Ok, as some of you may remember, we moved (again) over the summer to a new city, and thus a new school for DD7. One thing that clinched the deal was that we were able to get DD into a full-time gifted program at a public school. I know, I know, I know,
even ft gt programs may not be enough for some kids, or even what a kid needs. But, after an awful year last year for her we were very hopeful that she would finally be at a school that knew what to do with her.
Well, we're almost done with our first quarter of school and it has not been going well. Until this past week there was no differentiation, the work she was given in 3rd grade was easier than what she had done last year in gr 2! She was miserable and didn't want to go to school anymore.
We had a parent teacher conference (which DH had to go to because I was on a field trip with my own students and couldn't get out of it - but, he did really well for his first time advocating
) and I still don't know if we should be hopeful or frustrated with things. They did tons of testing at the beginning of the year to see the level of all of the kids, since there were a number of new ones, and had just gotten the results figured out. On the reading comprehension test, they had taken an end of the year test for gr 3 (meaning the test that they will take at the end of this school year). Since it is a gifted class, they were hoping that all of the kids would know at least 30/60 questions. Well, DD got 55/60!! Apparently they have never had a student get that high a score at the beginning of the year. So, the teacher finally agreed that she no longer had to do the 3rd grade reader, since she was obviously above that. They also took a math test, which DD did not finish because of issues with timed math tests (see previous posts about rocket math), but even without finishing, she still got a 62%! (DH, at this point sneaked a peek at some other scores on the teacher's list and he said there were only a few other scores near DD's.) The teacher then said that math differentiation would be occurring soon, and this is why seats were changed - to have them in groups closer to their ability levels.
Well, this meeting was 2 weeks ago, and DD is still using the 3rd grade reader! Her homework is still so incredibly easy it is ridiculous, and she is still not thrilled to be going to school, but is complaining less.
The only bright spot so far was that last week, the students finally had the opportunity to pre-test out of the current math chapter (on introducing multiplication). If the child scored above an 85% they could do a project instead of the math chapter. Well, DD was the only one to score above 85%! So she happily started and completed the project given in 1 math class.
Here is where the uncertainty of what to think comes in. While we are happy that she has started to get the chance to pre-test out of topics she already knows, it is pretty discouraging that she is the only one in a class of 18 to be able to do so.
We also found out that until last week, they had not actually seen her file with her WISC IV and WJ-III scores, or her file from her last school. We even hand delivered the information to them when we registered her so that they would have a chance to look it over before school started. Why would a teacher in a magnet program not insist on seeing each kid's file before the start of the year to see where they were coming from?
I don't really think I am asking for advise here or anything, but I just needed to rant a bit about my frustrations. With our move to a new place, I have not found someone here to talk to about it all yet. I have only met 1 other parent from her class, and that was not for long enough to establish much of a conversation.
Thanks for listening.
