Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy "Subject acceleration is against district policy."

This just in from the asst. superintendent: despite that my daughter is 4 grade levels ahead in reading and 2 in math, he won't agree to accelerate her even one grade level in either subject because it's "against district policy." Huh?! I'm so frustrated-- the principal last year assured me she'd do subject accelerations, but then she [ETA: the principal] was sent to a different school. As I said elsewhere, I'm still trying to avoid a total grade acceleration, but absolutely want her to be educated appropriately using pull-outs.

I'm in NY. No IEPs for gifted here, right? What can I do to fight this?

She is in a different school in the same district? Why the school change?

Bummer. I would ask to see the official policy in writing.

We are also in NY and have the same story, though here they also don't allow grade skips. It depends on the district- there are plenty of threads and advice here about challenging such policy, but we gave up and concentrated on ways to make things work despite the policy (our district has a well-known and successful legal team and is notoriously hard to deal with in legal matters).

In some ways, it may give you more leverage for flexible plans on their part- if you don't allow x, what are other options to help this situation? (Unfortunately for you, if they are suggesting skipping that may be their sole answer, in which you will have to make the alternative suggestions yourself).

I would repeat the advice to look ahead as well- for us, each progressive year has gotten better and easier with more options available. Elementary was certainly the hardest- much tougher to accommodate and the chasm between our kids and the pack seemed enormous, and the whole year can hinge on one teacher. In middle school, a few elementaries come together and suddenly there are a few more kids in the neighborhood, if you know what I mean. We are looking forward to high school, where two middle schools come together, as we know there will be a few more near peers, or at least near enough. We also have some awesome non-academic things going on through school that have helped tremendously- very strong music and art programs, fantastic technology classes and computer classes, and several academic clubs/teams which are well-run and competetive (in a good way).

ETA: some teachers may be willing to bend the rules under the radar- we had teachers arrange for DD to go to a reading classroom 2 grades up in early elementary, and I am certain it was arranged between the 2 teachers, not sure if they included anyone in administration in the plan, though I suspect not. (Dd ultimately refused that plan, so there were no repercussions). We definitely got more help from the people in daily contact with our kids than from the higher-ups.

Get the book From Emotions to Advocacy.

In the meantime, I would ask to see the policy. And politely create a paper trail as you go.

When you say she is four grades ahead in reading and two in math, do you mean she is actually working at those levels or that on tests her grade equivalent scores are at those levels?

Good question.


also a great idea:



If this is factually correct, it would be a first, so far as I can tell. I mean, I've heard of schools UNWILLING to do it, and I've heard of districts that have an UNofficial reluctance to do it... but a specific PROHIBITION? Not that I've seen.

I'd also be thinking over your "Plan B" and "C" here. That is, if they ARE willing to consider radical acceleration, but not subject acceleration-- and, by the way-- what exactly do you mean by "subject acceleration" and if it isn't accomplished with in-class differentiation, then-- truly curious-- why is a series of pullouts during each day preferable to moving her into a classroom where she spends most of her time with older children?

Echoing what others have said... anytime anyone tells me, "It's against our policy," the first thing I want to do is see the policy. Because:

- "It's against our policy" is frequently incorrect... the person may have an imperfect understanding of what the policy says, or they may be lying to avoid further discussion.

- Often a policy not only says what they won't do, it also says what they will, so reading it is the only place to discover those alternatives.

And then, there are more... complicated situations, like the one we found ourselves in, where what the policies say and what actually happens are totally different things. In our case, a full-year acceleration was the goal. We have a district policy that outlines the process for full-year acceleration, so we invoked that... and nobody in the school system would participate, no matter how hard we tried. Then we heard that a family had pulled their child, homeschooled a year ahead, and re-enrolled their child in school with the grade skip accomplished. This flies in the face of a written policy that says they'll only accept transfer students at those grade levels at the grade that's appropriate for their age... yet the child was accepted, no questions asked. We followed their plan.

Agreed. Several have asked, and I'll reiterate... test scores? In addition to helping the teachers/administrators see your daughter's unique intellectual profile, test scores may also help them avoid...
as her test scores will show her unique needs.

To everyone aside from indigo, thank you. I wouldn't have even thought to ask to see the actual policy. I've never had to go beyond the principal on an issue before, so this will be a first.

I would prefer pull-outs for a bunch of reasons, but one of the main ones is that I do love her current teacher and she's trying hard now to do appropriate enrichment. The main issue is that she has to teach the class phonics and basic math, and that has to be deadly boring for my DD. I'd like to have her pulled out during those times so she can work on something else while the class is doing things that are significantly below her level.

To indigo, I didn't say anything inconsistent, and I'm sorry you see it fit to point out that-- yes, dear Lord, I got divorced-- or to insinuate that I'm lying.

My daughter was in a different school district last year where they didn't know what to do and suggested she move to a school with a better gifted program if I didn't want to skip her. Before I made the move, I met with the principal of her current school. Terrific lady, and we had three separate meetings to discuss the situation, ending up deciding that subject accelerations would be the way to go. That principal then got moved to another school within the district unexpectedly at the end of the year, so she was no longer going to be my daughter's new principal this year.

I thought that would be okay, and that I'd just need to explain to the interim principal what we had agreed on. Instead, he told me he had to ask the superintendent of educational services, who said it was against district policy to do subject accelerations.

Now... what was that you were saying about my personal life and how that affects people's desire to respond to me? Really? That's what you want to do here? How about if I tell you that her dad threw me across the room when she was a baby, then stole my savings account, and I've scraped together enough for rent in various places until finally finding our "forever home" in the only nearby district known for its gifted program because I want her to have a good education? If you still want to judge me for that, go ahead.

Yes, she is a first grader TESTING on a 5th grade level in reading. As of the beginning of kindergarten, she tested on a 3rd grade level in math and hasn't been tested again, though of course she's moved up since then, so I'm being conservative when I say she's two grades above in math. Maybe it's three now.

And yes, she doesn't complain about being bored unless you ask her. What's your point? Why are you looking for ways to stir the pot when everyone else here responded with thoughtfulness and decency?

Is there a district gifted/talented coordinator? That is who we mostly dealt with when we were discussing these issues when my DD was accelerated. As it turned out, there was a district policy about acclerations that was brand new and no one had used it before, so the principal, school psych, etc. weren't even aware of it. They had a "process" kids needed to go through with classroom observations, ability testing, achievement testing, etc (and they had score cut-offs, for instance scoring 98th-99th percentile) and it had been more informal previous to this new policy. However, I would imagine that in your case the asst. superintendent would know what the policy is. I'd still ask to see it in writing, though. It must be frustrating that you were told one thing, and now that you are actually there you are being told something else.