Hi everyone,
Reporting back from my meeting- I went in with all my notes, test scores, talking points. Met with who I thought was the GT Coordinator at the middle school, but she is a teacher also. She teaches the GT literacy class and there is also a GT Math class. She said within those classes there are different levels, for example the math class can be working anywhere from 1 to 2 grade levels ahead (ds10 will be in 6th grade). I asked her what happens if that isn't enough of a challenge- she replied that they also have 8th graders who go to the high school for math class (it's pretty close by). She then said that she credits herself for a lot of the changes because in the past years they would have a child sitting in the back of the classroom doing work bc s/he 'knew it all' already. She said she said to admin "Hey, why not send this student to the high school for classes?" and they really resisted saying that it couldn't be done...but it was done.
She turned the subject around to talk about how a big focus of middle school is being organized and those types of skills (which ds is SEVERELY lacking in...) and I agreed but gently steered the conversation back to 'but he should still be challenged and learning'.
I showed her the EXPLORE test results but she also wanted to see the Otis Lennon test results as well as the IOWAS and some writing samples. At least she proactively asked me to send them in. At that school they use MAPS testing to figure out where students should be placed.
The big question that I didn't bring up was 'what if all your programs are not enough...have you sent a 6th grader to high school for math?" but I figured this was a good first meeting. I was just happy it wasn't all pullout.
Thanks to you all for educating me on the buzzwords bc they came up a lot in our conversation and it was nice not to have to ask her what they meant : )
Tell me what you think, I'm curious whether this meeting went well or if I'm deluded and they were just pacifying the crazy mama.
Nadia
