Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Super secret math pullout - so frustrated!

It is wonderful that you could leverage your experience and reassure another parent. Keep in touch with them, they may be wonderful allies.

Lots o' resources... this is just a start...
1) http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10291.aspx
2) http://print.ditd.org/young_scholars/Guidebooks/Davidson_Guidebook_Advocating.pdf
3) http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/advocacy.htm
4) http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/tea_terrorist.htm
Basically: be calm, research policies, gather facts, listen attentively (rephrasing with questions for clarity), and when faced with a piece of information which may be a discrepancy, or which you were unprepared for, or an opinion (such as his current placement is good), ask a question to learn another layer of information (if indeed there is another level available). This is sometimes called "peeling the onion". One begins to understand and appreciate the interrelatedness of various things and the constraints which others may face... and often find ways to work around them or work through them.

Sounds like a good advocacy plan.

There is no sense of failure in letting something go gracefully, taking time to re-group, reading up on advocacy strategies, and planning for next time: If I knew then what I know now...!

Hook - I haven't read back through everything, but are you just dealing with the local school? Or have you contacted the ISD admins yet? If not, I would go up the ladder. Everything SHOULD be laid out and written up and available either online, or in person at the Admin building. There should not be any 'secret' or undisclosed gifted programs. Gifted programs in Texas are state funded, but managed by each individual ISD.

I remember that my child's K PS teacher spent 8:00 AM - 8:40 AM (class starts at 8:40 AM) for several weeks to read with one child who was "at risk" because of his inablity to speak english. When we asked her why this child got extra instruction with her, she said that she is allowed to help students "outside the school program" in both ends of the spectrum and she chose to help struggling kids with her time before classes start so that she does not have to do pullouts at class time. There was no "program" for what she was doing and there were no rules and requirements - the teacher did this on her own and applied her own judgement on who was to receive her time and enrichment.
I believe that this could be the case with this secret program in your son's school - it could be that she thought that these loud kids would become manageable if they were given more enrichment and went out on her own to challenge them in math. So, this program may be done at teacher discretion, not open to all kids and not based on any criteria - it is not a fair situation, but there are programs in most public schools that the teacher has full jurisdiction on.
I am sorry that your child feels left out. If I were that teacher, I would be happy to take such an eager student into my special math enrichment class.

Actually that persepective makes a lot of sense to me. I would get that entirely too. Although when I asked if she would just forward me the info to do at home or if it were computer based what she was using so I could see if there were a homeschool version, I was shut out. I have no clue what sequence or level to start with. Just a quick email with an idea with directions would help my child out. If her heart truly were in that right place, I would think that option would've been accepted with wide open arms. Just makes no sense I guess.

I think I will be pulling both my kids out to home school....just seems like a better option now.

Our high stakes test are graded 1-5....3 is proficient, 4 and five are the best scores. When I was advocating for math acelleration for my ds earlier this year I was getting really frustrated. In my back pocket I kept a little zinger that I never used but I always knew I could if I had to.

My zinger if we hadn't come to an agreement about his education was that I would take my gifted child and his high stakes testing at least 4s if not 5s possibly even perfect scores and go back to his home school (he is in a school of choice program for the Spanish dual language). Knowing how important his scores are I knew I had the leverage.

Luckily I didn't have to pull that out and use it.

Hook - as I'm sure you know, there's a HUGE homeschooling community in TX. No doubt you'll find plenty of support.

I've seen both sides of this multiple times. It's really a no win scenario. If every advanced program is widely publicized, then over zealous parents push to put their children into such classes when their children often aren't a good fit rather than letting the school assess the need to be in the class (more on need later)This results in the staff spending more time dealing with fallout of students not being included than it does teaching those who need the class / service and discourages staff from even attempting the class / service.

I've also seen schools mention little or nothing about specialized programs and children miss opportunity to qualify for them or be prepared for them because they missed a specific day of school or some other reason. The common thought pattern being that the school is capable of assessing a child's needs and informing parents simply stirs the pot unnecessarily. If the child is assessed to qualify, then information goes out to parents of children in the program. It comes down to a "Need to know" basis.

Of course there are problems in both the above scenarios. Perhaps the bigger problem though is a recurring mindset I keep seeing in this and many other threads on this forum, that being the mindset of a certain percentage being the qualifying factor, instead of a percentage, the thought pattern should be getting students the classes and services they need regardless of what percentage of them need it. The percentage will vary from year to year and school to school.

Our schools are rather quiet about the pull-outs they do before G&T and AP in 3rd/4th grade. In fact, the only way I found out DD was IN the earlier pull-out was from what the other parents told me (certain teachers taught it, and certain kids were in it - usually this information came from parents who had older children who had been in the program). Most teachers at the school did not even tell parents where their kids were at in the differentiated curriculum - I've come to believe that they are afraid of the parents' reactions. It is always stressed that any grouping is "flexible" and "subject to change, based on the students' needs." Still, if one researches the school website, grouping for enrichment IS actually briefly discussed on the website.

While I can understand that the schools do not wish to be constantly justifying their decisions, I think what schools have to understand is that a lack of transparency can build mistrust. That being said, I fully support and encourage the school's use of differentiation in its teaching.

ITA with Old Dad.

Re the OP, I wonder if, in this instance, the thing to do might not be to give up the fight for this school year (since it's half over anyway). Starting your advocacy next year might be easier and more effective when you have a different teacher to work through. Fighting it now is most likely (just my guess) going to peg you as a parent who is going to fight to make sure your ds isn't left out of a program - note - this is *not* a "bad" trait at all, but it can be perceived negatively, especially in early elementary when there are a lot of parents who think their child needs to be included in all the available gifted programs. When our kids were in early elementary, there were so many other parents who also had "intellectually gifted" and "intellectually deserving of more" kids - according to the parents. Many of those parents were quite pushy, and it led to a lot of resistance on the part of the school staff when *any* parent tried to advocate for that "more" for their student, no matter how truly intellectually gifted their student was. What ended up happening was that sometimes the really pushy parents got their kids into the pull-outs or programs etc simply because they wouldn't take no for an answer and the school staff gave up. Other kids were overlooked. After the first few years of elementary, the kids who were in the programs because of pushy parents either thrived because they needed to be there, or moved out of the programs because they really didn't belong there. The kids who'd been overlooked - at least some of them - I can't speak for all - but at least some of them stood out more as being different as they moved on in school and many who teachers had overlooked were "discovered" once state testing and other types of testing such as gifted screening happened in 2nd/3rd grade.

Our eg ds was not one of the kids who stood out as obviously gifted or needing accelerated work in early elementary - it was frustrating to not have him given access to the accelerated work in his first years of school, but fwiw, just to offer a little bit of upside - not having that early recognition and inclusion didn't stop him from being the eg kid that he is, and ultimately he got into the gifted programs and advocating was much easier once we were past those first few years of almost every parent thinking their child was gifted.

Best wishes,

polarbear

I agree with Old Dad and percentages. At our school, for reading pull-out, 2 kids per class. When I tried to inquire what criteria, (in the policy it say MAP 95% or higher. Ds is 99%, but not getting pulled out.)I was told it was top 2 score in the class in a specified thread of Map. No further info. I was also assured that ds is getting what he needs in class- not.

All I was told about Math pullout, is there's more kids. Also, I was told next year, there will be 6 kids per class. Interesting.

I think schools make whatever rules suit them. Unfortunately, it's my ds who loses out.