Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional End-Of-The-Year Your-Kid-Isn't-Fixed Thread

Anyone else dealing with this?

In the past week, I have received emails from three of my son's teachers all with similar complaints. Your son still can't add without a calculator, so how can he be asking for harder math next year? Your kid still can't spell, so how is it he's getting put into gifted literature next year? If your kid is having a hard time getting engaged in doing this easy homework he says he's done since third grade, how can we believe he's actually going to do homework and harder classes?

I even had one teacher make the comment that she thought that by this time of the year my son would be showing improvement with remembering assignments given verbally. He has an auditory processing disorder...

It's like expecting someone in a dance class that is born with one foot shorter than the other to somehow, over time, become a smooth dancer without wearing a shoe that is fitted so that their legs are the same length.

It is so frustrating! I'm curious how the rest of you deal with this.

Tell them don't worry, you won't hold it against them, and aren't they glad he's somebody else's problem next year!

Have not faced this, actually a bit nervous that we might as we approach the grade skip.

The snarky I contemplates this response: "How do you retain your job as a professional teacher if a parent needs to explain this to you?"

And you can't play music if you can't read music. And every armchair statistician is ready to play a professional sport. The guy at Waffle House who quotes news stories verbatim should be on television, etc. Specific knowledge and conceptual knowledge are different things even if they have close ties. It's probably true that some people only passed math in school through great feats of memorization (and a pity that perhaps some of them now teach it.)

I'm always stumped when teachers seem to put up walls to children realizing success - you'd think that your ds teachers would be proud of him and *want* him to succeed in advanced classes instead of insisting he was going to fall on his face.

We didn't necessarily run into this all at once at the end of the school year but we did run into this a lot at ds' previous school. What we did depended on what the situation was - when accommodations were questioned I simply restated why ds had the accommodation and told the teacher he needed them and reminded them it was in his IEP. When we were told ds shouldn't be allowed to accelerate due to issues that were irrelevant (example: not quick with math facts) I restated the way in which his disability impacted that particular skill set, restated his areas of strength and ability and was steadfast in insisting he be placed appropriately for his strengths and receive his accommodations for his weaknesses. The staff at his previous school never really "got it"... but what turned out to be the strongest argument *for* placing him where he belonged according to his strengths was first, simply doing it, and second - and most convincing to teachers - his performance in those classes. DS' disability really hasn't held him back, as long as he's had access to his accommodations. I suppose the third thing that helped convince school staff is the thing that our US schools seem to be so hung up on - achievement testing. It's easy to score an "advanced" on our state tests, but once ds was in upper elementary school and middle school and started taking standardized testing outside of only the state testing, he had scores that were sky high and that's something that got noticed too.

If I was you, right now, I think you just have to ignore the comments. You've already got a plan in place for next year that the school agreed to, so ignore the comments from this years' teachers, support your ds in building up any skills you think he needs at home, and look forward to next year - he'll be fine!!!

Best wishes,

polarbear

Yes, annually.

For us, it's several things:

--For us, it's not LDs, but behavior issues. DS tends to have a honeymoon at the start of the year, a bad patch in the fall, a smooth patch in late fall-winter, and some renewed rockiness late in the year. Just when they think he's fixed, he isn't, and they feel very disappointed. It starts to feel to them like he's doing it on purpose to defy them. Why could he do it last week and not this week? Etc.

--Teachers have lots more optimism and energy in the early part of the year than they do in the spring. We still have almost one quarter left to go but everyone is starting to feel "done." I expect my DS to make progress in the 4th quarter, but they are looking at their year's effort and feeling like it's a failure because he's not fixed yet; it's hard to get everyone to throw in more good effort on an unpredictable kid.

I don't address this directly with teachers except to keep patiently problem-solving the day to day issues that arise. But yes, if people started questioning his academic placement on the grounds that they've forgotten his disability, I'd remind them nicely of the relevant data, also on a case-by-case, one conversation at a time basis.

DeeDee

What I'm finding is it is actually affecting their grading - taking off for doing a Haiku on his word processor rather than cutting out letters and pasting them on a paper - totally excruciating for a kid with fine motor coordination disorder and dysgraphia. Instead of the quality of the haiku (it was good), he got a C.

For math, after missing three days due to illness, I had him do less problems just to get through the load of homework in all his classes. He was penalized for not doing all the work - completely against his IEP. When I brought up the IEP, the teacher said he couldn't have it both ways - asking for harder classes but still wanting to be given a lighter work load.

Since his grades in 7th won't affect his application to college, I'm tempted to not go tilting at windmills and just leave it alone and get through the next few weeks. But another part of me wants to advocate for the sake of the kids in those teachers' classes in upcoming years ... but I'm not sure I have the reserves of energy it will take...

Thanks for the commiseration and advice.

OK, given the examples you've posted I'd follow up and insist his IEP is followed now, this year. The comments about "next year" are infuriating and not appropriate coming from his teachers, but you need to focus on having him receive the accommodations that are already in place for him. One thing that happened to us when accommodations weren't provided (that were in our ds' IEP)... we were then told *after the fact* that ds didn't need them because he'd coped without them. Plus it's just not right!

RE the teacher who commented that your ds couldn't have ti both ways - he's wrong, of course. Your ds *can* and should "have it both ways" - he's a gifted child who has been put into a gifted track program for next year, and he also has a disability and has been granted appropriate (and very typical) accommodations for his disability. We've had a teacher who tried to pull that on us too - some people honestly think you can't be intellecutually gifted and have a disability at the same time, or that it's some kind of choice to be either/or. In that situation, I'd summarize what the issue is in an email, include the comment from the teacher, and politely let the teacher know you're checking back in to be sure you understood what happened correctly - that gives him a chance to back down and say he didn't mean that. I think I might include that what your asking for isn't a "lighter work load" but a reduced number of problems, and then state (if this applies - I'm just offering it up because we run into this with our dysgraphic ds and homework) - 1) the reason for the reduced number of problems is the total amount of time it takes your ds to complete his homework due to the impact of his disability - state the actual amount of time, and that you suspect this is significantly longer than the teacher is requesting that the students spend on their homework, and 2) let the teacher know that your ds does not need the repetition to understand, learn and retain the concepts.

Gotta run - but fwiw, if you don't get a reasonable reply from the teacher, I'd rewrite all of it in an email to the teacher and cc the principal and the members of your ds' IEP team, and call an emergency IEP meeting to guarantee your ds is receiving his accommodations.

Good luck!

polarbear

Can you say that to the teachers? They really aren't understanding, and I think something like that would make it easier for them.

What Polar said. They do need to follow the IEP; his successes this year were supported by those accommodations...

DeeDee

I am experiencing the same thing with DeeDee , with DS it's more his behavior . Just like DeeDee said too , during the beginning of the school year it was fine , there are up and down days but no biggie , nothing to worry about . But came January , everything went downhill . They tried new things , for a week it worked , then it didn't and it worked and it didn't . I guess they can't figure him out yet and saying he's a mystery still according to the counselor . *sigh* what do you do when you have 30-45 minutes waiting period in each subject at school . You can't expect them to sit and read ALL the time .