Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Public School - Episode III

No questions here... just venting.

DD8 desperately desires to go to school, to be around other kids. This is the only reason we're not homeschooling through elementary school. The private options in our area do not provide adequate support for gifted, and so we cannot justified the price, leaving us with the public option. She has been yanked out twice and homeschooled, due to various issues. She has returned twice now, based on changed situations that were expected to make the fit better. This time around, the change was that we made the grade skip that the school refused to entertain via the homeschool route.

Here are the changes that made things look better for this attempt:

- She's enrolled as a 4th grader now. That should make her homeroom time better socially, and at least less awful academically.
- At the 4th grade, the number of hours in the G/T pull-out increase. She spends most of her day there now.
- There are more G/T kids at her grade level now. When she was in first grade, she was the only first grader in G/T. In second grade, there was only one other, and it was a boy. They didn't connect.

So, a few weeks in... how's it going?

Well...

Good:

- DD has a friend in G/T, who is also assigned to her same homeroom.

- Another kid in the neighborhood who had been besties with DD when she went to public school (Episode II) and mysteriously stopped playing with her when we pulled her out, has started playing with her again. She'll even be joining DD in Girl Scouts.

- So far, DD seems engaged, enjoys going to school, and even looks forward to homework.

Bad:

- DD's lunchtime is 20 minutes. This includes the military drill of lining up and being yelled at, before marching to the cafeteria, filing through the line, etc. It also includes the cleanup and marching out time. DD's lunch is mostly coming home uneaten. This inspires her to seek unhealthy snacks when she gets home.

This appears to be out of the principal's hands, because every elementary school in the district allots exactly 20 minutes to lunch for each grade separately.

- DD notes that none of the 4th grade kids want to play at recess. They walk around a chat. She also notes that 3rd and 4th graders share the playground at after-lunch recess, but they're segregated into different parts of the playground. The 4th graders get the grass. Some kid "got in big trouble" for violating those boundaries.

What the...?

In other news, this is providing a teachable moment for behavioral perfectionist DD, as we're explaining that sometimes rules are stupid, and cry out to be ignored.

- DD's G/T pull-out schedule has forced her to choose between her favorite subject (math) with her favorite teacher, or PE, library, and music. She chose math.

- DD's math schedule also overlaps with her homeroom's science and social studies time, two subjects she's expected to keep up with nevertheless. DD is never present for any class discussion on these subjects, and has to work the worksheets on her own, so it's not surprising she's struggling some (currently earning a C+/B- in social studies). DD says during reading time in homeroom one day, she opened her social studies book, and the teacher ordered her to put it away and open "a real book."

There are no words.

- On a nightly basis this week, we're noticing DD swinging wildly between uncontrollably silly to despondent, with no middle ground. This is an indicator of lack of sleep. It's turning bedtime into a battleground.

DW and I are taking action on the social studies/science issue. DD will bring home each textbook (one per day, so she doesn't hurt herself) and DW will see where we can get a copy. If we can't score one for a reasonable price, we're going to ask the school for a home copy, citing DD's lack of class time on the subjects.

Playground and lunch seem like typical PS stuff. Annoying, but things to live with and adjust to.

Science and social studies seems like a real issue. She misses all class instruction?? That doesn't seem right. Did you agree to this beforehand? Is it the only option? The book solution seems like a first step, but I don't know. If they offer a pull-out like this and that's a standard thing, it doesn't seem like it should work this way. Why doesn't she get pulled out for math during MATH?

I'm more than annoyed. Something like 75% of the school is on free/reduced lunches (they're VERY aggressive about signing people up... they nearly forced DW to apply), and the kids are basically throwing all those taxpayer dollars into the trash. They're not getting adequate exercise at recess, and they're not getting adequate time to eat. How on earth are they expected to learn?


Because they've never made ANY attempts to synchronize the G/T pull-outs and the homeroom. Every year we've had to contact them about a major scheduling conflict, and ask for remediation, which they half-heartedly do.

There's also the issue that DD does math far longer than her class does. We would basically be asking them to cut the thing she loves most. They'd also still expect DD to keep up with the math in G/T. It'll be much easier for her to independently keep up with the glacial pace of the sciences in homeroom than to keep up with the G/T math.

She is present for about 3.5 days of each week's science time in homeroom, so she's doing better there (I think... I haven't actually seen any papers yet). Social studies is a complete miss.

They try to make sure people apply so they don't miss anyone who may be eligible but doesn't think they are (the guidelines are pretty generous for reduced price lunch--you can make close to 40K with a family of 4 and still qualify, IIRC). But of course, they wouldn't actually give you free/reduced lunch if you didn't qualify. I guess I'm just saying that changing the length of lunch would be a massive battle. 20-30 minutes seems to be pretty standard, unfortunately. I think my kids get 25 minutes. They are slow eaters, and DD often doesn't finish her lunch either.

It seems really ridiculous that they don't synch up the pull-out with her homeroom, though. Is there anyone else in this situation?

Dude, we had the same issue with 20-minute lunches at our public school - oooooh that was so beyond ridiculous! And so unhealthy - the kids all rushed through lunch and trashed whatever they hadn't eaten at the end of lunch to be sure they didn't miss recess. My talkative dd routinely never ate *anything* more than a few bites. My ds who isn't all that talkative also didn't eat much of anything because he was so stressed out about not finishing lunch in time for recess. And that 20-minute lunch was usually very early in the day, so then the kids had all afternoon to feel like they were starving while they were doing most of their academic work (pullouts for pe, music etc were in the morning before lunch). OK.... I'd better stop talking now before I get stressed out all over again over it!

Anyway, fwiw, I wasnt the only parent who thought it was a *really* bad way to handle lunch. I'm guessing you're not the only parent in your school or district that has the same issue. If you feel like fighting it, I'd at least give it a good try - talk to your superintendent or school board or do something. It might not change anything, but at least you and your dd will know you tried.

Re the math, honestly, I'd not let them take her out of science and social studies with her class - even if it means you ultimately are having to give up her favorite math teacher or as rapid acceleration. But that's just me. We accelerated our ds and are doing the same with our youngest dd in elementary through after-schooling. That worked for us because our kids like math and they wanted accelerated math so they were ok with doing math at home. When ds was in upper elementary he was then able to accelerate to his appropriate placement within school. I don't think you're there yet - I think you need to request that the school differentiate in math at the same time the rest of her class is studying math. I know it's not as simple as it sounds from what I've written, but I think it's worth fighting for. The thing that would really concern me about the current situation is what might happen during science and social studies that's spontaneous and not part of the lesson plan or perhaps not included in the textbook. This happens all the time at my kids' schools in science and social studies etc - during classroom lessons kids will be exposed to something new, questions will come up, discussions will go off on slight tangents or include new info or direction etc. Those things might never show up on a test (or they might?) but they are a big part of being part of the class and also potentially play a part in inspiring a love of social studies or science or just learning in general that you might not get from reading a textbook.

I'm also curious what specifically is holding her science/ss grades down - is it accuracy on worksheets she does in class, is it test grades, discussion grades...? I think that if you looked at the specifics of how it's impacting her grades that might help in advocating.

Best wishes,

polarbear

eta - about the pull-out times not being in sync - do you have a district-wide G/T coordinator that you could discuss this with, and ask for help in advocating or for suggestions?

We've gone the differentiation route with this school, on more than one occasion, and it has never worked out well. It was always something promised to us as an alternative to a grade skip, and it was never delivered in any consistent or meaningful way. Also, it would be hard to argue for differentiation when that same need can be provided through G/T.


Actually, this is why we'd rather have her textbook at home, where DW or I could set aside some time each week to discuss the current material. She gets all her questions answered, and I know that whenever I'm in the mix, I take her well beyond the written material. DW has already assigned social studies to me (I'm a history junkie, and she's not a naturalized citizen), and some of the science will get kicked my way, depending on the topic.


Test grades. I'm sure it's because she's never there for discussions, and doesn't get enough time to read on her own. Her exposure to the subject is pretty much limited to flipping through the book while doing the worksheets. That method only fosters the collection of a few memorized facts... not learning.

Dude,

I can completely commiserate with you. I'm going through similar frustrations. That which doesn't kill you will make you stronger, right?

I'll follow your format and outline DS11's first experience of public middle school:

Bad: The first week was an utter, inept, disaster, which left most of the children without schedules or if they had them, they were slap-dash with no prior thought given to who the children were as individuals. DS was supposed to enter middle school as a 7th grader and the computer had him as a 6th grader. So that first day, I had to go in an make sure he started out in the right grade. That was sorted out, but whoever found him a place in 7th grade didn't take into consideration the fact that he was grade-skipped, that he was supposed to be in compact math, and that we'd asked him to be paired with another grade-skipped kid (years earlier) who is an academic peer and also a friend. They (the inept counselor) stuck him in remedial classes that happened to also have a lot of behavior issues. So I had to go in two days in a row and ask that the counselor remedy this and I was told over and over that they couldn't do anything about it at that time. Also, that whole first week DS was stuck in band, even though everyone KNEW he wasn't supposed to be in band, including the band teacher. When he came home with a band instrument, I went back to the school and I was told he had to just go to band until it got sorted out. So, I asked, if he's to go to band, and it's wrong, why can't he simply show up in another wrong class, until you are capable of correcting things? I was told it would be too confusing for the adults (not the kids) and that it was easier on them to keep the status quo.

The school took so long to try to get the boys together that my son decided he didn't want to switch one of his teachers to do so. I predicted that would happen.

20 minute lunches: yup. Ridiculous. As well as the fact that he doesn't eat until almost 1:00 p.m.

The county has made some strides in gifted education, but for some reason we are the only middle school in the county that doesn't have an AIG teacher hired yet. Another school close by has two.

Thus, my son has no real advocate at that school.

The principal is new and has different ideas about gifted education and clustering than I. Nothing new there. Same old love for heterogeneous classrooms, which would be fine if some of the kids would stop misbehaving long enough for the teacher to teach something. DS is clustered with a whopping 2 other possible AIG kids in each class. Not sure how much differentiation will be happening in some of these classes.

He has a killjoy for a language arts teacher who gives punitive homework, punishes the class for what two or three are doing, passive-aggressively keeps them in the classroom too long so they are late to their lockers or to the bus/car lines. And when I met her, I noted that she prefers a talk-down-to-the-kids manner of communication. This is all new to DS, who is a rule follower, sensitive, and made the astute observation on day two that this teacher didn't seem as though she liked her job or the kids. Oh joy. I may need some advice on this soon...

Good:

He has an AMAZING social studies teacher who is engaging, smart, and digs deep.

He has a amazing math teacher who may inspire him to love math again.

He has a quite competent, lovely science teacher. (down side: most of the curriculum is matter he's seen before)

He goes to tech/science club after school

He has tech class and the school has a STEM team for enrichment.

He's out of band and into chorus where he can use his nice voice.

He's managed through all of the school's nonsense, he was able to suffer the fools, and he's stronger for it, I'm sure.

Phew. I've been holding all of this in for over a week. Feels good to vent.

This is a completely unacceptable situation. Something similar happened to a friend of mine's son last year because he had to go to advanced math in another school. The child ended up missing science and had to teach himself social studies in the back of the room.

Just utterly ridiculous. Sadly I don't have advice, but I do have sympathy for all the parents here.

I agree with polarbear on this. It makes more sense to afterschool your daughter in her favorite subject (math) with more advanced, varied and fun curriculum compared to what the school district can provide, at her own pace. Since she is so interested in math, it might be easier to do it as well as go even faster than the pace set by the school. You might even outsource it to a tutor if /when she reaches a stage where it is hard to cope with her abilities.
And it makes less sense to me to afterschool her in 2 subjects (science, soc studies) with 2 parents involved in it to shore up grades.
Why not give up on the subject acceleration at school and do it on your own? And then consider the subject acceleration during Middle school?

Best wishes.