Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy 4th Grade Switching Classes Advice

Our school has decided the fourth graders will switch classes this year. Gifted kids are pulled out for 45 minutes everyday plus transition time. This means the gifted kiddos will miss all but 20 minutes of math and the first 20 minutes of writing in two different classes with two different teachers. The kids are not required to make up the work they miss but our gifted program does not address math or writing standards. I worry our son will still stress though because he still will receive a grade for each class and be expected to master the material but will miss so much instruction. He is a perfectionist. We are considering removing him from gifted. Does anyone else have experience with kids missing so much class time in elementary and switching classes?

Is he "ahead" in these areas (so you're not worried about him missing instruction, but you think that he might be worried about it)? The most important thing I learned when my kids were in elementary school is that no one cares about your elementary school grades. Really, no one at all. They don't matter in high school; they don't even matter in middle school. Elementary is the safest and best place for letting kids experience the natural consequences of getting some Bs and Cs, even if those consequences are not due entirely to their own actions.

This may have been true at a given point in time, however parents may want to be aware that from preschool on, US public school student data is now collected and stored in permanent government databases.

Although one of the requirements is "auditing data for quality, validity, and reliability" and although FERPA guarantees parental right to access minor students' records, parents may find it difficult, expensive, and/or impossible to obtain their children's data and check it for errors:
1. Price for Nevada dad to see state's school files on his kids: $10G
2. Dad told seeing state's records on his kids will cost him $10 grand+

Roundup on data collection here.

I'd worry more about being a perfectionist.

Fact check on Nevada story

If your son is gifted, the reality is likely that he can miss that much fourth grade math and writing time without it affecting his grades. If the school has decided the trade off is worth it, I wouldn't worry about the missed class time. They have certainly considered this and decided it isn't an issue.

It isn't too early to work with your son on focusing on the joy of learning, discovering new things and not on being perfect. He will pick up on your worries about this, so be positive about it and he will adjust. If you notice he needs extra work on writing or math, that can be covered easily at this level in a short time at home.

As parents, we need to be careful, imo, about not labeling our children with traits such as "perfectionism," because such labels can become self-fulfilling prophecies.

Thank you for sharing this further affirmation.

A brief summary of points made in the lengthy fact-checker article:
- As of 2013, Nevada did not have a Statewide Longitudinal Student Database (although mandated in 2009, for funds accepted beginning in 2005; therefore State was not compliant).
- State of Nevada collected data from districts, but stored less data than districts made available.
- State of Nevada directed parent to get data from local district.
- However errors can be introduced when moving data from one system to another; parent wanted data collected by State.
- State of Nevada claimed that extracting data by a unique identifier would compromise security... although a unique identifier for each student is mandated.
- State of Nevada claimed that it could not verify that the requester was the parent of the student whose data was being requested, therefore denied the request.
- State of Nevada offered an estimate of $10K to develop programming (although it is apparent that such system functionality should have existed, and should have been developed with funds accepted since 2005).

These posts about data collection relate to the OP's concern that his/her child would I agree with ConnectingDots, that in general a gifted child may typically miss some classroom instruction without grades being negatively impacted. I will go further to say that remaining in a class for which the student knows the material may result in boredom and zoning out due to lack of mental stimulation... therefore attending the class instruction may result in a trend of lowering grades.

Excellent advice from ConnectingDots. Please consider perfectionism a temporary coping mechanism and help your child to develop skills which will serve him better. The following may be of interest:
- old post
- old post

I would advise against this. For continuing growth and development, kids need:
1) appropriate academic challenge
2) true peers
For typical kids, these needs may be met in a general ed classroom, however for children with higher IQ/giftedness, these needs may not be met without intentional effort in providing advanced curriculum, and grouping for instruction with academic/intellectual peers.

Even if the curriculum could be vastly improved for your school's "gifted program" there is potential benefit for your child, to be grouped among academic/intellectual peers.

Yes. Beginning in 3rd grade. Excellent experience. However, there was one drawback: unlike your school, kids were required to complete homework for missed lessons in the gen ed classroom.

One thing I learned when DC was in Elementary is that a lot of kids are pulled out of class all the time. It seems very much like a normal thing now. The elementary curriculum repeats itself a lot, and many gifted kids can learn with 1 or 2 repetitions, instead of 4 or 5.

I would not pull your child from the gifted program.

You don't need to worry unless your DS struggles. There really is a lot of repetition and extra time built in to the elementary school day. Students miss class for lots of other reasons including therapy, testing, make-up, instrumental music, etc. "Gifted" kids could probably most afford to miss a portion of class time.