Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Just had first meeting with princ about sub accel

Hi there.

I can really sympathize, it can be so hard to advocate. Give yourself credit for getting in there and pushing.

Just a couple thoughts - the principal should make sure the teacher is challenging your child - it should not be your job to challenge the teacher and force her(him) to differentiate appropriately.

It isn't always a case of them "sweet talking" you, they just have different priorities and beliefs.

How big is this district, can you go over the Principal's head to an asst. superintendent or a curriculum specialist (that is how we got our DS's subject acceleration to happen).

Have you had her do the SCAT test. I find that to be very useful (more than the IQ test). It helps a lot when you can show a principal that your child is scoring in the 90% compared to children 2-3 years ahead.

Can you advocate for online math at school, does your state allow partial homeschooling (where you just pull her for the one subject)?

If it makes you feel any better, our first meeting went very similar to this, but our son is now accelerated 2 years in math. It took about 8 months, but it happened.

I would start with SCAT. Based the SCAT results I might go for a full IQ test (but it may not make a difference). I would figure out if any other elementary school in the district has any child subject accelerated (if you don't already know) - community online message boards can be handy for that. I would get as much information out of the parents of that 6th grade boy as possible (I doubt they think he was adequately challenged ;0 ), including test scores if they happen to have them and are willing to share. I would def. find out if the district/state has a written acceleration policy. If it is small district I would start making friends with board of ed members.

Let us know what you find out, there are lots of ways to approach this, and it depends a lot of how much energy you have to get what you want, what you find out, the district (of course), test scores, and a whole batch of other things.