Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy New here and need help advocating at local school

I've decided it is time for me to come out of lurkdom. I have learned so much from reading the posts on this site - you all have such great insight. I could really use some advice for an upcoming meeting with our county's Coordinator for Gifted and Talented Education and the principal of our local school.

My DS5 will be starting at our local school in the fall. A recently administered WPPSI IV identified him as gifted. His scores were high average for everything but verbal sections. He got perfect scores on three verbal subtests. He has tested at the 6th grade reading level.

DS5 is highly social and loves to have conversations with people. He is highly verbal and has an excellent vocabulary. This has sometimes been challenging when trying to relate to children his own age and he often prefers to talk with adults or teenagers. This year he has made great strides in relating with other kids at his school and his teachers are happy to report that he has very thoughtful conversations with other children during the school day. This is something he was having trouble with previously, as he would choose to talk to teachers instead of students.

He is very engaged with learning and excels in both reading and math. He learns very quickly and only has to be taught a concept once and then quickly masters it. He has been very interested in dinosaurs and construction vehicles since he was 2 and knows a lot about both. One area he has trouble in is writing. He dislikes writing and finds writing numbers and letters difficult. He sometimes writes them backwards. He can spell very well, however. He enjoys typing on the computer.

He is very sensitive to stories that are scary, especially fictional ones. We are working to help him acclimate to things that are mildly scary or startling. This has helped.

He is highly focused when he is doing something that he finds interesting. However, mundane tasks do not keep his interest and it can be difficult for us to keep him on-task when getting ready in the morning or evening. I made a wall chart for him to check off completed tasks and this seems to have helped.

We are concerned that it will be difficult for our local school to meet his needs. We are committed to advocating for our son and getting him the education that he needs, but are not sure how exactly to go about it. The cognitive therapist we met with suggested that a particular private school in our area or homeschool would be best for him given his wide range of ability, however we cannot afford to do either at the moment.

Is there anything negative that could come of us sharing his cognitive test results with the school officials? What would you recommend as the best course to take in helping our son get what he needs at school?

Well, first things first, providing your child with what they need is a marathon, it's not a sprint. Pace yourself. You don't have to, nor likely should you, start out with a master plan, rather, take it one step at a time, see if that step works / pans out, or if you're going to need change direction.

Probably the first step is to familiarize yourselves with how "The system" at the school works. Each school district and sometimes even schools within the same district have quite different systems for serving GT children as well as requirements to be in their GT program if they have one. Once you're familiar with how the schools system works, that might answer your question about sharing text information. Sharing that information might be a good next step, on the other hand depending on the system it might mean little or nothing to them depending on how their system works.

Once you understand the school's system, inquiry about who might be the best teacher for your child is a good next step. If the school understands that your child has some specific needs they're often willing to assign the best teacher for the job. Once that's accomplished, an e-mail introducing yourself to that teacher and some honest background and commentary about your child so that teacher has a starting place to work with your child is a good idea.

Any other advice I might be able to contribute would greatly depend on what information is gathered and what transpires from the efforts I've already described. Again, take it once step at a time, adjust, modify, and be prepared to seek sources and opportunities outside of the public school system. Chances are, no matter what school your child goes to, it won't be enough to fully help them to their potential.

Lunamoth,
You'll meet many administrators and teachers who hear from other parents how gifted their kids are. You have test results and your son's verbosity to support yourself. If your son isn't in the meeting, then the test results will be the one thing to help make sure you are having the right conversation.

I hope you can get him into a sufficiently challenging coursework where he can continue to fly. And don't let them make writing a barrier to his correct placement.

Old Dad, thank you very much for your thoughtful reply. Your advice to pace myself is extremely helpful, as is your advice for going forward in determining the best course in supporting my son and his education. I will work on learning as much as I can about "the system" of our local school and our county's G&T program. I'm sure I will have many questions along the way. I feel very fortunate to have found this forum. I have had trouble to this point finding a group of people who are open to discussing gifted issues and who have a broad knowledge of them.

Zen Scanner, I greatly appreciate your point that showing the test results to the administrators and teachers is necessary. I will plan to bring my son's test results and the school report prepared by the cognitive therapist we met with describing his abilities. Since this test is highly influenced by motor ability, does not include mathematical ability, and doesn't have high enough verbal ceilings, I suspect it does not describe my son's cognitive abilities very well. However, it does place him soundly within the gifted range and hopefully this will help us to get him accelerated instruction and the support he needs so that he does not lose his love of learning and school.

He's very young for there to be concern about trouble in writing, I think. Reversals of numbers and letters are normal up into 1st grade. You might want to look at my thread about "What grade level writing is this?" (I also have a 5yo who will start K in the fall).

I would say give it a month or so, just to see how the school handles DS on their own. I have seen really awful teachers, and really amazing ones. DD's first grade teacher this year is by far the best that either of my kids have had. I was worried, because the teacher is so young, and I assumed, inexperienced. But she differentiates EVERYTHING, (don't ask me how she manages that, with 24 kids in the class), looks up special spelling words for DD, since she is far ahead of the rest of the class in reading and writing, and even put together a special section on poetry just for her - because she was interested in it. On the other hand, DS had a teacher last year who seriously told me that the class should not adjust for him - he should adjust for the rest of the class. She used the spiderman argument - "with great power comes great responsibility." In her mind, if he was ahead, he needed to spend his time helping others (not that I have a problem with him helping, but I didn't think that was much of a challenge for him). Anyway, I'm on a tangent. My point is, build a relationship with the teacher. As soon as you know the teacher's name, shoot him/her an email explaining that you don't want to start off on the wrong foot or sound pushy, but these are DS's strengths AND weaknesses. Be careful - don't EVER use the word "bored" with a teacher. But make it clear that you are concerned about challenging your child, and you are willing to help with that however you can. (Teachers tend to be more likely to listen if they know the parents are involved, and they are not expected to work miracles on their own). After that, watch the assignments coming home and evaluate for yourself. Don't be afraid to contact the teacher frequently - as a former teacher, I can tell you that almost anyone who works with kids would rather deal with a parent who contacts them frequently than one who ignores the problem until it is almost overwhelming. With DS and his horrible teacher, I started keeping a file of sample work he had done at home, so I could take it in and show it to her - so she knew I was not just making it up or exaggerating his abilities.
Above all, give the teacher a chance. If she doesn't do what you think is appropriate for your child, by all means talk to administrators, counselors, AIG coordinators, or whoever else you think would be helpful. But deal directly with her first.
Good luck!

That is great advice, seaturtle, and what a wonderful teacher your son has now! Sometimes young teachers are just the ones who are pouring all their time and passion into serving their students. There are great ones out there!

I agree that asking about assessments, standards, and how to challenge the child and aim for a year's growth are all good ways of phrasing it, whereas "bored" is touchy. Teachers get defensive, because they get that from EVERYONE and it is often kind of personal. Of course a gifted kid might have an excellent, engaging teacher but if the curriculum is still too low, it's natural for him to be bored.

Thanks, ultramarina, I will definitely check-out your thread about writing and grade level. There has been some concern in the past about my DS's motor abilities, so I feel we need to have this evaluated, but it is good to hear that his writing level is still within the norm for his grade.

seaturtle, I appreciate your advice and insight on how to most effectively interact with DS's teachers. I agree with your advice to give the classroom teacher a chance. We are going to meet with the GT Coordinator for our county and our local principal soon to learn more about the GT system in our area and hopefully to determine placement and an appropriate teacher for our DS next year. It is great to hear that your DD's first grade teacher is so talented at differentiating for each of her students. I hope that my children are fortunate enough to have some teachers like her in their future! I am planning to ask the school principal which of the 1st grade teachers she thinks would be best able to accommodate my DS's needs after telling her a bit about him. Hopefully, she will be able to steer us towards a teacher who will welcome my DS and all of his differences in her classroom.

Thanks for your input, St. Margaret. I certainly want to be respectful of my DS's teachers while working to ensure that he is offered work that is sufficiently challenging. This seems like the fine balance that needs to be achieved. I agree that phrases like "how to challenge" and "aim for a year's growth" are very positive and helpful, rather than confrontational. I hope to be able to navigate my way through the school system in a way that will be helpful in advocating for my son.

It sounds like you're on the right track so far Lunamoth, I think if you read through threads on this forum, you'll find the general advice is to attempt to keep such meetings with school staff as positive as possible. Fact of the matter is that a lot of staff has little knowledge about the issues involved in GT education and negativity or an attacking demeanor often result in the staff member(s) getting defensive, dismissive, and they stop listening. It's easy to get frustrated at times, take a deep breath, think about if what you're about to say / do is just out of frustration or if it's likely to bring about the positive result you're looking to accomplish.