We have our second acceleration committee meeting on Thursday. Where we live, a committee decides whether acceleration is warranted, and if so the acceleration is put into place on a trial basis. After 6 weeks or so the committee convenes again to determine if the acceleration should be permanent. Our committee consists of the Principal, Assistant Principal, School Psychologist, 3rd Grade Teacher, 4th Grade Reading Teacher, DH and me.
DS was accelerated from 3rd to 4th grade in reading, but not in math. They are supposed to be working with him to get him ready for acceleration in math at a later date.
DS also takes part in a one day per week pull out enrichment class for the gifted. The pull out program is supposed to be an "instead of" not a "pile on" program and therefore they are supposed to be excused from the classwork on the day they are in the pullout, and they have two days to complete the homework.
DS attends the pull out program every Monday, but since the pullout ends earlier than his home school class, he goes back to his home school building for the last 30-40 minutes of the day. Every Monday his 3rd grade teacher gives him every handout that was passed out that day for him to complete. There is also a writing assignment that the rest of the class does every Monday that she has DS work on during "free time" on Tuesdays ("free time" being any time left over after he does his classroom assignments), problem is DS is having difficulty with idea generation and getting the words from his head to the paper so when he hasn't written enough for her, which is just about every week, he has to stay in at recess to complete it. His teacher is usually very responsive to email, so we emailed to ask her if he could bring the writing journal home and complete the writing assignment at home, but she has not responded. And he missed recess again today.
Would you bring this up during the discussion on the acceleration committee meeting? She did bring up his lack of writing when the committee met the last time. I am just unsure whether this committee is the proper venue to discuss the homework waiver and the proper application of it.
Thank you for your input.
