I'm not even certain I belong on this board and would like advice on how much of my dd9's school issues could be giftedness vs. LDs vs. difficult personality traits. I'm also looking for general support - everyone I know in person is getting tired of hearing about me obsess over this!
She's never been tremendously advanced academically.
reading - barely on grade level
math - working EPGY about 2 years ahead, but according to the school, she's now below grade level because she can't do timed facts tests
writing - fine quality when she does it, but it takes HOURS to get a couple of sentences out. It's like she can't remember any of her thoughts once she gets a pencil in her hand.
Oddly enough, she was verbally quite advanced as a baby and preschooler and absorbed science facts like a sponge until about kindergarten. Now she seems pretty average except for her extreme interest in art. In the last year she's almost given up science, which breaks my heart. She says she already knows everything they're teaching, and I'm afraid she's right.
She's always had trouble respecting teachers' authority just because they're adults. It took her half of first grade to accept that when the teacher gives you a worksheet, they expect you to stop everything else and complete the worksheet right now. She still resents this concept, two years later.
In the last year she has started to freeze up: at the least little frustration, she turns into a statue and is completely unresponsive to anyone at all, sometimes for hours. (It's a pain when this happens after she takes off pajamas in the morning but before getting dressed. Very hard to take her to school in this state. Several times we had to physically dress her and carry her to the car.) This freaked her poor teacher out and started a round of conferences with the school:
Her teachers think her doctor should check her for ADD. Meanwhile, we saw a school-recommended therapist, who loved her and didn't see any problems. She also saw a psych intern weekly during school, who loved her and didn't see any problems. Eventually we got the report back from the ADD questionnaire: our psych said, no, but maybe she has anxiety, possibly caused by learning disabilities. So, the school tested her for learning disabilities directly related to writing assignments and said no, there's nothing they need to address. She does have poor verbal memory compared to everything else (just average) and this may be causing frustration. Their whole plan for handling her next year is geared around helping her to manage her frustration in a more productive way, which they've been working on already this year by her weekly visits with the intern.
I have the full report from these tests. I'll post the individual scores if someone can advise me on them. Her GCA score on the Differential Abilities Scales 2nd Edition was 132, solidly MG. I wouldn't expect her to drown in a regular classroom with this score, and she certainly isn't DYS material based on it.
I did get a couple of choice quotes from these meetings. The principal said "The problem is, we know she's a smart kid," (nervous giggles all around the table), meaning she'll figure out how to manipulate us if we give her half a chance. Also from the principal, in response to a request to have an educational goal of working up to her potential instead of just the state standards: "We get asked about that all the time, but that's not really what we do here. We don't have the resources or the responsibility to do that." GATE services in our district consist of identifying kids in middle school and monitoring them annually for depression and underachievement.
Meanwhile we're exploring sending her to the local gifted school. They required a Qualitative Assessment by their admissions coordinator before applying. Her assessment was that dd is definitely gifted, but would probably 'read low' on an IQ test, and they'd welcome her into the school. It does have extremely small classes with lots of staff and flexibility but I kind of wonder whether she's saying that based on my kid, or based on her school?
So - for next year, what do I do? Public school again? A private school that we can't really afford? Do I have to quit the job I love and homeschool, which I think I'd be bad at? Yell at the principal? More tests? Who can I trust?
If you've gotten this far, thank you so much for letting me vent!
