Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy I could use some help...

Hello, I have 3 children 13, 6 and 3.

My 13 year old is in 7th grade and in the (supposedly) Highly Capable program at her school. It is a serious joke. They are not doing ANYTHING different or even at a faster pace than the "regular" math class. The problem appears to be that they have blended some upper average kids into the HiC class. This is a yawner for my kid. Another parent has tested her child into geometry - which can only be taken at the high school, so she will have to truck her over there and back for one class. The language arts portion is another snoozer for her... they are completely WASL (Washington Assessment of Student Learning) and ALL they have done all year is WASL prompts. I am on the Learning Improvement Team for this school - and I can assure you that 2/3 of every meeting is devoted to issues with getting more students to pass the WASL.

I have attempted to address my issues with the lack of challenge for the HiC kids with the LIT.... it was met with an attitude of they're having been insulted... and I was somewhat dismissed because I am not "educated" in education and don't understand that blending is better for all the students than leveling. I've attempted to research on my own... and have gotten nowhere.

My second situation is with my 6 year old son. He is already the youngest kid in his class because his birthday falls in August. He is seriously bored. I see him as being even more of an issue for me than my older child. He is displaying thinking and problem solving skills superior to hers at a younger age. At 6, he is able to solve double digit addition problems in his head - in class, they are working on "plus 2"... at home we've introduced him to carrying. He can perform math functions using negative and positive numbers on both sides of the number line - in his head. When deciding how to spell a word, he says that he "sees it in his head". He understands electrical circuits and can tell you what plasma is in relation to molecules and atoms. He has social problems with kids (not severe) in that he doesn't like the way they behave. The lack of maturity troubles him... the kids he gets along best with are the older kids - a year or more older than him. Because of his size (he's actually a little big for his age, but already one of the smaller kids because of his birthday)... I really hesitate to lobby for him to be accelerated to the next grade. What I want is for him to be given the opportunity to learn at his own pace. I'm considering having him tested this summer... but don't even know how to go about doing that.

The HiC program in the elementary school stinks even worse than the middle school program and is not even available until 4th and 5th grade. My thoughts are - if it's been this bad with my daughter, how much worse is it going to be for him? How do I advocate without alienating the teachers and administrators?

I don't think that I would call either of them "exceptionally gifted"... but they are both very motivated... and are highly capable. I think with the right type of stimulation they COULD be exceptional. I just don't know what to do at this point. Private school is not an option and I do not have the temperament for homeschooling. I don't know where to turn.

We are in the east side of Seattle in Washington state.

help!

Hi LynnW -

I think testing both kids is a wonderful idea. Sometime when we think that a program "stinks" it is because it doesn't meet our own child's needs, and we assume that our child can't be "that" different than other "highly capable" children. But some of our children are quite different than the majority of gifted children.

A good way to get started is by reading Deb Ruf's "Losing our Minds, Gifted Children left behind." It gives you ways to understand the "levels" of gifteness, and in the back is a way to understand your local school and how the level of the child and the level of the kid interact.

I would reccomend that you try to met some local gifted folks and some local homeschooling folks. I have never homeschooled personally, but by listening to gifted homeschooling parents, I have found that almost all of my assumptions about homeschooling were wrong - there are people who homeschool is a wide variety of ways. I'm not saying it isn't a tremendous amouth of effort and responsibility, but even short term homeschooling will teach you a lot about your children and your self. I just saw this website: http://store.sunburst.com/ and though, Wow!

Once you have the testing in hand, the tester should be able to make suggestions for your individual situation. Check Hoagiesgifted.org for specific names in your region. You do want someone who has tested lots and lots of gifted kids and seems to like them.

Best Wishes,
Trinity

Hi and welcome:
Have you considered looking into other school districts? Things are done differently , and if you like what you see maybe you can advocate for a district transfer? After all Seattle is not a small place ;-)
You should test your kids to know where you are standing, but the most important thing here is your gut feeling. Is it an option for you to take your 13 year old to a high school for a higher level course? Would the school consider for her to take some classes online? Look into Aleks for some math help for both of your kids. I can't stress enough how important Aleks has been in math education for my daughter.
Are you far from Belleuve School District? Check out this site
http://www.bsd405.org/default.aspx?tabID=335
Ania

Wow Ania,
That PRISM program sounds wonderful!
Nice Link!
Trinity

Hi Trinity, etal. - thanks for the suggestions. I'll check that book out as soon as possible and will hit that website as soon as I'm done typing this!

One thing I am trying to do is connect with other parents in my district who's children have qualified for the HiC program, or who suspect that their younger ones will. My thought is to try to form a group to advocate for support for the kids that fit all the ranges of gifted. Two of my daughter's 3 best friends are gifted - one is being homeschooled because her mom felt she was not being adequately served by the district. The other is not only gifted, but is highly motivated.... and frustrated. Her mom and I have been in touch for a number of years and would like to change things - but find that all we seem to be able to do is gripe to one another about all the problems... and neither of us have a clue how to make things change. She has been more active in trying to find solutions - after pushing and pushing, she was able to convince the math dept. head at our (only) high school to asses her daughter's math skill... and she was deemed capable of taking H.S. geometry. It just irks us to no end that they can't provide for our kids at their OWN school - instead, she is going to have to truck this girl 25 minutes from the middle school to take ONE class, then truck her back. (as an aside, her 3rd best friend is on the opposite end of the scale - struggles with all subjects)

I wonder, have any of you tried to form a local advocacy group? It seems like there just aren't enough of us who care... it's always on the PTSA survey - do you want to put PTSA funds and effort to HiC classes/activites - and it's ALWAYS at the bottom or near the bottom for interest.

Have any of you had ANY success in changing policy or curriculum in your districts?

As for going out of district.... unlikely to happen, as the surrounding districts have all indicated that due to their OWN overcrowding (and we are overcrowded in EVERY school ourselves) that they will not be accepting ANY variances. And, I noticed that

Homeschooling.... I think it works great for some people... but I don't think it would be a workable thing in our situation for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that I'm going to a student myself starting this fall (coincidentally, in education with additional coursework to teach secondary math - I decided that I can't bark about the situation if I'm not willing to get into the fray and advocate for change). i considered it briefly a few years back when my daughter had a horrific teacher (here's a sample - would not allow the children to compliment each other on artwork - they were only allowed to issue a global classroom compliment to EVERYONE) who could not handle having a student who was smarter and better informed (told the class that sharks were mammals and became incensed when Lena told her they were NOT). At that time, though, I was weeks from giving birth in what had been a difficult pregnancy, so we worked through it... hoping that it had offered some sort of lesson to our daughter in how to deal with idiots who have power.

Sounds like you have done some really important networking locally, which is very important.

I have had no luck with creating a local group, but I do keep in touch with local parents through email and phone contact, and when legislation came before out state recently I was able to get folks to email their representatives.

Is the homeschooling Mom willing to homeschool your daughter? Could your daughter also go to the Geometry Class at the HS?

I do believe that there are resources out there to help point you in the way to "go" rather than "gripe" - Karen Roger's Re-forming gifted education is a book that tells you what to ask for.

Have you considered a gradeskip for DD? The program may suddently be "much less of a snooze."


Best Wishes,
Trinity

LynnW,
I know these are older posts, but I was wondering if you ever made progress with your school, or how you went about testing.

We're new to the Seattle area and are having a similar experience. My son's teacher, who I love, is just not too interested in the fact that he's doing multiplication, not 3+2. We're new to the school and my son has some social difficulties. I was told that if there is an "educational impact" that he would be more eligible for moire services - and it was definitely strongly implied that academic delays would be "helpful" in demonstrating this impact. This from staff I had already discussed how accelerated he is! He's already been skipped up one grade, and academically needs to skip another - but of course, this is not fun for a kid who is already awkward (please do not respond to classmate questions with robot noises.)

So we're looking into some homeschooling options, maybe a combo program. I would love to hear how it went for you. It seems our experiences are not unique!

Hope it has gone well for you....
Cece

ah robot noises! Our kids can do some weird stuff! I've heard moms of Pglets say that after the 3rd skip things started to go better socially. You can at least try him where he is academically and see what happens. Older kids can be more secure and more tolerant. best wishes grinity

Hey LynnW..."I wonder, have any of you tried to form a local advocacy group?"...

That would be a yes on my end. I was having a really difficult time trying to advocate for my pre-K son (last year) out of concern of the lack of gifted services for kids in early childhood. I was also really amazed to find there is no gifted elementary school or even a private school choice in our area...the county offers the standard one day a week for 3 hour pull out class (which to this day, still does not make sense to me....gifted kids are gifted 24/7 not for 3 hours, one day a week)...anyways...I was very frustrated and tried reaching out to some local families through a few different avenues to the point that I found another gifted advocate in the area that really knew a lot of info and had been trying to advocate in our county for years....I kept asking about starting up a support group for parents in our area and finally got some parents to one meeting...everyone seemed to have the same questions and same gripes but when it came time to try to figure out good times to meet, no one could compromise or one time/date was good for some and not for others...we managed to pull off a 2nd meeting and then it fizzled out to nothing....so, I found an amazing group 2 hours away, that really worked hard to start up their support group and I thoroughly enjoy driving to their meetings and get togethers and have been able to share and take part in some really great sessions with other parents.