Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy School Frustration!

So sorry Trout. My heart goes out to you, it is so scary to hear educators saying such ignorant things. It doesn't surprise me, but it still is quite disheartening. I just had my first meeting at my sons school, a public school. I met with the principal and asst superintendent today to plan for next year. I had sent them DS4's huge evaluation with lots of thoughts and recommendations for DS4's education. DS will be DYS eligible in the summer when he turns 5 and I plan to apply.

I have to say, I can't believe the lunch cart comment. How ridiculous. I must say, that although my meeting went "okay" today, I heard a couple similar comments. My favorite was a reference to sports. It started like this..

Principle: Is your son in any sports, or do you plan on him being in any?
Me: He likes sports, so we will probably look into it
P: well that could be a problem if we accelerated him...because he wouldn't really be with peers
Me: I don't get what you mean
P: well, I think that tee ball is based on age....and if he were to play he wouldn't be with kids from his grade and wouldn't be with his peers.
Me: I don't see that as an issue at all, definitely not a reason to not accelerate him

I am not sure what our school is going to do. They started off by saying that they are sure they can find a K classroom to suit his needs. To which I explained that I don't think any K class would suit his needs if it is still K. They did agree to allow him to skip the K screening (I hadn't even asked for this, they just said that they didn't find it necessary) and instead will have him come into a 1st and 2nd grade classroom in a few weeks for morning to observe him in their centers. I am not sure what information this will provide them, but apparently they want to observe him. If it will help me out, that is fine. If it makes them say no...well I have a lot more fight in me. : ) They have told me that some kids have been accelerated, and at least one of them seemed to agree that in this case it would be best to just get it over with early since we know it is going to happen instead of having him make friends and then skip a grade next year. They were clearly anti-multiple skips. They have apparently never seen that and were really focused on staying with age peers, give or take a year. So who knows. I hope that HS will work well for you and wish the best of luck. Please know you aren't alone. There are others out there for sure. : )

Trout,

I'm so sorry that you had to go through all of this. Just wanted to say you are _definitely_ not alone. Big hugs to you and your family.

Just for the record :-) My son was supposed to play tball this year and has been successfully accelerated to Minor A level! We've heard the sports argument before but when he wanted to try out and play up, we let him do it! He is the only 6 year old on a team of 7-9 year olds... and he holds his own just fine. Who knows when growth spurts and puberty will take hold. Right now he's still 99th% for height. With an uncle at 6 ft. 7 inches, a grandfather at 6 ft 4 and a mom at 5 ft 9 (I'm the shortest girl in my family!) I think he'll be okay.

This is so familiar. We had the school get an Educational Psychologist to evaluate our (then) 8 year old. We were asked to provide a file of 'evidence' to present to him. This irked us no end, as teachers all along had said our son was exceptional. So, we scoured the school reports and collated the 'teacher' evidence and presented same to the Headmster and the EP (who, incidentally, in our first meeting hadn't been told any background, or received our 'evidence' )

Eventually, after assessing our son we had a case meeting:
"Is this boy talented? - Yes. Is this boy gifted? Yes"

The headmaster managed to avoid the meeting. we are due, by law, a written assessment which we still, 6 months later have not had. And the school put our son on the Special Needs Register for HIS educational problems!

So I guess I am saying to you, you are not alone, a lot of us have similar experiences and feel and share your frustration and anger.

Our solution was to put him in a private school (God knows how we will find the money) but at least his individuality is nor penalised, and his exceptiona abilities and gifts are appreciated (so far)

We've been through two private schools and looked at many others, and here's what I've learned: they will say anything to get your first check.

If you look through private school promotional materials, you'll notice that most of their statements are variations on a few themes:

Every child is valued at our school. (Other schools are Bronte-esque quasi-dungeons where heat is not allowed in winter and children are beaten twice daily at 10:45 a.m. exactly and as they exit the premises.)

Every child gets individual attention. (Examples: when teacher is taking attendance, each child is called upon individually. Sometimes, when your child raises his hand, the teacher will call on him individually and listen to him as he speaks [as long as he doesn't talk too long or ask too many annoying questions!]).

We offer the best curriculum. (Even though we use the same textbooks that all the other schools use.)

Our program instills a lifelong love of learning. (This is due to our Very Special Methods (VSMs [tm]). Take times tables. We don't just drill, baby, we hit oil. You will see the magic every time your Little Daisy says "Three times five is FIFTEEN!")

You and your child will never want to leave this school. (Forgot how many of those re-enrollment forms don't get returned come March/April. People who don't re-enroll are obviously wrong-headed and their kids never belonged here to begin with).

We cater to gifted kids. (If the check clears, the kid's a genius. If it bounces, he's an idiot).

This last one is an actual quote from a pre-school employee at the XXX School for the Gifted in a moment of uncharacteristic candidness.

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I'm not trying to be flippant here. I'm just trying to help you laugh a little bit through your tears.

I have to say that I'm impressed that such a small group of people managed to use every single boneheaded argument against acceleration and even managed to invent one of their own. I mean, that cart thing is very special. It's right up there with the statement from my DS's kindergarten teacher. When I asked her to help him with his reading, she refused, saying that "silent e can be damaging at this age."

I agree with other people who question the wisdom of sending your daughter back to this school next year. Here are some questions you might want to ask them or yourselves:

* Even if they do let her skip kindergarten, will they be so resentful that they'll find a way to punish you or her?

* How does the first grade teacher feel about acceleration?

* I've read that private school enrollments are down due to the economy. This situation can be advantageous for you. Can you call around to other schools to ask about how they feel about accelerating her, given all your evidence?

If there's one thing I've learned, it's that you need to nail down what a school will do for your daughter [b]before you give them that first check. [/b]

For example, don't let them get away with saying "We'll observe her in kindergarten for a few weeks and then see about promoting to grade 1." They might use a seductive argument like "We have to see if she has enough energy to withstand the whole day in school." This argument has always baffled me because schools are happy to keep these same kids in day care until 5 or 6 p.m. If they have enough stamina to hang around until 6, surely they can make it to 3:30, right? Right?

If they want to test her themselves (which they shouldn't for a 1-grade skip, based on what you've got), nail down dates and what will happen if scores are xxx or yyy. Testing should happen BEFORE you give them a check.

Ask in advance: will they let your child do reading or math or whatever ahead of grade level if necessary? Nail down details and try to get policies in writing (even as an e-mail) if you can.

Finally, don't let them substitute marketing material for the actual needs of your child. if they stick to the platitudes when you're interviewing them, be careful. Make sure your platitude detector is functioning before you leave the house!

Val

Val-
I wish I had read this exact post two years ago when school hunting. We fell for the marketing brochure. We fell for the "Gifted and college-prep academy" which turned out to mean exactly as you said- gifted people have money, everyone else is out.

We learned the hard way that "well-rounded" means refusing to teach above grade because then they won't be "rounded" anymore. We learned that "growing self-confident learners" means avoiding individualization, lest someone gets their feelings hurt.

And worst of all, we learned that "small class sizes" means plenty of time for a pissed off teacher who doesn't want to change to find nitpicky reasons why a child cannot be allowed to move ahead. ("See this circle he drew? It's a bit oval- he needs more practice." or "See this picture he colored? The grass isn't green- he needs more practice seeing the world the way others do")

Thanks CAMom. I wish I had known this stuff two years ago, too!


Val

Val, well said, really well. Your post should be turned into a sticky for everybody to read before deciding on a new school.

"well-rounded" is one of favorite excuses. "whole child" nonsense tops my list. I kept hearing it over and over last year.

This thread has provided lots of good material for Hoagie's Ridiculous Things I Heard Today!

I'm torn between whether the lunch cart deprivation or the damaging silent e is more ridiculous.


http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/ridiculous_things.htm

The one that made me give up was the notion that in spite of his DYS-level test scores and GT ID *BY THE SCHOOL ITSELF*, his teacher was making noises that because he didn't finish his painfully easy, highly repetitive work in the time allotted, he apparently wasn't that smart.

<eye roll>

I knew I was going to have a long row to hoe with that teacher if we stuck it out. We chose not to. It just wasn't worth it!