Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy what to ask of our gifted children's school?

Hi, everyone -

I recently had a conversation with a parent at my son's school whose daughter is also advanced for her grade level. Both our children are in kindergarten (although in different classes) but are at second grade level in math. They both receive differentiated homework. However, this mom wants to explore options for further differentiation for her daughter, and by extension any child who could benefit from it. To that end, she would like to identify other parents of similarly advanced children both in kindergarten and first grade. The idea is that having a critical mass of concerned parents would make any discussion of a further differentiated curriculum more meaningful to the school's administration. I told her I would help her as much as I could, but I am wondering what are some issues that we should be aware of.

First, I wonder how we should go about identifying these parents. Aside from the ones I know personally or whose children's reputations precede them, how would we know who is likely to be interested in this?

Secondly, once we do get a group together, what are specific things that we should ask for that would maximize our opportunities for success? Obviously, we will all have different individual goals, but I think that most of us just want the curriculum to be more challenging and engaging for our advanced children. What have other parents found to be successful in their discussions with their schools' teachers and principals? I know that every school is different, but we are so new to all this, that it would be helpful to have an idea of parameters and what is realistically possible.

Thanks so much!

jaytee

As the mom of a child who used to attend a gifted school, my question would be... if there is a "group" of such students then why isn't the gifted school identifying those students and providing that without your needing to ask?

We recently did something similar for our now 2nd grader, specifically for math differentiation. We started the discussion during our regular GIEP meeting with the gifted teacher and his regular (at the time 1st grade) teacher. They recommended we meet with our principal and make the request that way, and to let the other parents know we were doing so, but to go in on our own and recommend the other parents do the same.

We had a slightly different situation, though, in that the school had already identified a group of about 8 kids in his grade that were also unusually math-y and were offering a pull-out math enrichment with the school's math specialist. So we could go in and ask for additional math differentiation and indicate we knew that there were other mathy kids that would benefit. We were successful to some degree (extra differentiation, but not direct acceleration) but the process has resulted in the district taking a closer/harder look at what to do with this really unusual cohort and how/if they should change how they math with these types of kids (which are a subset of the identified gifted kids).

I also think we were more successful, rightly or wrongly, because this is our youngest of 3 kids, all of whom are in the gifted support program, but we had never specifically needed to ask for additional anything for the other two kids. We're lucky to live in a district that can provide reasonable accomodation for gifted kids. All 3 of them could easily accelerate in math, but it was clear with our 3rd that he really is a step above and needed more.

some smaller schools may see it as an attack if a group of parents approaches them. Our gifted school here specifically kept mentioning that they didn't want "gate mom gossip". They didn't want us complaining to each other about what our kids were not getting.

You need to be careful that it doesn't get the school all uppity and on the defensive.

Perhaps you could form a support group, and get the school's approval for that. Have as one of your goals/aims the two-way communication with the school to meet every child's individual needs. The school may see this as a way you are trying to help all parents and support you that way.

However, I do agree that if its a gifted school they should be doing IEP's and differentiated learning anyways. Unfortunately a lot of gifted schools are really great higher up from 3rd grade onwards, and cater really well for MG kids, but in the pre schools esp, IMO they don't differentiate, they try and form the kids into easily teachable groups instead of going on personal development. you should also check if the pre school teachers are more focused on pre school teaching or gifted ID and teaching. that was our problem too. The more mainstream qualified the teachers were, the larger our issues became.

Thanks, everyone.

There is concern that the principal will get defensive if approached, so we are trying to tread lightly. My son goes to a language immersion school, and the principal (pretty arrogantly, IMO) stated at a recent parent meeting that he thought that the language program was better than any gifted curriculum we could get elsewhere. While I agree that the language is what is providing the primary educational challenge to my son, it really is not enough.

My son's teacher is doing her best, though, so I really can't complain about her desire to accommodate him. This is mostly the other parent's crusade. I'm just going to offer support as best as I can.

Thanks again.