Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments 9 year old failing 4th grade not sure what to do.

I wake him and his sister up, but he gets dressed on his own and goes to bed on his own (sometimes if we don't know what time it is he will come in right at 9PM and tell us its time for him to go to bed). He's excellent about making sure he's home on time if he is outside playing with friends. He does very well in Karate and listens attentively and follows directions (but yes he does talk to the other kids and goof around when allowed). I'm trying to get the help from the school but it just doesn't seem to be working. We spoke with him briefly about possibly changing schools (he went to 3 different schools in 2nd grade and then was accepted into this program) but he is completely against that idea as he now has friends for the first time (he never got along with the other kids but since he's been with these same kids since middle of 2nd grade he's socially extremely happy). He watches Bill Nye The Science Guy and the Smithsonian Channel on TV and loves to do experiments and build things but when it comes to just sitting and "learning" and then writing down what you know he completely collapses. This year's class is completely different than last years but I don't want to just blame the environment he's in if that makes sense. Otherwise he's going to suffer the rest of his educational years.

When you say they're "doing an evaluation", I'm wondering, have you actually sent a signed letter or signed a form asking them formally to do an evaluation?

Save any emails you get from teachers as documentation of classroom problems. Also, you need to put in a written request for a comprehensive evaluation. Our school tried to feed me a bunch of ** about how they need to do "interventions" before they would evaluate but it says right on top of the eligibility checklist that interventions are not needed if a parent requests an evaluation. Find out what the policies are in your state. You should be able to call your State and talk to someone in the Special Ed Department. The schools here give this info to parents in their procedural safeguards booklet which lists the numbers for the State and various other advocacy groups. They are required to give this out to parents every time there is a meeting or they are refusing to do something that a parent requests. Here's a link about "Child Find". http://www.wrightslaw.com/info/child.find.mandate.htm
Write them a letter (I addressed it to the principal) requesting a comprehensive eval and include your specific concerns that you want evaluated. Tell them you want a team meeting to discuss your concerns and the evaluation. If they don't respond within a certain amount of time (I think it's 10-14 days), I would contact the special ed director. If that doesn't get you anywhere, call the State and ask how to file a complaint against the school for refusing to do a comprehensive evaluation. It sounds like they have no idea what they are doing. It is the same here. At the last school, they had no idea how to do even basic procedures/forms. They were quickly educated by the special ed director, but only because I called the State. We got DS a reasonable IEP.