After forcing a grade-skip despite their every attempt to stop me, I no longer hate DD9's school. Her daily G/T math and ELA pull-outs are meeting her cognitive needs, and those subjects are tending to also involve some science and social studies, too. The school is offering a surprisingly rich array of extracurriculars for a public elementary school, too.
But, still. Just yesterday I had a conversation with another parent of a G/T student in her school, in which he talked about how every year he has the same conversation with the school about his son's schedule, how the pull-outs often conflict with homeroom core subjects (science and social studies), and how he has to make himself a PITA in order to get things corrected, even going so far as requesting copies of the books for home. It all sounded painfully familiar.
The school also micromanages everything, though DD notes that the rules are often bent for the G/T kids. Only when she's in the pull-outs, though. For example, in those classrooms, she can have gum.
Then there's the 20-minute lunch (with teachers wasting so much time policing militaristic marching lines that some students get less than 5 minutes of seated-to-eat time every day), the zero-tolerance bullying policy that does not exist in practice (unless a parent makes himself a PITA), and nonsensical recess boundaries based on grade level (two grades may share the playground, but each has their own side, and woe to the child who crosses) and gender (DD reports that girls are shooed away from the basketball game by teachers).
DD's school experience has come a long way, but it has a much longer way yet to go.
