Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Any reason NOT to do mid year acceleration?

These are the things I'd look into before making the decision to accelerate to high school - they're all based on my own local experience and my 2e kid, so take the for what they are - possibly meaningless in your school district and for your dd!

Your primary reason for acceleration (from what I understand) is to gain extra "time" for your dd to get through high school credits. If I could dodo anything in hindsight for our 2e ds who has just finished high school, it would be to find ways to give him more time to get through his studies. Even though he was taking classes he was well suited for intellectually he spent far more time on homework than other students. So, as always, I think your concern about finding that time is spot-on in terms of understanding what your dd may need and what would benefit her the most as she enters high school.

There are other things I see in hindsight though, that would make me second-guess accelerating. Please do take this advice with a huge grain of salt - we purposely chose to not accelerate our ds and might have done the same even if he hadn't had his huge 2nd e. That said, not accelerating ds when he was young
caused some issues for ds, primarily boredom with depth of discussions in the classroom and with pace of classroom learning. You've done a great job of advocating for subject-accelerated learning for your dd throughout the years, and it sounds like you'll be able to continue to advocate for appropriate level instruction throughout the remainder of middle school. If the only reason you're looking for grade-level acceleration is being able to spread high school credits over a longer period of years, I would look closely at all of your options for doing that outside of accelerating. As others have mentioned above, our high school requires less credits to graduate than most students take each semester. Many of the typical students who enter high school on a typical path in 9th grade are taking less than a full schedule by senior year or are gaining elective and other credit in areas not required for graduation. Our district also offers high school credit for outside courses such as online, summer programs etc, and students are given high school credit (here) for math and foreign language classes taken in middle school. If you haven't already, I'd recommend trying to find the written policy, wherever it resides in your district, re what can be used as high school credit. I realize it's likely that the school district staff at your dd's IEP meeting knew what the policy is for your district, I'm also by nature a bit skeptical about these things based on my own experiences with local school staff

While looking into high school policy, I'd also verify exactly what the school district will allow in terms of number of years spent *in* high school. Our district assumes kids will be graduating in 4 years unless they just aren't going to be graduating. Services until 21 also (here) seem to apply only to kids who are non-diploma track. Students who receive diplomas are also graduated from their IEPs.

Since your motivation is to gain your dd time to get through her high school courses, think through all of the other places you can potentially find time for your dd outside of accelerating. Can she earn credit through any her theatre work (either summer or during the school year)? My kids all earned their pe credit by participating in sports programs they enjoyed outside of school. DS was able to earn elective credit through his CTY summer courses. Can you replace any courses with self-paced online courses? The bonus for ds when he did this was he was able to choose a required history course that relied less on written essays for his grade, therefore freeing up what would have been extremely time consuming for him due to his disability. Our youngest dd (also 2e, and a competitive athlete) will be entering high school this year. Although she's had successful remediation for her reading challenges and she doesn't struggle with processing speed and organizational issues as ds does, she's chosen a challenging high school program and will be continuing to compete in her sport which means 3-4 hours per day during the school week spent training for sport. That leaves very little time for homework during the week, and she's a kid who's always also been hugely insistent on a bit of downtime during the weekend. She's choosing to take her math via self-paced online courses so that she can both move at her own speed (math and science are her strength areas) while also scheduling the work for the class on the days she has free time in her schedule. Another place to potentially find time is in course selection - another thing that I would do differently in hind sight (some of it ds did ok on his own, some of it ds was too eager to do what the school expected him to do). DS' school really pushed the importance of all-around "looking good" for college, but most students have areas they are stronger and weaker in. DS stuck with the recommendations to take challenging English, history classes as well as sticking with the suggested plan for 4 years of foreign language, and those classes all took up around 80-90% of his study time thanks to his challenges with writing and communication. In hindsight, he would have most likely been happier and definitely would have had more free time if he'd stuck to advanced courses in the areas he was strongest in and not worried so much about being in advanced courses all-around... which leads to my next point...

When our kids are younger, we tend to look at the next general school level as what we're preparing for, but realistically, it would have helped me a ton when ds was entering high school to instead have thought more about preparing for the actual long game - college and beyond. I wish I'd spent more time thinking about what course work he *really* needed for the type of college he'd eventually be interested in. We followed the advice of his counselor and I did do a lot of reading online etc - but none of that was personalized for our ds. He graduated high school with a great gpa and a high school transcript filled with rigorous courses representing a well-rounded student - but he didn't need all of those *specific* courses. He could have settled for a less-than-AP or less-than-honors in the areas he wasn't super-strong in and it would have eliminated a ton of homework.



ITA with spaghetti on this - my ds matured so much during high school (so did my non-2e dd, but he needed those high school years in a way she didn't "need need" them - not easy to explain, but as he grew through those years he did make amazing progress in both understanding himself and figuring out how to deal with his disabilities. He also continued to need a ton of support... and to be honest, if I could have him stay here for another year of high school before he goes off into the real world I would, because I honestly think he could use more support as he continues to grow through next year - but that's not because he didn't start high school early and spend five years in hs, it's because he's now 18 and next year he'll be 19. The developments that most "grew" ds during high school in terms of helping with his disabilities had nothing to do with academics, and everything to do with age and life experience.

I spent so much time thinking about academics and accommodations etc when ds was in middle school heading into high school that I missed seeing something I think most parents don't realize until their first child goes through high school: the child that enters high school is going to be very different than the child exiting high school in one very significant way - they are going to become independently thinking young adults who start making the decisions they want to make. They may seem independent in middle school but it's nothing like where they'll be at in just a few years

Best wishes as you consider all the options!

polarbear