Displaced, much will depend. Public or private? What does state law say about gifted programming? In some states it's mandated, in many it's not.
They have gifted pull out daily for 1st grade. We've already removed him from the program because it was basically tons of reading and writing the whole time and DS was miserable. Since we don't have diagnoses yet it would be torture to keep him in gifted. And they basically don't believe he can succeed in the math gifted program (another program at the same school) because the K teacher last year didn't recommend it and he wasn't answering questions with 100% accuracy. Which could be d/t... IDK... maybe a LD?
Special education is covered by Federal law (IDEA).
All that is fully up for negotiation, based on your particular child's educational needs (as identified in the diagnostic workup and in observations at school).
The team (including you) identifies needs, and decides how to address them. Addressing giftedness has been an important part of my very 2E DS12's IEP since he was in 3rd.
Once you have the diagnostic report in hand, you can share it with the school and district, and ask them to evaluate him for an IEP. The book From Emotions to Advocacy is a good guide.
Thanks for this recommendation. After testing I'll need something concrete. I just got some bad vibes from the gifted teachers after mentioning I think DS has a LD. She kept stating how when he's more mature or older he could then try out XYZ in the gifted program and see how it fits blah blah. I then told her if he has this LD he may NEVER be able to do XYZ. Their response: crickets.
I guess if schools can truly accommodate I'd be happy but I know the general ed teacher is already overworked. If there's not somebody to help then IDK how DS will get through. And if they do truly accommodate well with scribing/etc, then honestly DS will probably get bored very quickly as all that writing takes him so long to do.
I feel like I'm already "teaching" him by remediating his struggles in reading and writing.
Technically, that's their job. If you want to keep doing it, that works too.
We're afterschooling for remediation. He's been behind in writing since day 1, and reading for 3/4 of the time. If I weren't remediating him he probably would have been held back in K.
It sounds like you're generally unhappy with how the school does things, even apart from the question of accommodations for the disabilities and giftedness. If that's the case, it may make the most sense to look at other settings and see if there's a better choice.
Our 2Es are in public school. That's where they have the most legal protection, and therefore where we feel they can be best accommodated. Has it been a lot of work for me to get the school to understand their needs? You bet. However, many teachers have gone many extra miles for us, and I do think they are getting a better than reasonable education.
This is uplifting news. I guess I'm not looking forward to having to advocate when round #1 went so poorly.
I know last year a child who needed handwriting OT only received about 15 min a week after waiting for months for OT to be staffed at the school.
Services are not supposed to be determined by availability-- they're supposed to be determined by the need of this particular child. That is, if the team determines that your child needs a full-time scribe, or assistive tech, or five hours a week of reading remediation, or some combination of things, that's what has to happen. If the district stalls, you can go to the state office of compliance with documentation.
Good to know the recourse but if they're not giving services needed, what can you really do about it? Especially when the school year works like a snail. Complaining doesn't always mean there's services in a timely manner. The person who fought for OT I referred to even had an IEP advocate and the whole nine yards.
I'm also concerned we won't qualify for services at all because DS isn't behind in all subjects.
If you go to Wrightslaw.com and type "functional" into their search box, you'll see that being academically behind isn't the only reason. If the child is having trouble with functional skills, like handwriting, that is supposed to qualify for remediation.
If the child is dyslexic, it is very likely that he will qualify for some sort of remediation, probably Orton Gillingham or one of the other widely respected programs.
DeeDee
Thanks, it prompted me to look up my state laws and it seems that if there is a documented LD there should be accommodations. I guess I'll find out! Hopefully this is just an academic exercise and maybe DS doesn't have 2e after all. But I'm trying to get prepared.
