Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Refusing to do work

"-For those of you with kids in public school, have you ever removed your child from the gifted program?
-If the school won't help me sort out why he's under-performing, where do I go? DS hasn't had formal IQ testing but I'm concerned about spending the money and then the school not caring about them anyway."

Welcome! Your "gifted" program sounds like our gifted program. My DS is also 7. Last year he wasn't asked to be in the gifted program. He never finished their assessments ("too boring") and his classroom teacher didn't identify him as gifted on the behavioral scales. As the divide between what we were seeing at home (DS 6: "Mom, when is that quantum mechanics show coming on again?") vs. school (Teacher: "DS 6 doesn't know his addition facts. He keeps writing out Roman numerals on his worksheets." Here's a scary math fact - the first grade teacher didn't identify that he was answering his questions correctly using Roman numerals.) So, we had him tested. Fast forward several months he qualified and was accepted as a DYS. So, like you, I knew that he was gifted, but I didn't know HOW gifted. This has made all the difference TO US (and to him, of course, as we now are in a better position to advocate for him).

Now, if we hadn't had him tested, I think DH and I would have still arrived at roughly the same conclusion with regard to how gifted DS was. But, I think it would have taken us a little while longer to figure it out. The documentation and evaluation have been enormously helpful. DS was really starting to suffer a bit at school. We have been able to intervene a lot sooner on his behalf since we KNEW what we were dealing with. We have had some success with advocating for him at school (3 grade skip subject acceleration). We have decided to partially homeschool him. Interestingly, he did make it into the gifted program at his school. (Note, it's not really a "program". Once a week, too many kids get pulled out to watch some Brainpop and make paper airplanes.) We let him go to this "program" because he goes with his friends and it occurs during the time he is at school.

If you can swing it, I would recommend that you get your son tested.

My DD who is 6 and in second grade also refused to do work she did at a different school while in first grade. She was pulled out and did second grade work and now is repeating it after changing schools to a "more challenging" school which is worse than the one she went to last year. It is a catholic school and has no provisions to challenge gifted kids at all! I have put her in a science club after school; Spanish class after school and some reading clubs but they are all not just meeting her needs. Her math is her strongest subject and her teacher will not challenge her beyond what she teaches in class. I hate to give her extra work at home but I have to. I am a physician and so I don't always have time to teach her (plus I have 3 other kids)! She is also in a lot of extra curricular activities and so finding time is not always easy. Anyway, she loves the school because her best friend goes there but cares less for the teachers. I am hoping that the 3rd grade teacher will be more creative. By the way, we were also asked to have her tested for ADHD but after meeting with her doctor, it was decided that she was OK and that she just did not want to do her work and some of the behaviors are typical for a 6 year old. (Wont turn 7 till end of summer). If third grade does not get better, I don't know what to do!

Somewhere, it sounds as if the school was willing to work with you once you had the testing. My fear is that I'll spend the money on the testing and they still won't do anything. They've already told me they won't subject accelerate.

The school has given him tests on their own identifying that he's grade levels ahead in math and reading. The profile from his Cogat, which they gave him, shows that he needs to be working at a higher level.

Will IQ scores change their minds? I do realize that it's more than just getting the school to respond. The report will give us valuable information about DS. DH and I just keep going back-and-forth on this and maybe I'm playing devil's advocate here.

I always play the "what would it change if I learned ____" game with this kind of thing.

I predict outcomes from most to least likely and then mentally assess what, if anything, those outcomes would translate into in my family's lives in particular.

Sometimes that means testing-- and sometimes it means that NOT knowing (if there's little that it would change, or if an ambiguous result would lead to a series of dissonances that would be hard to tolerate).

I never believe in "just because" testing. I learned that lesson the hard way with our DD (not with GT stuff, but with other stuff).

We're glad we had DD tested. It was useful for us in understanding her education needs and useful for her (because she thought she was stupid because school made no sense to her whatsoever -- learning that bored >< stupid was really helpful for her). It also gave us the courage to attempt to get her what she needed, even though it didn't affect the outcome.

See, no teacher or principal, at either of her public schools, ever cared one tiny little bit. Most didn't bother to read the test report even when I provided it. The ones who were creative and flexible didn't care (though they were easier to deal with). The ones who were rigid and repressive didn't care. When she was doing great they didn't care. When she was struggling they didn't care.

It wasn't just that they were skeptical (though some of them obviously were -- and in these cases providing the data made things worse), but that they didn't seem to think it was relevant. And this, more than anything else, is what caused us to pull her. I'd have been more sympathetic if they at least acknowledged her intelligence, even if they felt they couldn't do anything about it. But over and over they reinforced the idea that being PG affected her education the same way that hair color does... that is, not at all.

Hi Niki,
I agree with Howler Karma regarding testing and what would change if you learned your son's IQ scores. For us, it helped us understand our DD a little better in working with the child psychologist who administered the test. She was helpful to us in understanding some of the nuances between local school districts and their GT programs as well as private schools in our area.
When we met with the school and the teacher regarding our DD's WISC-IV results, they seemed less interested in the WISC results and more interested in the CoGAT. Ultimately, it didn't matter for us, because they didn't change their approach.


Have you looked at other schools? It was amazing to me as to the differences between schools in regards to academics and GT programs.

Thank you, HK. Your process brings me back to the same conclusion every time-I don't believe testing will change much in our present circumstances. I think I start to doubt my instincts about DS and his abilities when the school keeps pointing out the negative in him. It's just sad to me. They will acknowledge that he's bright, they just won't do anything about it. In fact, the counselor said they won't even consider making changes until his behavior has improved. Sorry...now I'm just rambling because it all frustrates me so much.

Gardengirl, I'm visiting a private school next week, so we will see if that's better. As far as public schools, I'm told the GT curriculum is the same at all schools in our district. However, I wonder if it would be helpful to speak with GT coordinators at other schools in the district to see if they are a bit more knowledgeable and more flexible.

Gardengirl, did you visit different schools within your district? Did they welcome you or wonder what you were up to??

I did visit another school in our district. We only had one other option. (Because we got a SINA letter, it told us what school(s) we could transfer to if we elected to do that. There was only one that had room for a first grader.) The principal at that school asked if our principal knew I was looking at other schools. I said no and asked him to keep the information to himself, that we were just exploring options.

After realizing it wasn't going to be much different at that school either, we decided to look at private schools. After looking at the schools and talking with the principals at length, we decided to make the move. The class sizes are smaller where DD is enrolled now, the work seems more challenging and what I see come home is at a much higher level. No tally marks, either!!! DD told me yesterday how happy she was that she transferred.

Is it possible to meet with a child psychologist or counselor who has experience with gifted kids and has some knowledge of the schools in your area? That really helped us.

Feel free to PM me if you have any more questions or need to vent.

Boy, we are in the same sitaution. DS7 refused to complete class quizzes and interim assesment tests at school ("too easy") and would pull out his favorite book (by Isaac Asimov) and start reading it in the middle of a quizz. Did not go well with school...