I just got to work, after the meeting. I've left my notes at home, so I don't recall the specific names of tests, but will post them later.
Attendees:
guidance counselor
reading specialist
vice principal
school psychologist
special education specialist
kindergarten teacher
We discussed our son's current state of development, which took up much of the meeting. The special ed. person seems like she is super-interested in doing a lot with him (I think this may partly be because up to now they have only had IEPs in place for kids at the other end of the spectrum, and she wants to oversee the development of a new gifted part of the special ed. program). The psychologist was reserved but also showed a lot of interest.
Our K teacher expressed some sentiments a little different from the phone call yesterday, stressing how happy he is and that he is in exactly the right place (!). She didn't volunteer what she had yesterday, that it was obvious that a skip to first, without more, would solve nothing because he was far past all of the first grade material (though she admitted it when prompted). She also flatly said he can't spell (this is not true and I don't know where she got this idea, but he can actually spell correctly the first time most words he can recognize). I asked for them to assess that along with his reading.
The special ed. teacher and psychologist both allowed that K might not be the best place for him, but that a careful assessment would have to be done. We said essentially everything you here said to say, including about how he acts when he's bored. It was agreed that whatever planning was done, it would carry past the end of the year and be reassessed as necessary.
All in all I got a different feel from the K teacher, but overall a good feeling from the team. We didn't discuss curriculum, logistics, etc. much at all. When we were talking about assessment, I began to bring up pretesting and curriculum compacting, but didn't press on when it was apparent that we would follow up on such things after testing.
The plan going forward:
* Reading specialist to do a reading assessment
* Psychologist to do testing, most likely of a non-WISC type (I've forgotten the acronym, but she said she hesitates to use older-child tests on someone so young, though she might make an exception in our case). She will probably do multiple tests.
* Special ed. person to work with psychologist, to determine types of tests and how else to assess our son. She also expressed interest in seeing some of his work (for example, photos / video of a board game he invented called "Shooter Ship" that came up briefly).
* Follow-up meeting, to determine what to do and how to do it.
There are no hard deadlines on when this will all be done, but the testing will begin in the coming week.
In the meantime, the wife and I will do a lot more reading and thinking. I've alreadly ordered "Teaching Gifted Kids in the Regular Classroom: Strategies and Techniques Every Teacher Can Use to Meet the Academic Needs of the Gifted and Talented", by Susan Winebrenner, and that will probably be just the beginning.
I want to double-check what the team/teacher come up with for a plan, especially if he stays in K. One thing his K teacher has mentioned is a grouping including lower-functioning kids, with the idea that he would pull the other child up and learn doing it-- this seems oriented at everyone arriving at the same level, which makes me leery.
Last edited by Iucounu; 10/22/10 09:52 AM.
