As a little background, our DS5y1m will be starting kindergarten in the fall. A great friend told us to contact the gifted coordinator, who helped us in setting up meetings with the principal and psychologists. They gave DS achievement tests and had us do some social/emotional surveys. The testing psychologist wrote up a wonderful, very thorough report that described DS5 accurately, with age-appropriate social and motor skills and highly advanced academics. The recommendations were that he continue to work on social/emotional/motor skills with peers, and be given math/language at or above his level, and to meet with a speech therapist (DS doesn't do r's or soft g's and sometimes talks really fast or in a sing-songy voice). We met with the school psychologists, special ed coordinator, gifted coordinator, and principal to go over the results and recommendations.
First, the good stuff. The fact that we had this meeting in the first place is a huge positive. We got free testing and can use the results from the WJ-III to apply to DYS. We are extremely happy and grateful that the school district is spending this time with DS before he goes to school, and they seem willing to be pretty flexible. The principal will hand pick an out-of-the-box teacher with the gifted coordinator's input. This is actually probably all that matters, and I'm very happy about this.
But (of course there's a but...) Well, we got the first taste of the "importance of socialization" speech. I agree that it's important for DS to get along with everyone and learn to follow rules. However, I'm thinking that all the red flags they're seeing from observing DS in preschool (e.g, not responding to other kids, playing mostly by himself, making comments to no one in particular), are there *because* he's not with intellectual peers, and those behaviors aren't going to be cured by continuing to be with age-peers. DH told everyone that those behaviors are indeed very typical of HG kids, but I think that comment fell on deaf ears. At this point, we actually agree with the school in that we want DS to learn some things in kindergarten, such as handwriting, doing things by himself, etc. So it was a little discouraging to hear the socialization speech, and the "we don't generally believe in acceleration" speech, when we hadn't even asked for it (yet). (They have done a handful of subject-matter and less than a handful of full grade accelerations, so it's not unheard of.)
I asked if there were GEs or AEs on the test results, because 99.9% doesn't mean too much to me, and maybe not to some of the people in the room too. DS's AE ranged from 7.1 in math to 10 in one of the language subtests. I asked if there was a possibility of DS could go to other classes for math/language, or would he always have to be alone? It was pointed out that it probably wouldn't do much good to join the 1st or 2nd grade class anyway (this school goes from k-2 - there is another school that goes from 2-6). Which is probably true. On the bright side, they all agree that DS should not have to learn the basics of reading and math. The plan so far is to provide something different for him when the other kids are learning this stuff. What that is remains to be seen (which is rather worrisome), but we'll deal with that when school is closer.
More good things: We also get to visit the classroom of the teacher they have in mind. They also mentioned that we could choose to do half-days and just send DS for the non-academic stuff. It is good to have this option, but we really, really, really would love to have him learn in school. They are also happy to reevaluate how things are going at regular intervals.
I left feeling a little disheartened (because it's hard to hear all that stuff re: socialization), but in retrospect there were lots of positives. I am now wondering how to get the articles on the differences of socialization in HG+ kids to this group, and if it would make a difference at this point. Maybe things will be great when school actually starts, and I won't have to ever think of it again.
Another thing that i'm thinking in the back of my mind is that if we get through kindy ok (if he can get good and socialized), maybe DS can skip over to the 2-6 grade school for the next year where there are more opportunities for joining classes at his level.
DH - correct me if I'm wrong or missing anything.
