Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Typical Policy Concerning Grade Skip?

Our state policy concerning grade skipping appears to say it's up to the individual school to decide.

My son will be 5.7 years in September and should be registered for Kindergarten. However, from what I've read about Kindergarten curriculum, he knows all of it and also most of 1st grade as well.

He's only been exposed to a two day, part-time preschool setting.

My question is: Should I call schools and ask if he can be placement tested to see if he can skip Kindergarten? Do most schools want to have a child start Kindergarten and then decide if they will skip them into 1st after "seeing them in action"?

Since he hasn't had to sit in a desk for hours a day, five days a week, I lean toward putting him in Kindergarten and asking for a skip to second grade for Fall of 2013.

Advice?

I don't think there are really any "typical" grade skipping policies. It seems rare in most places, but in our local district there was no policy when we asked for one. We did give the school the Iowa Acceleration Scales, and they now use that as part of their policy. Have you checked the district web site for policies?

That said, we did what you mention above. We had our January birthday son go to kindergarten with agemates, mostly because he was not used to full-day, every day school and also because he refused to learn to write at home and that's one thing he could learn in kindergarten. The school was also supportive (eventually) of differentiation for DS. Then we skipped 1st. This worked out fairly well, but even with the grade skip and differentiation, pace in the regular classroom was an issue. (We then found an accelerated program and transferred DS.) We probably could have stayed in the local district, which by then knew what DS was capable of and was willing to be fairly flexible, but it would have required yet another grade skip, which we didn't want. At least not yet.

It may be a good idea to approach the school with your 2 ideas and ask for their advice. They may be willing to test your child, on their own tests (which is more convincing to them).

How long is the kindy day? How have things gone for him in prek? Do you have iq and achievement test scores?

Go observe a few kindy classrooms and1st and 2nd classrooms. Look to see what books are on the bookshelves. How does the teacher handle questions that are deeper than average? Is there much diversity or much conformity?

Which teachers get offbeat humor? Which teachers mock or ridicule the students? Which don't mind being corrected?

Best wishes
Grinity

My school district has a policy in place. It says that a grade skip will happen under one of the two scenarios:

1) Both the school personnel and the parents agree
2) Parents successfully appeal to superintendent

And since both the school personnel and the district office are openly hostile to the idea of grade skipping, it never happens.

So yeah, having a policy doesn't guarantee anything.

We are kind of in the middle of the same thing except my son was in full day prek this year. The first half of the year he learned a lot about sitting still, appropriate behavior, standing in line, raising hands etc. once he learned those things he was bored and has now been transitioning to kindergarten. Next year because of our state requirements, he will have to be placed in kindergarten for 2-6 weeks and then will be skipped to 1st. If you think your child could benefit from K, you could always skip him part way through the year if he is bored. The only problem we had was that my son was hesitant to switch at first because he had made friends in his prek class, but now that he's done it, he loves it. The work is still easy for him, but he is definitely learning things and it's a much better fit. The kids are a bit more mature and he plays well with them instead of just telling the other kids what to do. He is also excited that other kids in his class can read, and they are learning things like estimation in math which I never really thought to teach him. Anyway hope it's helpful to hear our experience. My opinion is go with your feeling because you know your child best. Good luck!

From what I've gathered, for them to even consider a skip your child would have to be the top student in his grade AND the top student in the next grade up. So to skip kindergarten, your preschooler would probably have to be on the third or fourth grade level in everything, including (maybe especially) handwriting.

Of course a lot also depends on the other kids in the class. If you are in a high socio-economic area, you might be surprised at how many kids arrive in K already reading. (In my son's class there were six-- and no, he wasn't one of them.) On the other hand, if you are in an area where most of your son's classmates can't write their first names and don't know their last-- well, a skip might be well advised.