Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy MTG w/ School District - HELP!

I will do an in-depth search on this topic, but for quick reference I am hoping some of you will chime in with ideas....

Here's the situation: we took our dd out of the local pubic school system after K5 because it was painfully obvious they had no clue how to work with the gifted population, she spent the next few years at a fancy private school (which wasn't much better) and the last 2 years at a gifted school (but they are closing). She will technically be in 7th grade, and I plan on homeschooling her for the next year or two. Now I am thinking further down the road and what our options will be for high school. So I sent off an email to our local school board, basically asking them if they are doing anything different. I had heard through the grapevine that they failed an audit for gifted & talented programming (no shock there), and are perhaps more open now to figuring out what they can do for this segment of the population.

The Director of Curriculum & Instruction offered to meet with me next week and I want to look at this as an opportunity to start a dialogue and be part of the solution. I have no ideas of grandeur, but if I can make salient points and at least start the conversation maybe I will have a better audience. One thing I do know about this district is that they do not want to be losing their "best" students to other districts that are way outpacing them in terms of at least attempting to build decent GT programs (a point I made rather clearly in my email to the district).

So my main question to all you lovely people who have walked this walk...what were the best resources you used when starting these conversations? Can you quickly point me to articles, research, lists of questions and answers (I don't want to be stumped if they ask me questions ), really any ideas that you think will be helpful would be most appreciated! I should add that they think they have a GT program already, which is far, far, far from the truth. They have AP classes in the high school, and a few pull outs for middle schoolers, but that is about it. From what I understand none of the teachers have any gifted training, and they treat the gifted population as high achievers only, not understanding the full scope of their needs.

Thanks!

Do they use Common Core? Is G&T identification mandated in your state and is programming funded?

Here is the statement on the district website regarding common core: The State of XXX Department of Public Instruction has adopted the Mathematics and English Language Arts Common Core State Standards; XXX School District has chosen to exceed these State adopted Standards. We believe the State Standards to be the floor and not the ceiling.

Yes, there is a state statue mandating identification and access to G/T instruction. However, the actualization of this varies greatly from district to district. The state has a granting system in place to obtain funds, but from what I understand this again is dependent on the strength of the person in charge of G/T in each district. FWIW our district does not even have a G/T coordinator.

Unfortunately, that may actually depend a bit on demographics, as in general there is a push to "close the achievement gap".

PM'd you.

In this particular case they are all suburban America districts with the same demographics.

In Fl there is a gifted endorsement program...it is three to four classes.

In our county gifted students have to have contact with someone gifted endorsed daily or sometimes can participate in a consultation model (each teacher must have contact with an endorsed teacher and consult with him/her and student sees the consultant monthly or each marking period).

So at each elementary school at least one teacher is gifted endorsed in each grade (and this tends to lend to clustering in a specific class). A teacher in the process working on the endorsement counts.

In the middle school my son went to they had one whole team of teachers gifted endorsed and they grouped an entire class of 24 gifted kids as a unit and they moved from subject one to subject two, etc. as a unit...their electives were different though.

In high school honors and AP and consultation...eh they fall down there. My son was frustrated with the pace and quality of Spanish I he would have loved a harder version of that.

I actually like your district's statement on Common Core policy - I wish that our P.S. recognized this, as well. The Common Core is indeed a floor, and not a ceiling.

If G&T is so supported in your state, P.S. may be worth looking at. It is worth listening to what they have to say.

I think that going into the school and expecting them to overhaul the entire system in a short period of time is unrealistic (I'm not suggesting that this is what you are trying to do, btw). Change in public schools takes time - sometimes too much time to actually improve it for your own children. If, however, they have basically good programming that they are continually working to improve - it is worth considering.

Because this post does not indicate an in-depth knowledge of the current gifted program at the local public school, I might have taken a different approach. Specifically I might have researched everything available on the district website, then formulated questions, possibly including;
- written open records requests:
-- for board minutes & board committee meetings discussing gifted program, within past school year
-- for audit report of the gifted program, recommendations, and implementation timeframes
- list of questions to ask at meeting (or to verify information found on website, because websites change):
-- description of gifted program (gifted students study at grade level? one year above?)
-- entrance requirements for gifted program?
-- single subject acceleration (SSA) available? For which subject(s)? How many are single subject accelerated, in child's grade? Criteria/process?
-- whole grade acceleration available? How many accelerated at child's age? How many in the school? What is the criteria/process, does it use the Iowa Acceleration Scale (IAS)?

Some may say that you and the school have not yet mutually defined a problem, for which to be part of the solution. Be careful, for just as parents may predetermine what the problem is, schools may also pre-determine that the problem is the parent and/or the child.

Do you have a list of such districts, and have you spoken to them... is your child eligible to attend through open-enrollment, etc?

Ouch. Not generally recommended, unless you have at least one other better option guaranteed (in which case you may not be meeting with this school).

Honestly, the best conversation opener may be a variety of questions, the answers to which may help "comparison shop" among schools or districts. The first meeting with the district could be dedicated to fact-finding, in which you each get to know more about the other, identify areas of agreement & good "fit", and any areas which may require effort.

This may depend largely upon what your goals are for the meeting, and for going forward.
- Acceleration Institute
- Karen Rodgers: inventory forms, and book Re-Forming Gifted Education

These points may provide a solid basis for additional questions -
- What level of gifted students do they program for?
- Have they had outliers with IQ 145+, 99.9th percentile?
-- What programming was available for them, or created for them?
-- What degree of flexibility? Take pre-test and skip a unit? Take term post-test and receive SSA?
-- What ability grouping exists?
- Which positions do they have in support of gifted students?
-- What gifted training/credentials do the gifted support personnel possess?

You may have read this elsewhere on the forums... there is a crowd-sourced list of tips on preparing for a meeting.

All GREAT info indigo - thank you! And yes, I am a bit of a bull in a china shop...I wasn't intending on diving in head first, but there you have it...although my email to them was much more PC that I wrote on here.

I have done the research on two other districts that are close by, and have friends within both systems that are reporting good things starting to happen. Open enrollment is an option, but I would love DD to be able to walk to school and have friends here! I know nothing will happen quickly, but I am hoping by high school we might have a fighting chance.

I am hoping the district realizes there is work to be done. I have several neighbors that teach within the system and none have anything good to say about GT or lack there of....we'll see...but I will make sure to be an open vessel at the meeting to simply gather information.

Loy58, I wish it were as easy as having something in a state statue to make it so...but unfortunately this is an area of contention for many in the GT community, as we are not seeing a lot of follow through in making it a reality.