Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy School Frustration!

YEAH!!! Other good books I found for positive motivation and insight is "The First Year of Homeschooling" by Dobson. She tells the trials and tribulations and she discusses kids who've never been in school as well as kids who have been removed from school. The issues she discusses rang very true for me having a kid who had been in PS for K-2.

I only came across this thread b/c of a link on another thread, so sorry to drag up an older one. I just wanted to say that we got a similar spiel from the charter school dds attended a few years back. We were looking to skip dd#1 from 3rd to 5th (skipping 4th). Despite dd being an excellent candidate on the Iowa Acceleration Scale and a letter from a local psych who had seen her who said it was a good move, the principal told us that, in her experience, it was always a disaster. She didn't care about research, only her personal anecdotal experience.

We changed schools, spent a year w/ dd basically working as a free teacher's helper in 4th and having a fun year socially but learning little to nothing academically and then skipped 5th to send her on to middle school. That was last year and she completed 6th grade with straight As in the accelerated classes and still scored above the 99th percentile for a 6th grader in the one thing they tested her on -- reading.

My dd is not PG/Davidson eligible. She is most likely a HG kid, but a skip was the right move for her and it sounds like it is for your dd as well. In your instance, you will probably need to do even more than that over the years.

I had to add on here because we went down a similar road with our DD, now 12. Elementary school was a nightmare with a principal who hated the whole concept of giftedness - we could get no acceleration, though DD6 tested in the 99.9 percentile, until we went behind the principal's back between 3rd and 4th grade and tested out of 4th grade math.

I taught for 13 years - high school mathematics - before I became a parent. What all parents here need to know is that the teachers and administrators are not required to take a class on giftedness in order to work in the schools. I never had a course - not even a lecture about it. When you have a degree in something, you assume that you've been taught all you need to know - that's where they are coming from - they think that if there was something important to know about giftedness, then they would have learned about it in college. When you have a meeting with school personnel, know that what they bring to the meeting is likely only what they think they know about giftedness - they don't know what they don't know. My dream, after those nightmare years of elementary school, is to start a requirement that all teachers and administrators get educated about giftedness - through teacher inservice for those already working - adding a required course for those who are working on degrees.

DD is now 12, skipped 6th grade last year, and will take 2 high school courses next year.

This thread...it makes me count our blessings...so greatful for supportive schools and administrations. I wish them upon every parent in this situation.

Wow wondermom - I really appreciate you sharing this. It is so sad and so insightful. Would you consider writing about your experience and submitting it to http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/

BTW - have you applied the the Davidson Young Scholar Program?

anyway - thank you!

Grinity

BUT if the topic isn't on the table as something to learn about, and there is a culture in place where classes in gifted aren't 'in your face,' then I think that most people will find it very difficult to 'find' the need to learn more about gifted education.

I can live with that but in my experience of having a 1in 1000 type kid is that many teachers and admins have gone out of their way to try and convince me that my child doesn't have special educational needs. For many years they suceeded in convinsing me that this was the most useful perspective to maintain even in the face of mounting behavior problems at school.

I'm so sorry you've had to go through this. As you can see, you're definitely not alone. I am feeling very similar frustrations (however, my ds is not quite THAT advanced!), and I know how difficult it is to put so much energy into advocating and fighting for your child, only to be accused of making poor decisions for her future. We just pulled ds out of his private school to homeschool. We're still working out the kinks (today is day 1), and while it's not perfect, everytime we go down another avenue we're always led back to hs. It's sad that it becomes the only option for our kids. They deserve more.