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    Joined: May 2013
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    Sorry to hear this. How frustrating. Last year DD was considered the slowest in the class and now none of the teachers see her as being particularly slow and she's with kids who are much more advanced than last year. So what changed? The level of the work is the biggest thing I can think of. Either that, or her medication. Does your DD have an explanation for why she's slow? Or is it that they're totally making it up?

    We had this sort of situation with DS last year, where the teacher seemed focused on proving he's not really as advanced as we thought. She completely disregarded the WISC, Woodcock Johnson Achievement, etc. Now 6 months later he is scoring like an average 9th grader for math in second grade (on the above-level test the school district gives). Somehow I think she'd figure out a way to even dismiss that. With these types of people it is useless to argue, I'd just figure out a way to get out. They are never going to admit "Oh, ok, I was wrong, she really IS quite advanced so here's what we're going to do to get her challenging work." They are going to ignore all evidence that is contrary to what they want to believe.

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    Don't have much advice, but I feel for you. My son has always been slow to do work he considers boring. But my DS15 is often also slow to do work, particularly if it's boring work. Second grade was quite difficult since the teacher would only give him the more advanced work when he completed the normal work first. Frustrating because why should a kid have to fill out 25 addition problems that he knows in order to get more advanced math. It's one of the reasons we put my son in the local gifted program in 4th. Luckily DS has a much better teacher in 3rd grade.

    We finally had DS tested this past summer. Turns while he scores quite high of most skills, he has average working memory and processing speed. These obviously show him down. I agree with most of the others, the school here is confusing "gifted" kids with those who are high performing and are quick to do the work.

    Good luck finding a solution.

    Last edited by bluemagic; 09/21/14 03:19 PM.
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    Originally Posted by bluemagic
    Don't have much advice, but I feel for you. My son has always been slow to do work he considers boring. But my DS15 is often also slow to do work, particularly if it's boring work. Second grade was quite difficult since the teacher would only give him the more advanced work when he completed the normal work first. Frustrating because why should a kid have to fill out 25 addition problems that he knows in order to get more advanced math. It's one of the reasons we put my son in the local gifted program in 4th. Luckily DS has a much better teacher in 3rd grade.

    We finally had DS tested this past summer. Turns while he scores quite high of most skills, he has average working memory and processing speed. These obviously show him down. I agree with most of the others, the school here is confusing "gifted" kids with those who are high performing and are quick to do the work.

    Good luck finding a solution.

    DS8, now in third grade, suffered through second grade in a different school last year. He was made to feel as if he was bad in math because he has difficulty with Timed Math Facts sheets due to a very low processing speed (21%). He was miserable, hated school and did not want to attend. This is a boy who is extremely social, loves to learn and loves school as a combination of both.

    To reengage his love of learning over the summer, he worked on the Stanford EPGY K-7 math at a 4.5 grade level AND the Stanford EPGY Beginning Algebra (set at an 8.0 grade level). He didn't finish either but that was due to the time limitations we set rather than his intellectual capacity. He was doing a lot of other things and it was just a time-filler. Now he is in an HG classroom with other HG kids. This year, he is RElearning the value of neat work (which his second grade teacher totally let slide), organizational skills, and how not to talk during lessons; all things he knew in FIRST grade but regressed in second due to the environment. We're not pushing for grade acceleration because of those regressions but also because DS8 prefers to be with age-peers who are also intellectual peers.

    We just received his beginning of the year MAP results and during our discussion, I was struck by DS8 asking me:

    "So I'm really not bad at math?"

    He absolutely hated math last year due to the timed math facts sheets and the addition worksheets. He learned multiplication and division in kindergarten, and we made algebra equations (a + 4 = 7) in preschool. He's been so opposed to math because he THOUGHT he was bad at it that we haven't exposed him to higher level maths yet; still, his MAP scores put him at mid-fifth grade.

    I would move her, if you can.

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    Thanks, everyone. And yes, Indigo, I was ready for the advice the next day, so thank you all for that, as well.

    I've gone up the food chain, about as high as possible in our school, and am told to expect a response early this week. I've offered the sensible solution of testing out - the plan I thought we had all agreed to, already. I erred in not sending out an email summmarizing the agreed-upon plan. That is excellent advice that I commend to everyone else in similar circumstances. I won't make that mistake again.

    The allegation of 'slow work' is entirely bizarre. I do have one of those very slow children, but it's not DD6. She's the fast, accurate, child who has always been described by teachers as a class leader. If she is slow, I expect it's boredom-induced, but I'm inclined to think it's an outright lie designed to make me go away.

    If she didn't love the school I'd already be pursuing other options. I may still, depending on how the principal handles the situation. I'm hoping the toxicity is administrator-specific and not system-wide.

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    Originally Posted by CoastalMom
    If she is slow, I expect it's boredom-induced, but I'm inclined to think it's an outright lie designed to make me go away.

    I remember the horror of being so under challenged and so terrified of the prospective boredom of having NOTHING left to do that I procrastinated and took forever to complete mundane tasks at school too at various stages.

    I would be astounded if no others on this board had similar experiences.


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    Ugh, I'm so sorry. That was the summary of our experience for K-2. After 2, we moved.

    In my experience with our old district, the issue was really very top-down. They were never, ever in a million years going to acknowledge that DD was desperately bored in school and their behavior toward her was making her worse. Things might've gotten a bit better if we'd stayed this year because the school's got a new principal, but then, maybe not.

    DD also thought she loved her old school, and she and I both loved her friends. But having friends didn't keep her from being miserable and bored for 6 hours per day. But she does like the new school ok now that we've started it, and her 3rd grade teacher has already figured out DD can do more of 4th and 5th grade math, which is a really hopeful sign for week 3 of school.

    Last edited by Aufilia; 09/22/14 11:20 PM.
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    Sending more hugs!

    We had this all year (our school year runs from end Jan to mid Dec) - and we are moving schools now. Things have gone from unexpectedly good(with his first teacher of the year) to not-great, to bad, to worse, to WHAT-ARE-THEY-SMOKING!?!?! with the second (very young, inexperienced) teacher. We eventually got so tired of them saying he's not working in class/working exceptionally slowly that I provided them with a sheet for them to tick off whether he did the work or not (per subject) - and requested that they send any unfinished work home with us. The teacher replied that it wasn't school policy to send work home (and told DS8 this!), but claimed she would fill in the form I provided. She did it twice, then stopped. Since last week she hasn't replied to any notes we've sent with DS to school at all.

    The play therapist DS is seeing for (wait for it) school related anxiety (I wonder why!) told us not to move DS to a different school before she has addressed the anxiety... I basically said screw it, she has NO idea what we are facing, and she hasn't seen day in, week out, month in, year out, what this school has done to him! I highly doubt that it's general school related anxiety, it's rather this-specific-school related... anyway.

    So DS spent a day at a private school (way better where we are) last week, and did their entrance exams as they claim to be ahead of our government/public schools, so they check if the kids will cope. Let me add here that DS's current school said they would recommend we keep DS back a year, and then the private school accepted him very happily, and apparently told him he got everything right for the one test - which from what he's said was at least 1 year ahead of his current school's grade level...

    So, let me add to the voices who came before - if at all possible, I'd change the school. DS has been happier socially this year, but the psych he saw for IQ testing told us it's because he's learnt to interact with his age peers, but he is still lacking connections to true peers... so while I'm sad that he's going to lose this group of friends, I'm confident that he'll find a good bunch at the new school.

    Either way, it seems like it's never easy, doesn't it?!

    PS what IS it with schools feeling the need to disprove that these kids are what they've already proven themselves to be? It scares me that these are the people teaching kids in general, not even just the gifted kids they have such issues with...


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    Originally Posted by M2iChances
    PS what IS it with schools feeling the need to disprove that these kids are what they've already proven themselves to be? It scares me that these are the people teaching kids in general, not even just the gifted kids they have such issues with...

    I suspect some of it is jealousy and their own feelings of inferiority. Most of these teachers have their own children, and chances are very good that these children are not advanced or gifted. DS's teacher last year had 8 (!!!) of her own children (or maybe it was 6, but still), with the youngest being in preschool and the oldest being in college. Her Dh was staying home with the kids while she worked. If I had to make a wild guess, she was doing the job for the paycheck and the last thing she wanted to see were kids who were getting help at home to become more advanced and clearly doing better than her own. So I became (in her view) a pushy hot-housing mom, otherwise how could DS do so much better than her own kids? This is all speculation but I'm trying to look at things from their view and how they deal with the cognitive dissonance of teaching children that are more advanced than their own. They don't want to say "Oh, yeah, my kid really is average and despite being a teacher I'm not doing a great job with my own kid." They want to explain away the data or label the parent as a tiger parent. The most sympathetic teachers, that I've found, are those who have older children who were themselves advanced and now doing well. So there is no anxiety or jealousy related to it. It's no different than other people in general. I don't go running around saying how advanced my kid is to other random parents because of the evil eyes that I'd get and I doubt most teachers are any different. They want to teach kids that are similar to their own kids, or behind their own kids (in general! Obviously their are huge exceptions, like the spec. ed teacher who did the WJ on DS and said how amazing it was, even though he had average kids in the same school).

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