Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Woe is DD

I need some WWYD.

DD10 had a full grade skip past 2nd, and will be going into 6th (first year of middle school) in 3.5 weeks.

In 3rd, she was fine. In 4th, she was bored, and tested the next summer for an additional math acceleration. She took the test with no prep, said it was really hard and she had to guess a lot, and missed the cutoff by a single question (88% vs 90%). Elementary principal would have been supportive of doing the acceleration anyhow, but said they'd accommodate her in the regular 5th grade classroom as an alternative. (The acceleration would have meant taking math at a different school site.) So we left her in 5th, and the accommodations were essentially nonexistent, because when the teacher honestly believes they are doing their best to give your child what she needs but isn't actually succeeding at giving your child what she needs, that's a hard situation to fix.

So DD wanted to test this summer to get 7th grade math, and spent 3 weeks (due to pre-scheduled vacation and a testing policy change, that was all the time available) intensively studying the 6th grade material, using a combination of ALEKS, the 6th grade text previously used by the district, and the released test items published by the district. She took the test, and said it was really easy, and that they asked her nothing that was anywhere near as hard as what she'd been studying. Same 90% cutoff applies.

Results came in today - she got an 84%.

School default is to leave her in 6th grade math. I *believe* we can request a placement into 7th grade math, but the principal and counselors who could make that easier or harder are complete unknowns to us. My understanding is that you keep appealing up the chain of command until someone says yes or the school board says no. In my experience dealing with the district, the local school site people are the most flexible, and the higher you go, the more bureaucratic it gets. The state board of education has indicated that our district is not in compliance with state law regarding the test administration, so requesting a re-test is something we may be able to get outside pressure for. I'd like to see her test document to know what the issues were, but have no idea whether that's a possibility.

DD is not a particularly fast worker - she picks up the concepts quickly, but when faced with a sheet of 30+ problems, even if they are trivial, will take forever to get them done and have nothing left for more engaging work. She does not have the mental energy for academic afterschooling because of that.

So, if you were in our situation, WWYD?