Kcab, she brought her son's sheets by today and his DRA score was actually 28. So that must be exactly what they did - stop at the target. How utterly maddening. She also brought last year's AIMSweb scoring and this years. Last year, the school printed out the AIMSweb assessment, which was across the board, no matter the subject, this child is well above average and needs individualized instruction. THIS year, they didn't give her that, they just gave her a summary number and a circled 'your child does/does not require tier II math intervention.' So it feels like they're trying to avoid showing her the things that support her contention that he needs extra or different work.
Grinity, first question - I've never called a company in my life. What department or position of person would I be asking for? Second, you wrote that line I'd like to quote but forgot to before I started writing, about it sending the message of having no faith in them. I agree, but the thing is after 2.5 years of struggle, she's really downhearted and truly feels the school will give nothing. She's had the meetings repeatedly with the principal, and with each teacher. Each time the teacher agrees to give enrichment homework and then does not follow through, and each time the principal tells her that they do not have a gifted program and will NEVER have a gifted program. Her school is K-3 and their district doesn't do gifted before 4th, end of story. She feels that further attempts at meetings are going to get her son disliked. I haven't met the people at all so I can't assess her assessment.
She also says that teachers either blow off her concerns or address classroom enrichment by literally putting her son up in a desk in the front of the room to do thousand piece puzzles while other kids work and watch him, and that they treat him like a performing math-seal, drawing attention to him in a way that's not at all helpful with the other kids, and doesn't teach him anything, either.
Her plan currently is to wait til the end of the school year, see what her lottery number is for the magnet school, and if they're not going to get in then go in and meet again with the assessments you've suggested in hand to say, ok, he's not gifted, I don't care about the label or you having some official program, but this is the level he is at and he needs work at this level or he is not meeting your school's mission, which is to educate everyone to their potential. I'm hoping that if she goes in there with a plan and materials to give them it might actually happen because teachers don't then have to come up with something on their own.
I definitely over-relate to her kid and their situation because of the trainwreck we went through. Her son seems more resilient than mine was, but it still worries me a lot to hear of the every night please please please can i go to work with you, can I be homeschooled, can I go for just half an hour and then come home? conversations. She says he only really fights her on going to school a couple days a week (!) but is a really good kid and goes b/c she says he really has to, friends are important, etc.
Poor kid. It just makes me so up in arms-y. His mom is pretty conflict-averse and very worried about making the school angry, and she feels like she's tried and tried and tried and tried. She hasn't wanted to teach him at home b/c then he'd have double work and it seems unfair, but I think she's coming around to it so her son can LEARN something again. So that might help him feel more interested. And I thought sending the email just saying 'hey, my son's been getting more and more upset about school and begs every day not to come, and we thought sending in these materials that interest him to work on in his spare time might help him - thanks for any time you can let him have to work on this' would be better than not letting the school know at all that he is having more and more problems, and better than just sending it in without explanation.
I have told her that our school didn't care a whit til my kid burst out sobbing in spelling class and they couldn't stop him for 90 minutes. THEN suddenly we got phone calls and them wanting meetings. So I'll try telling her you agree that the social-emotional thing might actually get them listening, and maybe something could be worked out so this poor kid doesn't have to spend another utterly useless four months. That's such a long time in the life of a kid.
