Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Public school accommodation suggestions please!

We need some ideas for public school classroom accommodations and types of differentiation - for gifted only (no 2E). Acceleration is not an option at this point and even though we might like to see subject acceleration, school can't/won't create a schedule where that would work.
We would love to have a "go to" listing of in-class ideas from others. Would you be willing to share what your schools have done (or are doing) that has worked?
Thanks in advance!!

A similar thread was started a few weeks ago... http://giftedissues.davidsongifted....al_Norms_Success_Stories.html#Post169478

Another poster recently reminded us of the Davidson Advocacy Guidebook:
http://print.ditd.org/young_scholars/Guidebooks/Davidson_Guidebook_Advocating.pdf

Another poster recently shared what worked for their family: http://giftedissues.davidsongifted....ject_acceleration_is_aga.html#Post170857

Each situation is different... there is much research and many anecdotes to draw possible solutions from. Searching the forums, the Davidson Database, Hoagies Gifted Education Page, and Hoagies on facebook may all yield ideas.

I don't have anything constructive to offer, I'm afraid. Every time the school promised DD in-class differentiation, it either came at the expense of social time, or it just didn't happen with any sort of regularity. Our list of in-class differentiation strategies that worked would be a blank sheet of paper.

I'm sure it has worked - somewhere at some point.

I had a bunch of in-class differentiation planned, agreed and implemented on behalf of my DS. All of them failed for 2 reasons: the teacher did not have any bandwidth to implement differentiation in a meaningful way or my DS felt like an outcast when other children questioned him about why he was getting to do "special" stuff and he refused the differentiation outright in order to "fit in".
That being said, the main strategies for differentiation we used (and which were inadequate/failing) were:
1. Seperate reading group for him with books at his level (DS was in tears over this because he was the only kid in his reading group and he is ultra social and wanted to sit with the cool boys in his class for reading group).
2. Work packet sent from home by parents for math time and craft time - I sent in Singapore Math worksheets at a higher grade and special cut and paste work sheets for his small motor skills (Teacher had no time to give out the stickers I sent in when he finished the work and many times forgot to tell him to do his work packet. DS refused the packets because when he used them, the other kids crowded around him and termed it "not fair" that he got a special work packet and he felt that he was doing something bad to them).
3. Accomodation from librarian to attend rading time for higher grade and to check out higher grade books. (this actually worked)
4. Computer lab accomodation to access Type To Learn and some special LA packages meant for higher grades.(this worked after the teacher told kids not to peek at other people's screens)
Good luck.

I would think "fitting in" could be an issue for a fair amount of children.

This was true last year for our DS, because the differentiation (ex. reading higher level books for assignments) meant he didn't get to do the reading aloud with the class, etc. In a different school this year, it seems less of an issue, but the main grade teacher does a lot of small grouping/individual work with all kids and also pullouts seem to be very common for all types of students. Thus, it's not that "different."

In class, he gets different spelling lists and related assignments. They all get to do computer-based learning for a portion of the day, his just happens to be more advanced.

Same here. Based on my experience, "differentiation" when said by a staff member of my son's school, means: "hey - we're using one of the hottest buzz words. we'll say it and tell you that we will do something interesting for your son so that you'll stop bugging us. but we really won't do anything at all."

A thread about a month ago called "Leveling Out" also discussed the mirage of differentiation - http://giftedissues.davidsongifted....s/168943/Re_Leveling_Out.html#Post168943

Differentiation is a distinction without a difference.