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    Joined: Sep 2015
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    Thank you for accepting me to the forum. My son just turned 8 and is in 3rd grade. All of his test scores are in the 99th percentile. They didn't send me the test scores. They just told me that over the phone. The lady I spoke with also wouldn't say what his IQ score was; just that it was "well above the threshold." His reading level is 8th grade. I'm not sure about math, but he has always been ahead by at least a couple of grade levels, breezes through it, and he understands some basic algebra. He was homeschooled until last year, when he decided he wanted to go to public school. He has been accepted to the gifted program, and the first IEP meeting is in two weeks. I want to be prepared to ask all the right questions and get him everything he needs. I am worried about the amount of time they are planning to allow him. According to him, he will only be getting about an hour a week. He said, "She's going to come on Thursdays after afternoon recess," so that only leaves about an hour before school lets out. I was in a gifted program from 1st through 12th, and I always got bussed to another school one day a week for a full day of G&T education. This is a smaller school district with only one gifted teacher who travels to 4 different schools, so she will be traveling to his school, and he will be her only student, but I don't understand why it would be such a small amount of time. Can I insist that he get a full day at the IEP development meeting? And how do you handle reading when everything is going to be beyond the maturity level of the child? Please advise. Thank you so much.

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    bump

    Welcome Carrie M!


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    Welcome!
    Originally Posted by Carrie M
    All of his test scores are in the 99th percentile.
    Your DS8 may qualify to become a Davidson Young Scholar (DYS).

    Quote
    They didn't send me the test scores. They just told me that over the phone. The lady I spoke with also wouldn't say what his IQ score was; just that it was "well above the threshold."
    You are entitled to know the tests and scores. You may wish to make a request in writing (via e-mail) to the school to obtain this information from his student records.

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    the first IEP meeting is in two weeks. I want to be prepared to ask all the right questions and get him everything he needs.
    Is this meeting for a gifted education plan, or an IEP/504 for disability/remediation/accommodation? This article from Understood.org, 10 Defusing Phrases to Use at IEP meetings, may be of interest.

    Unfortunately the one-hour a week you describe is not unusual for "gifted programming". Many posters on the forums describe that the "gifted education" offered their children falls far short of curriculum and pacing at their child's level (or zone of proximal development (ZPD)), and gifted children are frequently not clustered with intellectual/academic peers.

    Regardless of the size, many US public schools and districts are focused on equal outcomes for all students. Unfortunately gifted programs therefore may not be designed to help advanced students excel or remain advanced beyond their same-age peers. Rather, gifted students, high achievers, and early finishers may often been kept occupied with busywork until classmates catch up or complete their work.

    Parents often become advocates for their children. You may have read this elsewhere on the forums, as advocacy and crowd-sourced tips for meeting prep are discussed in several old threads. The word bored may work against advocacy. This thread has several posts which discuss reasons to not use the word "bored" when advocating. Here is a crowd-sourced list of tips on preparing for a meeting. This can help you get started, and others will likely fill in with more information. Single subject acceleration (SSA) and/or one or more full-grade accelerations may be helpful to consider at some point in your child's educational journey. The Iowa Acceleration Scale (IAS) can be a helpful tool for data gathering and discussion.

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    how do you handle reading when everything is going to be beyond the maturity level of the child?
    The forum offers many crowd-sourced recommended resources, including book lists for gifted kids of different ages.

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    Originally Posted by spaghetti
    Your son is GT every day, not just one hour once per week so the program should meet his needs every day.
    Well said. smile Dr. Dan Peters expresses this well in the Summit Center youtube video, Gifted All The Time.

    Fortunately, the field of psychology has several experts in giftedness. These experts may more readily recognize the needs of gifted students than the US public educational system currently does.

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    Originally Posted by spaghetti
    I'd ask for the GT person to not just provide services one hour per week but to train the teachers in what your DS needs. The GT teacher should explain what level your son is and then help the teachers to find appropriate material and integrate it in his day.

    ITA. I'd also not discount what the school might be planning to do until you've had the meeting and heard what the plan is. Remember that an IEP meeting isn't a "happens once and that's it" type of thing - it does happen once to write the IEP, but if the IEP isn't working, you can always request another team meeting to update it. Sometimes updates can be made without an official meeting if all of the team members agree.

    Next thing I'd be sure to do before the meeting - find out everything you can about your school district's gifted services. It sounds like you are already fairly familiar with what's available but find out everything you absolutely can through both reading school district website, policy, state gifted ed policy (if there is a policy in your state), and through networking with other parents and teachers. Note: this doesn't mean you have to expect to *settle* for what is typically offered, it's just important, if possible, to know the possibilities out there and the box within which the school district might try to fit him.

    You can also request a copy of your ds' test scores (actually I'd just request a copy of *all* of his school records) in writing, specific the test name and that you want the complete report), send the in to either his school office or the district administration office. You can also request to see the test scores before the meeting via email. The school staff might not *want* to provide you with the scores, but I am fairly certain they have to provide a copy if you request it.

    Best wishes,

    polarbear

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    Originally Posted by Carrie M
    And how do you handle reading when everything is going to be beyond the maturity level of the child?

    While a lot of literature will be, *everything* at a high reading level isn't necessarily above the maturity level of an 8 year old. It might help us give suggestions for reading (for fun) if you let us know examples of books he's already read, as well as books he's enjoyed. I would also request in your IEP meeting that he receive differentiation in language arts and ask that the school make suggestions re literature at the appropriate reading level.

    polarbear

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    My suggestion is to contact the school in writing ahead of time so you can see the specific results. You do want to know the IQ and which test they used. You want to know what test they used for the reading level. You want to know if that means he can read at that level, or if that is the level of his reading comprehension. It does make a difference. (Just as an aside, on one specific test my child scored 12th grade equivalent in reading during Kindergarten. In reality, the reading comprehension was probably only 3-4 grades ahead. Big difference.)

    If they refuse to give these ahead of time, you will have no choice but to use up the meeting time asking the questions. I agree that you should consider their plan and if you are unsure, ask them if you can think about it for a few days and then meet again to iron out the details, or something like that.

    Good luck!

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    Just a friendly reminder...GE doesn't mean what you think it means....the measure that means what you are looking for is "instructional reading level" or ZPD is another good one (on my son's report it was a range). I wish someone would just outlaw GE altogether.

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    Thank you all so much for your input. The meeting was not at all what I expected. Even though the principal, counselor, and regular teacher had signed the IEP paperwork as attendees, they were not present. It was just me and the gifted teacher. My son was there for the first half. When I asked about a full day, she said that she has a full time job in another town, and the most she can do is two hours a week. So I guess this is her side job? I don't know, but that was disappointing. When I mentioned subject acceleration, she said that they don't do that. They don't do academic acceleration at all; just fine arts enrichment. I insisted that my son needs single subject acceleration, even if it is provided in his regular classroom while the rest of the class is doing something else. The example I gave was that he never has to take the spelling tests, so he is told to turn his paper over and draw on the back. To me, that is a time when he should be given some accelerated material instead of just being left to languish. During that time, he should be given some higher-level spelling words to learn. It would only require the teacher to hand him a worksheet. She said that she will look into the different class schedules and see if he could sit in on any other classes, and that she will get back to me. She was very surprised at how prepared I was and all the questions I asked, and she actually asked me, "Who have you been talking to?"


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