My DS was similar last year to your DD. He was in K last year with an early November birthday - 36 days after cutoff.
His fall MAPS were Reading 172 and Math 189. He was in all day kinder where in our district only 1/2 day is required. So, he was able to go to 1st grade for reading and some of the other parts of the day were more enriching because of the extra time. We did not request and the school did not advance him for math (we probably should have). His spring MAPS were 203 reading and math was 196. This indicated to me that when he was nearer to his actual level in curriculum, his growth was amazing. I did not think to grade skip him last year because after much advocacy from both my husband and I, the school was actually working with us and trying to provide him some challenge and he loved Kindergarten and was very happy. Looking back, and knowing what I now know about 1st grade, he could have easily skipped K altogether, but I do think it had a benefit for him as it was his first real year of structured school and that took a little getting used to for him.
This year (1st grade) he goes to 3rd grade for reading and 2nd grade for math (again through our advocacy). His fall MAPS for this year were 206 reading and 217 math (his math was summer growth) Based on these fall MAP numbers, the prinicipal requested that the school be allowed to do congitive and achievement testing to make sure the MAP numbers were accurate and they also did the IAS.
After the results of the IQ/Achievement tests and the IAS, we considered a mid year skip this year, but DS (and DH for that matter) were not sold on it but he (they) realize now that he knows the 2nd grade curriculum (already) and so he will likely go to the 3rd grade next year.
This is the path we have taken and by no means is it the path for everyone. But, I think you will see similar growth in your DD if she is provided more appropriate curriculum and your DD will need something more than what she is getting now either through subject acceleration/enrichment or through whole grade acceleration. And, I think she should get it at school (i.e. it is not OK for them to say they will have trouble providing her with the appropriate curriculum - they need to be part of coming up with a plan for her or at a minimum not block your plan for her). My DS has been bored too but his boredom leads to him being disruputive (chatty, coming up with creative ways to entertain himself, singing in class, etc.) so it has been in the schools best interest in some ways to keep him challenged.
Good luck. I hope you can get the school to come around on these issues.
Thank you for your response. It sounds like the district you are in is doing some wonderful things with your ds. If they would be open to ideas like those I would be very excited.
I did speak with the curriculum director today who is setting up another meeting for this coming Thursday. She would like the principal, teacher, school psychologist and us to sit down and come up with goals for her. She said through her observations it is clear she needs more enrichment than what the teacher is providing.
She was against any testing b/c she feels she is too young to do them. She did know about IAS and said they do use it as a way to evaluate children for the gifted program in 3rd grade and that again ds was too young for that evaluation.
She said that she hopes we can come up with a plan that will make us all happy and help to enrich my dd. That they again would prefer to come up with a plan that works without a grade skip as she feels the educational gaps can be significant and may impact her in the future. Her exact words were "something she misses out on now may not be noticed until she goes as far as Algebra and could hinder her future success". I am by no means a math expert, but I highly doubt any lesson she'd miss in 1st grade could somehow impact her future algebra score, but again I am no expert. I just hope the would at least be open to her going to 2nd for math as that is the area she is scoring the highest.
I just hope that the outcome is much better after this meeting. The last one we felt good when we left, but it has been 7 weeks of days with dd in class and she has brought home 1 sheet of homework that was modified to be challenging and she wrote in the journal once that we sent in at their request. I just feel very discouraged about everything right now. It is nice to have this place to read what others have done and that many have successful outcomes. It makes me hopeful that if we continue to stay on top of the situation, come up with good options that the school with work with us and help make her school experience what it should be.
