Our son has some medical issues (GERD, delayed stomach emptying, allergies) that are under control. Developmentally he was way ahead on reading, speaking, fine motor skills, science, & math. Due to being an only and having no family near us (they are in other states) we started preschool at age 2. We thought he had books memorized. In pre-K 3 the teacher pulled us aside after 2 weeks to tell us that she "didn't think she was going to be able to teach our son anything new as he was a fluent reader." We kept in for socialization. We started hooked on phonics at home and he finished 2nd grade by age 4 1/2. Instead of attending pre-K 4 we switched preschools and did a kinder-bridge despite him being too young by 6 months. It was the best for him. His teachers gave him kindergarten stuff and let him read. We pursued outside testing to help us with our kindergarten decision. His IQ is in the highly gifted range and every single achievement area was in the extremely gifted range. For a 4 year old 10 month he was achieving at the 2nd to 3rd grade level. However, socially he was shy and more typical. The school we are zoned to is has very few gifted and really doesn't do anything until 3rd grade. When we showed them his scores they said we should just skip him to 1st grade. They weren't going to offer anything else or support. The campus is considered a pretty poor & rough campus by some although its making progress...we just didn't see it as a fit putting a 5 year old with 7 year old since he was already going to be with mostly 6 year old... They didn't want to do any acceleration or differentiation in the kindergarten room. We were nervous on grade skipping since his b-day is already only 14 days before the cut-off, is shy, and socially just his age. So we applied for the neighboring districts GT magnet school but are over 1000 on their waiting list. Our district has 2 other schools with high GT population but unless you are zoned there you can't go there--no exceptions is what we were told. Attempted the very restrictive inter-district transfer and was denied. We also applied and got accepted to a science charter school which has a more enriching science focused curriculum. We met with the principal and were impressed as he said they've had 2 other kids like him before and they'd work with us. Then first day of school, there is a new principal. New guy is not as open as former and making us wait until they do their own GT testing--suppose to occur this coming week but is already 2 weeks delayed from original dates. We've talked with the teacher several times and she let us send chapter books with our son. She also said he'd be able to do the AR (accelerated reader) & AM (accelerated math) programs. These don't appear to have started yet which is adding to the frustration. We also just found out the results of the language development study our son was participating in with the local university--he has adult receptive language skills and high school expressive language skills. Our son loves his teachers but daily complains about having to repeat phonics & counting. Since we aren't seeing much more than social education/stimulation going on, we're not sure what to do....He loves his teacher but is bored. We all love the science focus of the school but aren't seen anything exciting yet for reading or math.
We've enrolled our son in the K-2 science class that is online from Northwestern University to further feed our son's interests. He sings in the children's choir at our church as they've encouraged it despite him being 2 years younger. We are considering enrolling him in a Spanish language class since he loves languages.
Is it common for people to have to supplement the schools?
Is there a way to get the schools to do acceleration by subject instead of grade skips--suggestions or tips on what to say to get it moving faster?
Is it common for schools to be so slow on GT? I know TX has lots of education & funding issues but compared to some states this seems horrible...
Should we pursue the grade skip even though we don't think socially its right? I should add, our son is already the youngest on his campus and is the smallest in his class--2 girls on campus are smaller.
Do we have to get him under the 504 umbrella with GT in order to get change to occur?
Any tips or suggestions to help us better advocate at our child's school would be helpful!!! Its early in the school year but I don't want to waste the whole year.
