Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy How and when to advocate at school?

Our 5 yo is going to start kindergarten soon. We just completed private school admission process, and got accepted at two schools. One of them is able to accommodate highly gifted children (we saw it in their classroom) but we are hesitant to send him there because the school seems to be in unstable state. So we are sending him to another one, that is not targeting GT, but is progressive and we think respect the children; however they insist in not doing "vertical differentiation" but will do "horizontal differentiation". Basically it means the same grade level stuff will be given to each child, but more advanced child will receive somewhat more difficult/enriched grade level stuff. I don't know how this works.

We talked to our psychologist, and she estimated he is around 3.5 standard deviations above the mean for VSI (he hit the ceiling, so she analyzed his raw scores), which probably means at least 4 SD in one subtest. And that is when she ran out of materials..

One of my worry is that our child is going to just comply and not show his true abilities, and then underperform over time. I have a few questions:
1) When do you tell teachers that you have a high ability child (especially in an area where many children are GT)? Do you wait until you see problems? How do we avoid being seen as tiger parents (we are not..)?
2) Should we work on more advanced material with the child at home in order to figure out his abilities, or is this just digging a deeper hole for ourselves as he will further diverge from his peers? We are not big into acceleration, but we do not want to put ceiling over him either.
3) How do you work with a school that doesn't offer more than grade level, but willing to enrich grade level stuff?

As a side note, we haven't completely gotten over the shock of the school admission process. Three schools that we thought would be easy to get in, because his scores surpassed their requirements by a good bit, declined us, and one of them didn't even waitlist us. The same school accepted a friend whose score didn't make it into GT range and whose parents were hesitating in applying as they didn't think their child was gifted. This school was marketed as a school for the GT population. That child is a good child, but our son is very even tempered and has no social issues, coming from a great feeder pre-K school, had great playdates and parents interview, and great references. Now some parents (including parents from the GT schools) told us that these GT schools actually avoid kids whose scores were above 2 SD because they would be harder to accommodate. If that is the case, where do our children go? Is this going to be the case from now on up to high school? How do you all do this?

Still figuring how to navigate this...

Many parents have reported the same experience.
You mentioned that one of the schools to which your child was accepted "is able to accommodate highly gifted children (we saw it in their classroom) but we are hesitant to send him there because the school seems to be in unstable state." Are you comfortable sharing (or privately reflecting on) the "unstable state"... for example, is it a new start-up... a small school... or some similar "growing pains"... or has a serious concern arisen in the community such as impropriety of a teacher toward a student?

The opportunity to be in a school which "gets" your child and would accommodate his academic growth, and where he may meet intellectual peers with whom he may find things in common, bond, and form meaningful friendships... may be worth working diligently to help stabilize a gifted school.

It varies depending upon schooling options available in each area. If there is a viable gifted school option, helping to strengthen it may ultimately take less effort than years of advocacy with a school unprepared for children with your son's level of gifted, and where he may not find true peers.

Here is a roundup of crowd-sourced advocacy treads, posts, links and information: http://giftedissues.davidsongifted....y_Advocacy_as_a_Non_Newt.html#Post183916

Sorry, I don't have as much time as I need to fully respond but the biggest thing that jumps out at me is...

How would your school horizontally enrich a child who is working several years (or even a year) above grade level? For example, when my DS8 was in first grade he was working about 3 year levels ahead in maths and literacy... how could horizontal enrichment of first grade material have been enough? He got both extended both ways, and even with that we was capable of learning even more at school than he did!

I would really insist the school explains this you before you start.

Thanks to both of you for the responses so far. It is a lonely world out here!

The school is going through growing pains, we otherwise like the school and the teachers we met. But we want to see where they end up in say two years time, because if for some reason they don't survive (we might be just too paranoid/pessimistic here), we will end up with no private school, and I might have to leave my job to homeschool him, which I don't plan to do yet.

We are a bit apprehensive about telling the non-GT school that accepted us that our son is highly gifted, because we are afraid of stirring the pot and ending up with no school. This school is very well respected, and apart from the no vertical differentiation issue, it is a darling school that fits our family philosophy for education.

So I am guessing my base case for the next two years, is to work with the school and see what problems we get (or not) but that again doesn't allay our concern that he might not get to show his real abilities. Also our son's scores are more "normally gifted" in areas other than VSI, so they might be a good fit in other areas, just not in math. I am also assuming it is much easier to support differentiation in reading as it doesn't require 1:1. I may be able to hire a math tutor or tutor him myself at home if we want to test his math abilities, but I am apprehensive that he might then further diverge from his peers in math and get bored at school.

He has not received any formal instruction on math and reading both at home and school, our pre-K focuses on kindergarten readiness and social skills. But as a result we have not tested where he'd be in math. All we know is that he is a crazy lego guy, with design complexity years ahead of his age. We have read nurture shock also, and we are thus apprehensive about interpreting test results as high giftedness before we test his real limits in formal math instruction; though our psychologist told us that at this score level, the giftedness is real as the barrier to get that kind of score is very high. Also there is an incidence of high giftedness in our family.

My meandering experiences have taught me that schools don't tend to work for HG+ kids for more than three years or so. Many others here have said the same thing over the years. Well, some schools might, but they're probably the ones designed with HG+ kids in mind to begin with.

My other random observation is that if a school is telling you "horizontal differentiation only," there's a high risk that they don't understand HG+ students (or even know that levels of giftedness exist). If this is the case, you may end up tearing your hair out in a couple of years when your second grader, who is doing, say, long division or working on fractions with you, comes home with his seventh worksheet in a row asking him to do basic addition (as in, 6+8). I say this because "horizontal differentiation" can be a code word for "more of the same, with the emphasis on more."

What are your precise concerns about the school that gets HG+ students? Has it been around for a while or is it new? Have you asked the people who run it about their outlook for its future?

Personally, my feeling is that you're in a relatively strong position. You have acceptances from two schools and both of them presumably want your money. If it was me, I would ask each school a lot of specific questions about how they'll help your child work at a level that matches his current skills and his abilities. I'd make a list and look for specific answers. If they waffle or give vague answers about how well their students do, beware. Also, if a school is put off by your son's test scores, remember that they'll probably also be put off if you try to advocate for him when he's a student there.

Thanks Val for sharing the perspective!
Unfortunately we are not in strong position.. The non-GT school is in high demand amongst local parents and have a waitlist. I know many parents from our preschool will jump and take our spot if we leave it. And the GT school also had waitlist they had started contacting (they only held our spot until last Fri). But they said we could try to transfer next year if we get into differentiation trouble at the non-GT school. The school that has HG+ students is only a few years old, and rumor has it that they were at risk of closing quite recently (maybe 2-3 years ago), and we know their head might leave once the contract ends in two years. I guess we want to see where they are in a couple years, and if they are still there and we need it, then we could try transferring. We are willing to help the school with our resources, but more inclined to help it to move from stage B->C rather than A->B.

It is killing me that most GT schools don't want HG kids. And that it could be hard to advocate for a HG kid, because in our area people think all kids are gifted (and they are partly right, but then they are probably not aware that HG exists either..).

While I understand your decision I am not sure it was the right one. Horizontal differentiation means 5 worksheets instead of 3 but all the same or at best the 3 the class does followed by 2 slightly harder (14 + 6 instead of 4 + 6).

Is gifted public an option in your area???

I am feeling less and less comfortable with your current choice (sorry)... of course, I am looking at based on my personal experiences (!!! two boys) and yours might be different :-)

You make a good point this needs to be the right decision now... if he is not way ahead in reading, maths and writing prior to the start of K you might be OK for a bit, with enrichment at home as needed.

Best of luck!

Unfortunately our public school has an api score of only 7. So we need to go with private school. I am so thankful to you all for the honest opinions, I don't need sugar coating, and please keep it coming I am checking the thread often. I am feeling uncomfortable with my decision as well

Expat Mama, I guess I am hoping we'll be ok for a couple years at least.. We have a 9 months old as well and my husband is very busy at work (though very available in the weekend) so my hands are full and home schooling will be tough in the next three years at least. This is partly why we chose the non-GT school, if the GT school doesn't survive, we will be stuck in a bad corner.

Have any of you done math enrichment at home (with Khan academy, for instance), that is ahead of the school? And if so, how did the kids handle the math instruction hours at school?

I am also trying to figure out how "bad" could this be? I mean, what is the magnitude we are looking at, will he want to be a year ahead (manageable), or three (trouble)?

It depends on the child's personality. My 6 year old is in public school (not in the US) and while not madly ahead when he started I would say he is working at a level after 2 years of school which is maybe 6 months ahead of where he started. He went backwards for the first 6 months. He couldn't read when he started but was a year ahead after 6 months or so. In his second year his reading group was given no instruction for the last four months because they had reached the end of the levelled readers. By the end of year on paper everyone was reading on the same level (yeah ok). He got a bit of maths extension last year (extra work mostly) but spent a fair bit of time doing "jobs" for the teacher.

I would home school in a heart beat but i am a single mother, working is a necessity and i can't afford childcare. School is my childcare and i am just grateful he is sporty.

Of course this is an example of a GOOD outcome.