Hi Stephanie,
Interestingly - we were in a similar position last Spring, with DS12 (then 11) at a private school in 7th Grade where he finally got his gradeskip, and him wanting so much to return to our public school (no gifted program,but, starting in 8th grade offers Algebra I early to about 10% of the kids, and honors classes in every subject starting in the High School, which for us, starts 9th grade.
We were so worried that him starting the Middle School as a 8th grader, when everyone else had been there for 2 years already would be awful socially. We worried that everything being in transition would be 'too much.'
But, the private school, although we are so grateful to them for doing the grade skip in 5/6th grade, and although it was wonderful academically for him in 6th grade, was very difficult socially. The teachers also were very production orriented, and in 7th grade there was lots of memorization, and not so much abstract thought, and lots and lots of work to do.
So we took the plunge and let him switch back to public for 8th, and it's been a delight in a few ways -
1) Family bank account is doing the happy dance. We tried some interesting and expensive afterschool enrichment stuff.
2) We are less stressed with the extra travel to and from school
3) DS12 made a handful of friends that he is truly proud to know. They seem more open and accepting of difference than at the private school
4) Organizationally, things which were treated as 'high crimes' in the fishbowl atmousphere of the private school (forgetting to bring a pencil to class, for example) were accepted as 'normal' at the public school.
5) The material seems as 'in depth' and the projects seem as demanding, but there are less of them. I'm hoping that next year will be tougher, but it feels great to have a break.
6) The transition was actually a plus for our DS, as it gave him something interesting to figure out.
Of course your choice of schools will be different than our schools, but I want to encourage you to remember the 'standard advice' like 'no 2 building in 2 years' which is good advice for most kids, may mean absolutly nothing for our kids. If your public school is safe and reasonable, consider it. Maybe consider going straight to HS if your son is a hard worker and you don't mind him 'playing for keeps' next year.
I would also encourage you to consider his summer experiences as part of his 'living with differences' program.
I've found that as the kids get older, people are less likely to expect the kids to put up with the kind of behavior that your son and mine find 'disrespectful.' I got that blame thing too. It stinks, but I hope you aren't paying for it! I don't know if any kid like this ever becomes 'compliant' but if you can point out to your kid that they had better work hard and get the kind of job were people treat them with respect, you may be able to make lemons out of lemonade. As my son has gotten older, he is both 'more motivated' to comply and better about to 'fake it' in public. He's also gotten better at fence mending, and avoiding confrontations in the first place.
One thing I hate about private schools is when they are so small that you can't transfer away from a 'bad chemistry' teacher. I would certainly not want this teacher to have another year with your son. I would try to get him out of that situation, perhaps by transfering to public (MD might be able to write a note that it is 'medically nescessary' for your son to get out of that classroom, even if it means changing school so you don't lose whatever tuition money you are committed to paying) or by transfering to the next grade up.
I think having your MD write a note about the depression and sobbing in the head-of-school's office while showing the WISC scores is in order here.
If you don't already have SAT scores for your son, make plans for him to take the SAT or ACTs, those scores mean more to school folks than WISCs because they are so much more familiar.
Write more! we want to hear from you.
Grinity
