Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Acceleration request to public school board

I�m new to this forum and I am looking for some advice please. Has anyone heard of utilizing the (IDEA) �Individuals with disabilities education act� to get a public school board/system to test a child for 1st grade acceleration? We are not having any success with the public school principal being receptive to our request to have our daughter tested so that she can go move up to 1st grade instead of staying in Kindergarten (she�s 5 1/2). A friend mentioned that �gifted� children fall under this act too but I�m unable to find any documentation online�.has anyone done this? Some background: we live in CA and our daughter already completed Kindergarten in a Montessori setting and is now in a public school where she is NOT being challenged at her level. Thank you in advance for your feedback.

Gifted education does NOT fall under IDEA. If you suspected that your child had a disability, then the school would be obliged under IDEA to evaluate to see whether or not your child had a disability that affected educational performance, and to determine whether special education and related services were required for your child. Such evaluation typically includes IQ and achievement testing. There is, however, no Federal mandate to identify and serve gifted children. Some states have laws that include gifted education under special education, and in some (but not all) of those states, the school is required to test if the parent requests it.

I live in CA, but your district requirements might be different. I wonder why you put DD in public kinder when you say she did K at the Montessori. Did you not know that the age/birthday rule only applies to Kinder (at least in our district). So far as I know, there are no other restrictions on other grades like that.

I just moved our 4.5 year old from her preschool to a private preschool/pre K/K school. The Kinder is fully accredited...at the end of the year, the teacher/director will write a review and reccomendation and she will probably have to take a test to enter first, but that is our plan...

If you have a reccomendation from the previous school, especially if they are accredited, I would approach it more that you want a first grade entrance exam, not requesting IQ testing, which you are not likely to get unless they agree your child might have a learning or other disability.

The public school in our community has a pretty good reputation (academically) and our goal was to have her tested right into 1st grade, prior to beg of school (since she already completed kindergarten at an accredited Montessori)...we had four recommendation letters, her portfolio of prior work/homework including two digit math, weekly spelling quiz, story writing, chapter books comprehension examples, etc. Unfortunately, non of this was enough for the principal as her age (she turned 5 last April) seemed to dictate everything. Our only option (per principal) was to enroll her into K and have her tested and observed during the school year to see if "they" agree with our request. We reluctantly agreed as we were told by the school district that these "tests" would be done over several weeks at the beg of school year. The frustrating part is that NO official test(s) have been done yet and we are getting nowhere. The teacher did test her on reading and sight words which resulted in what we already knew�the disturbing part is that she still sits in class and sounds out the alphabet, etc. (things she did when she was two) with the rest of the class. I am losing sleep over this and I�m not sure if pulling her out of the school now is the best decision either. There are no gifted schools in the local area. It is so hard to keep the emotion out of it while dealing with the school personnel.

well, I might not be the one to talk, but this sort of thing is why we're doing what we are with DD4.5. If they refuse to let her test directly into first grade after doing the kinder, I WILL just homeschool her, I guess.

I have another DD8 and it's been nothing but heartache for us at our very small K-12 magnet. If I could do it over, I would have tried to get a first grade skip for her.

It's better to do that when they are younger...based on what you are saying, I would be going over the principals head if you don't want to homeschool or find another school.

Kindergarten is not mandatory in California. If I were you, I'd consider pulling her this year and homeschool, and use that time to work on a skip to start straight into 2nd next fall. It will probably be easier to find a charter umbrella school in CA that would register her as a 1st grader right now than negotiating for a mid-year skip in a new school.

Do you have an idea of her approximate reading level and math level? When my son skipped from 1st to 2nd, we used the Iowa Acceleration Scale Manual. It took a lot of the emotion out of the decision and made it much more black and white for school staff to see. You would need IQ and achievement to use it effectively. If that doesn't work, you can also push for subject acceleration in her strongest areas.

As for using IDEA, I have had some success throwing around "free and appropriate public education." While there is no federal mandate, many school administrators don't know or understand that. You can use fancy special education law to get them to listen, but it doesn't guarantee anything.

in some states, like tennessee, giftedness is seen as a disability...and so you can get an IEP for services, modifications, and accommodations. when they get an IEP, things like grade level and subject acceleration become a possibility. i have also lived in CA.....it is much much different in TN since they include GT under the special education umbrella. regardless, have you already talked with your district?

like the previous poster....we also used the iowa acceleration scale manual in deciding to and then advocating for our son's grade skip into kindy. it was very helpful. i also think it took the emotion out of it....which made us seem less like pushy parents and more like child advocates.

Thank you all for your feedback...this is sooo stressful (I didn't think that it would be this difficult to advocate for your child)....after reading your feedback, I've drafted an email to the principal and would really appreciate someone's feedback on the "tone"...i.e. if it is acceptable...would someone be willing to read it and sound off back to me??

Thank you in advance!!!!
Mom of two