Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy IEP meeting

Hello. My daughter has a meeting this afternoon to establish an IEP for giftedness, she is in the HG+ to PG range and is equally adept at verbal/math spatial abilities. Her teachers are willing to differentiate but do not have experience with gifted children. So... I need ideas, things that you have done with your child in the classroom, extra projects that have been helpful (she is in 2nd grade). Any ideas would be appreciated. Thanks!!

We went the differentiation route, and as we predicted, it was a dog's breakfast. It's simply not reasonable to expect a teacher with 20-30 other children to develop and deliver a whole other curriculum for the one outlier student. Even the teacher who went into that with good intentions found it difficult to maintain with any sort of consistency.

Even worse, our DD is a social butterfly, and differentiation often meant she was shunted off to the side while the rest of the class did a group activity well below her level. This caused her to choose between two of her fundamental needs: does she join in with other children, or does she learn something? Or to look at it the other way (because she's very much a glass-half-empty sort of person), does she choose boredom, or isolation?

It seems you may have two challenges before you:

1) Helping the teachers through a learning curve on gifted issues.
For this you may wish to bring a written list of resources to direct them to, such as:
- Davidson Educator's Guild
- A Nation Deceived
- Iowa Acceleration Scale (IAS)
- Institute for Research and Policy on Acceleration (IRPA)
- Davidson Database, Resources
- Hoagies' Gifted Education Page, educator's tab
If you follow up your meeting with a summary e-mail, you could include the clickable links for their convenience.

2) Helping your daughter learn with appropriate curriculum, pacing, and peers in school.
Why an IEP? What needs have been identified? What achievement level has been agreed upon... for example is her math achievement at the middle of the school's 3rd grade curriculum? Prior to brainstorming on options, it may be wise to agree what the specific current needs are.

ETA: Tips for meeting prep have been posted on other threads but in case it is helpful, here is a brief summary:

- Research state laws and the school or district policies and practices. This information is often found online. You may wish to print and put this in an advocacy ring binder to refer to over the years as the laws and policies/practices may change over time.
- Have any test results and other pertinent facts available to share (milestones, reading lists, other accomplishments/achievements)
- It is good to have them speak first. If asked to speak first, you may simply wish to thank everyone for attending and summarize that you are all here to share information and ideas about how to best meet your child's educational needs... and that you would like to hear from them.
- Agenda
- Know who is in the meeting, and their role(s)
- Stay calm
- Know what you are asking for
- TAKE NOTES including Who-What-Where-When-Why-How of services, so you can summarize in an e-mail afterward [Some families announce they plan to record the meeting and then do so, rather than taking notes.]
- Use active listening (rephrase what has been said, and put it in a question form) to clarify understanding
- Be open to receiving the school's data/observations.
- Listen to any proposals they may make, ask appropriate probing questions, such as how a proposal may work, how the proposal may help your child, the schedule/frequency of service delivery, etc
- Do not be forced to make a decision if you need time
- Summarize next steps & time frames, and/or need for a follow-up meeting
- Thank everyone for their time & interest
- After the meeting, write a summary (points of agreement, etc) and share it, possibly by e-mail

She has an IEP because we live in a state that mandates and funds gifted education and she attends a small private school that is wonderful (they are not required to do anything but they do). Per her evaluation she is about three years ahead academically, with the exception of reading which is much higher, this surprised me since we really don't do academics at home (other than reading for pleasure). After the meeting they are letting her do work that is two years ahead in the classroom plus several major projects with only the topic assigned (self led) that she can work on at school if she has extra time. She is very excited about both. She will be allowed to present the projects to her classmates.