Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Advocacy strategies

It's that time of year again...time for the new school year and hopes that this year, things will be different mixed with fears of yeah, right, like that's gonna happen.

I thought I'd start a thread with advocacy strategies. Perhaps we can use this thread to consolidate information over time. What have you done? Did it work? Did it go down in flames? Something in between?

I sent an email to DD's new teacher last night about math. I tried a new strategy this year. I wrote that grade-level math is mostly quite easy for my DD, and that the problem with this situation is that she shuts down when she's confronted with something that isn't easy. Also noted: the problem seems to come from DD not understanding that This is harder than usual does not mean AND THEREFORE I CAN’T DO IT.

I mentioned that I've been reminding DD to think about the last time she had to do something difficult and how she managed to learn it during the lesson. She responds well, but I added that the message needs to be internalized, which will only come with consistent, appropriate challenge.

[sigh] It all seemed so reasonable, but we all know how this stuff can go.

I will update later regarding success or failure.

Great idea Val!

I have been using lots of strategies learned here. I have been very successful in that I got accommodations but not so successful in that it isn't really enough. But using the wisdom of those who BTDT, this will satisfy for now so it's ok - worry about in two years, later!

The number 1 thing that has worked for me is respect - there are some real PITA parents at DS's gifted school. So when approaching this I made sure to make it clear that I respected their expertise. And I have ILs who are teachers and nothing burns them more than parents who treat them like they don't know what they are doing. Granted often they don't have expertise in gifted kids or work outside the level they usual do, but if you go in assuming you need to "educate" them it's going to go badly. We are fortunate in that at a gifted school, the teachers do a lot of development in giftedness.

2. Recognize when there are things you cannot argue them out of. My DS's principal was adamant that he not go to the middle school for learning, even though in certain subjects he might have surpassed them. This wasn't about learning this was about big kids and little kids and since we cannot accelerate, it wouldn't have been practical anyway. We ended up finding another accommodation which is working ok. But if I had been pushing for something that was never going to happen everyone was going to be unhappy. This isn't to say don't ask for acceleration just be on the look out for things that just WILL not happen. Now if that's exactly what you need to happen then disregard this!

3. Get involved in the school. Being there, having people know your name is a good thing to do before you have to ask for something

4. Know your DC's shortcomings. Be honest about behavior. Make sure you know what your kid is actually doing before going over the head of the teacher.

5. Avoid the B word at all costs. Boredom can rub people the wrong way.

6. Try to find out what the other kids are doing - can be hard sometimes but very helpful to determine if DC is really needing something not provided, or if the whole class or prt of the class needs it, or DC is just not interested. And as the parent of a DS, I will generalize and say that tuning out can be because of being too easy and repetitive but can also be due to lack of interest due to regular old lack of interest.

Just some of my thoughts. We are in a very good situation though, it's a gifted school, and they recognize that DS is quite different from his classmates. But they handle it well and since we cannot homeschool this is working. For Now

DeHe

Last year I went in a two weeks after school started for a conference with a visual aid. I went in and said that I didn't know what a typical child in their 2nd grade class (he was team taught with two teachers)did over the summer but my son spent hours swimming on the swim team each day, played outside, played way too many video games and watched his fair share of TV and then showed them the contents of a shopping bag of a good representation of all the books he read over the 78 day vacation. The books we didn't own and had checked out of the library I had listed on a piece of paper to the best of my recollection. Apparently it was outside the realm of normal amount of reading (and most of them well above level) to make their eyes go wide with disbelief. He wasn't yet tested for gifted at that point (but they knew he was on the list for testing)--not until right before Thanksgiving did he get tested. But during that conference I think they got the idea that he was something they hadn't seen before in this town.

Both teachers said that they were taking gifted classes and had already been trying out various things they were learning on differentiating and compacting on him because they had noticed that his rate of learning was so fast. So I guess it was pretty obvious without the conference but it was nice to come together as a team. And I would say we worked well together as a team the whole year. I assumed that they had his best interest in mind and I was so pleased that they totally rose to my expectations.

I guess my advice is to admit you might not know exactly what typical developing children are doing (even if you have some idea) and just share what your child is capable of accomplishing and don't be afraid to use a visual aid or other documentation to let the teachers get to know more about your child.

Great advice, DeHe

polarbear

Thanks! But I can't take credit for any of them, as they all came from wise people when I got here. But that's what is great about the site, they shared with us and we share going forward. But I will take credit for effective summarizing!!!

DeHe

Avoid the OTHER b-word, too. Particularly in meetings. No, seriously, though. Even in your own thinking about the people who are acting as stumbling blocks in your efforts to advocate. Don't let your brain off its leash, because once you start THINKING those kinds of things, it shows.

Remember to be patient, because you all want the same things. Really. You just disagree about how to go about getting to those goals. You're really on the same team.

Well. So much for that.

DD's teacher up and quit in favor of a better offer earlier this week. Back to square, well, (feels like) minus one.

Now I'll have to print out the email and hand it to the new teacher at a back-to-school get together on Sunday. School starts on Wednesday. I was hoping that my message would give the teacher a few days to think, followed by a gentle conversation at the get-together, followed by more thinking. Now I just have to hand it off to her on Sunday and hope for the best.

Advice appreciated. What would you do in this situation?

FWIW, I've been reviewing math with my daughter. What she can get through in one hour surprises me, and I'm her mom. Today we did 20 words-to-equations problems from Chapter 1 of an algebra book, followed by elapsed time practice (10:30 am to 12:43 pm = how much time?), area/perimeter practice (odd shapes), divisibility rules, circle the primes, decimal places, decimal division, and factors. Then I taught her how to get prime factors. This was all in less than one hour. She did ~70 problems and got ~95% of them right. And they might make her plod through 5th grade math.

Help!

Is this where I admit that I have never been successful with any advocacy?

Yeah.

I did move my kid to a better program. Does that count?

Val, do you have achievement testing scores in math? MAP, Key Math, anything that would show her level?

We requested in, I think, 2nd or 3rd grade that school assess DS. They were to give DS the end of 4th tests for a skip into an accelerated track a year ahead. (They "accidentally"--or on purpose, I don't know-- gave him some of the end of 5th tests, which helped enormously.) In 4th we got EXPLORE test scores, which again did not give us a true level (knew too much) but was helpful in demonstrating the problem in a way that everyone could see.

In short: marshal evidence, find out the acceleration process in your district, and make a request in writing...

DeeDee

Oh, I thought we were talking about the other "b" word, "best."

Public schools don't guarantee the best placement or education-- they guarantee an "appropriate" education. I have learned to use "appropriate" as the word describing what I think must happen...

DeeDee