The teacher is scary to him. She scolds the children that they are to come to her with any questions and if a parent contacts her, she gives them grief in front of the class.
It sounds like she can be harsh, if she's scolding kids for asking questions and saying something about a child's parents contacting her in front of the rest of the class. Definitely not what you'd want in an ideal teacher.. but I think most of our children are going to have a teacher at some point that isn't a good fit re personality and at some point in time will probably have a teacher who simply isn't a good teacher. It's too bad your ds had this teacher as his first teacher in the gifted program. Have you talked to the teacher about how your ds feels? My 7th grade ds can be very sensitive - and he has one teacher who is definitely not sensitive - if I listened only to my ds' description of things I can get really upset with the teacher, but if I step back and consider the teacher's personality I can see sometimes it's not that the teacher is doing something that's horrible, it's the clash of personalities - teacher is an all-out-there person who's ego doesn't bruise, but ds is a very think-before-he-speaks sensitive soul. I wonder if part of what's up with your ds' experience is a bit of a similar clash of personalities.
I have also found it's *very* common for middle school teachers to expect communication about classwork etc to come from the student - not the parent. This can be rough at first, but I think it's an important step toward independence and the teachers who help kids make that transition are helping the kids be ready for the next transition on to high school where teachers are for sure not going to want to hear from parents
She is likely to be same teacher next year for gifted. I feel like we're going to have to pull him out. I don't see this getting better. Should I discuss this with counselor and principal? This is all new to us.
I'd think through why you chose the gifted program for your ds - did he want to be in it? What does it offer that's attractive? What are the benefits you've seen from it this past semester? I do not believe in choosing a gifted program simply because you have a high-IQ child - you'll want to consider all the things you'd consider in choosing any school - quality and philosophy of instruction, curriculum, size of the class, who is instructing the children.. etc. Let go of thinking that your ds needs to be in a gifted program *unless* there is some goal later on - maybe high school - where being in this program right now makes a difference. And if there is something like that on the horizon, stick with it.
I am not sure I'd talk to the principal yet until I'd talked to the teacher and asked her about the things your ds has told you about the class.
Re the presentation - I was thinking the same thing as Colinsmom - perhaps the other students have had a lot more practice in giving presentations and are more comfortable because of it. The school my ds goes to has kids giving presentations starting in K - by the time they are in middle school they are presenting a project at least once every week or so, and it's really not a big deal to the kids to get up and present. They are also given a rubric for each project so they're used to that philosophy of grading a project or presentation. I think that rather than being upset about the grade on the presentation I'd try to talk to your ds and get his thoughts re was he nervous, and if so, what could he do next time to help him not be so nervous? It sounds like he had an interesting project - but it's so hard to tell what one project is like when you don't see all the other projects... did you have a chance to look at what the other kids presented? I would want to do that before jumping to the conclusion that the teacher's remarks were off-base.
Hang in there - I hope you find a better-fit classroom for your ds next year -
polarbear