Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy educating a PG child wish list

So in the next few weeks I will be meeting with the administration at my son's school. We will be discussing what he needs for next year and how it can be implemented. It's a small school with an eager to please administration. The staff is young and inexperienced and ignorant about the needs of HG+ children. My sense is that I can ask for a lot and maybe we can even receive a lot of accommodations. We live in a state with zero mandates....the school doesn't have to provide a thing. But because it is relatively new and trying to build a reputation, they really do strive to meet children where they are at. Anyway, what should I ask for? DS will be accelerated in some areas. In the other areas he will stay with grade level. A psychologist has recommended that DS has access to an educator of the profoundly gifted. I don't think the school has the resources to hire someone just for DS. Do I offer to pay for a mentor or tutor? What kinds of accommodations would you ask for? Think of your fantasy in this situation and share it! I need ideas beyond my own.

I would find out if he can log on to CTY or other programs of your choosing and maintain his own pace in certain subjects.

But you also have to think what are they offering and do they have a budget? Perhaps you should go with something like that and then see what they will pay for, like the computer. will they pay for the courses?

So first ask, then relent and offer to pay what they absolutely don't have budget.

I would figure out which subjects you want accelerated. Do you want to skip? But I like CTY since she can skip as much as she wants.

A good faith effort all around to be open to creative problem-solving ANY time things seem to be not working.

In our experience, this is huge-- because most "fixes" only really fix things for a while, and even most Gifted specialists don't really understand that for most PG learners, there is no "standard trajectory" that they follow. They jump trajectories periodically when placed into normative curriculum, and quite often even in accelerated/enriched curriculum with GT (even HG) classmates.

So an understanding at the outset that you're going to work together as a team for years (ideally) to keep on top of needs. Together.

I've seen this link, i just re-googled it:
http://www.davidsongifted.org/edguild/

and SENG promotes and teaches how to facilitate a local parents group.
http://www.sengifted.org/programs/seng-model-parent-groups