Agree that the objections in the IAS are very carefully worded. It stuck in my mind so strongly because, as it also says, it is so counterintuitive - you’d think skipping directly into a new school would be a no brainer, but it’s actually a bigger risk.
Please remember that I am venting here and being argumentative so I can keep my mouth shut in real life. I know I am not responsible for either of these children, and wildly speculating from the sidelines here. But I am not as removed from both situations as I want to be.
In DS7s case, his aide has been explicitly assigned responsibility for little A’s support. I could put a stop to it tomorrow if I wanted to. I don’t want to, because I think she needs it and DS7 is fine, so if it were to work out well for everyone, that’d be wonderful, but I worry. I have to trust in the aide to look out for both herself and her primary responsibility DS7 and have to hope she will speak up if she does see a problem (she’s very experienced, but was off work for weeks due to both her parents dying within days, so is just getting back into the groove after a series of subs. I don’t want to ask her, because she is of course not supposed to speak to me about other kids in the classroom and never has, just has mentioned in general that the classroom teacher relies on her a lot whenever she’s not busy with DS7.
In DS13s case, the struggling kid (little S) used to be his best friend, until he suddenly turned on him in 6th grade and started bullying him viciously, making his life hell for months (including stealing and destroying his stuff, and spreading lies).
When I tried to speak to his mom, who I had been friendly with before, she explained that I had to understand her kid’s reaction because he was under so much pressure and struggling so hard to make Ds and couldn’t stand that DS13 was making A’s without lifting a finger. Basically a giftie bullying another giftie in the gifted class for being too gifted. I sent a very carefully worded email to the teacher asking her to monitor the situation and after she interfered a few times, it stopped and there is a sort of uneasy truce now. I continued to be pleasant to the mom, and DS13 refuses to take part in the bullying of little S that the rest of the class has now started to engage in, but he thinks he is still being blamed because it is a very similar kind of bullying that little S experienced in elementary school and told him in confidence about - a confidence he never broke, but of course little S and his mom don’t know that. Last time I saw the mom, I tried to say hello but she wouldn’t even look at me.
They are not islands. I wish they were.
Last edited by Tigerle; 01/20/20 12:26 AM.
