra or different for your ds? I suspect the school staff will not be wiling to accommodate.

The second thing I can identify with is being in a small charter school which you have bought into (mentally, not with $), where you've done your best to integrate yourself as the helpful parent etc, and where you believe there should be flexibility to accommodate a gifted student. Your school is sending you a strong signal - they don't want to accommodate. Have you considered simply returning to a different school within the larger school district? We stuck with our charter school for several years thinking that if we just kept advocating, just kept suggesting, just kept trying - we'd get somewhere. We didn't - and what we found at the end of 5th grade was our ds, who'd been primarily silent all those years - absolutely hated his school! As he got older, he not only wasn't being challenged in the classroom, he was seeing me advocate and getting nowhere and it left him feeling that no one at the school cared. When we did switch schools, the difference was like night and day (note - our new school is *not* a gifted school) - but it's a school where teachers appreciate parent input and where students are given differentiated work - and life is just so very much easier for me and so much happier for my ds. Is it ideal? Nope... but it was a good thing for me to let go of the school that was so obviously not willing to work with us.

And like HK, I also wonder why if you're able to consider homeschooling the core academics, you wouldn't consider full time homeschool?

Anyway, it sounds as though sticking with the school you're at isn't going to be easy and your advocating isn't getting you anywhere. Based on that I'd suspect part-time homeschooling wouldn't go over well there either.

I am also curious re why your ds didn't get into the gifted program in your district? Is it a program you wanted him in? Is it something he could test again for? Something you could appeal?

Best wishes,

polarbear

Two years is a very long time to be at a school that you're not happy with.

DS was subject accelerated 2 years in math and science, but only after about a year of asking. Logistically, it *was* a challenge, but it was doable. He wound up missing some subjects in order to be in the accelerated classes. And in the end it didn't work out, but I think it could have if the school had acted differently when we first requested it.

I can see long term why the school may be concerned about the logistics of subject acceleration. In addition to scheduling problems, there is also the question of what grade to accelerate into after some number of years. In our case we were going from 2nd to 4th grade classes, so we would have had a couple of years to figure out what to do when DS got into the upper grades of the school. I'm not giving the school a pass, but I do appreciate that it's not necessarily a trivial problem.

Could you suggest getting him an EPGY account (or something similar) for math, and allow him to work at his own pace on a computer in class or the library?

Our eventual answer (to a similar problem) was to pull DS from school and start homeschooling. Trying to force the school to do something they're not very well set up to do was very draining.

Why don't you consider skipping 2y to be a viable option at this point in time?

Why not completely homeschool?

What am I missing?[/quote]

At this point, it simply doesn't feel right to skip him. He is very young for his grade. His executive function is not there yet. Do I think he would be ok if he skipped? Yes, but it wouldn't be great. Also, I can already see down the road that he will WANT to skip. I think that is the point at which we will consider it.

As to why I don't homeschool, he is so social and he is a leader. I think he would be miserable as a homeschooler. In my ideal world, he would go to school 2-3 days a week and spend the rest at home.

PB,

Our larger district is simply not safe. We live in a rough urban area. The local public schools are not an option. I've learned quite a bit about the local gifted program and it sounds like it wouldn't be a good fit anyway. It sounds like it's just for well behaved MG kids (if that).

Have you applied to DYS? I went back through your posts and saw that your son took an IQ test and was PG, so I'm assuming he qualifies. Your situation is the perfect example of how the consultants could help advocate for a better situation for your son. They offer to get on the phone during school meetings and share ideas, or send info. If DYS isn't an option, I think the Gifted Development Center offers the same service, albeit for a price. You could also just schedule a phone consult with GDC and get their advice on how to handle the situation.

I think I'm reading from your posts that your son is in a public charter school. It doesn't sound like they're open to thinking outside the box. Can you find another school that would be? I think you should go principal shopping and find a principal who realizes PG kids have needs that are different than typical or even gifted kids.

We actually had really great luck with our principal who had her masters in gifted education. She approved everything we asked for, for our son. We had to pay for it, but it was worth it. I don't think every school in our area would be open to that, but she and the teachers agreed he needed something different than they could offer.

Good luck.

We haven't applied yet. I will be applying this summer or the fall.

I just received another email from the school informing us that they are continuing to drag their feet...they need "more data", etc. My son would not be happy to switch schools right now - he's got a lot of friends. Sigh. We really have been so pleasant with the school. Perhaps we do need to be a little firm with them? Not mean of course. We do have some leverage here. They really do NOT want us to leave, for a variety of reasons that I don't want to explain here, as this is not a private forum.

I'm tired of this. Looking at next year, I have a strong hunch that DS will not be happy...he's not happy about his teacher and we don't have any accommodations in place as of right now. He does like his friends though. I don't want to PULL him from this school right now. I want him to ASK me if he can leave. Does that make sense? On top of the fact that I haven't had time to really look around at our options for this fall.

How do I make the best of this? I think that we CAN make it through another year here, while I look at other options. But how do we do that? Let's pretend that we get zero accommodations (probably don't have to pretend actually).

How about getting enrichment OUTSIDE of school for this upcoming year? With a PG kid, I have realized the school can't really help to the level we need help anyway. Look into online options. I am in the same boat here, new to this. I would prefer to keep our son in school as well because of the great things his school (private) offers. Amazing art, music programs etc. Someone else might have ideas of good online educational options.

This is if you feel your child will be OK for another year. Seems he is at least enjoying his friends while in school.

I THINK that he will be ok for another year. He does enjoy the social aspect. Last year, he began to understand that there is an academic part to school - that the other children go there to learn, and that he doesn't. But it didn't bother him because he is young and he likes the social scene. Something has switched with him lately. My hunch (and my hunches are usually quite accurate) is that this will be the year that my son will want to either grade skip or switch schools. I'm not ready for the grade skip - I can almost guarantee that he will be.