Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Becoming anxious about new school

DD6 was assessed in February this year as HG+. Last week she also tested in the 99.9 percentile on the WIAT in overall achievement. After we received her IQ results, we shared her report with her new school, a magnet school within a school for gifted and high achieving kids. She is currently in our neighborhood school attending kinder and 1st grade. The magnet school starts in 1st grade and she will start in the fall of this year.

At first we very happy with the response we received from the principal. He assured us that whilst the school emphasizes enrichment and in-depth curriculum, they would work with us to accelerate. During first initial informal discussion in February, we talked about possible grade skip and or more likely subject acceleration. The principal talked about getting the district gifted coordinator and teacher together to come up with an educational plan for DD.

Sounds good doesn't it? Problem: Principal has a very open door policy and encourages open communication, however he does not return phone messages or emails requesting the formal meeting. Not that he is avoiding us but he just seems so disorganized. DH finally spoke with him to discuss meeting together and we decided to push it out to May. I sent an email and left a voice message requesting a date in May to which I did not receive a response. I managed to see him personally in the school hallway and finally managed to set up a meeting for this morning (anytime in the morning, did not want to commit to a set time) to formally sit down and discuss next steps. He now does not want district coordinator involved in case in complicates things. He also does not know which teacher she will have yet even though we have mentioned having her attend the meeting with us. So today's meeting was for principal, DH and I.

Unfortunately, he had to fill in for a teacher this morning and so we were unable to meet with him. I was really annoyed that a) we are delaying this process further b) he didn't call or ask his admin to let us know this morning that he will not be able to make it.

As we are nearing the end of the school year, I am very concerned that we have nothing in place as far as placement for her. Particularly after he mentioned that he is not going to grade skip her when I saw him in the morning last week to schedule today's meeting. I believe different grades are not on the same schedules; how on earth will they subject accelerate?

Am I being unreasonable as far as expectations from this school? I know he means well but this lack of communication and organization is driving me nuts! I feel very concerned that this is an indication of future experiences we will have. My DS is currently attending this school but as he is not needing any accommodations, I have no direct interaction with the principal.

Out of frustration we drove to our local private school and spoke to the administrators there. They seem to pace the learning to the individual and have kids who subject accelerate since they all work on the same schedule. They also have 2 highly gifted kids there and seem to understand our concerns.

Sorry, I am just venting. I do not know how to proceed at this point and the enthusiasm I have had for her attending next year is quickly waning.

slammie, the principal sounds like he is either very over scheduled, checked out, or possibly his administrative staff isn't organized well and they dropped the ball on notifying you that the principal wouldn't be able to meet with you. It's also possible he's a hands-off principal who expects his lead teachers to take care of program details.

From what you describe of the school (if I understand correctly, the full school is a gifted/high achieving magnet but the program your ds qualifies for is an accelerated program for highly gifted students within the school). Whether or not the principal is totally checked out, this program sounds like it has a lot of potential positives associated with it. I wouldn't worry about how they actually accomplish subject acceleration until you've had a chance to ask and see it first-hand. That's not because I don't think it's important, but rather because I'm guessing that with a program geared to HG+ kids, they've got something in place already. The other positive would be classroom peers - even though there are "two HG" kids at the private school, if this program has high bars for admission based on ability and/or achievement testing, then your ds is guaranteed he'll be in a room of either high ability or high achieving students.

The flip side of this is that the private school may be a great solution also. Have you talked to any of the parents who's students attend it? I would ask the principal if he could have the parents of the HG kids he mentioned contact you and tell you about their experience. You can also ask if they'd let your ds attend for a visiting day to see what the school is like.

Hang in there!

polarbear

Thanks polarbear. Public magnet school is not a highly gifted school. Entrance criteria is based on ranking from group naglieri ability test ( no minimum cutoff ), report card, star scores advanced in ELA or math and teacher feedback. From volunteering in DS 3rd grade classroom, there isn't much differentiating going on at all , they just generally go faster and then go deeper into subjects.

In fact on the district's website it states that this school isn't accelerating, and it wouldn't be a good fit if that is what a parent is looking for, which is why we approached the principal originally to assess if this school would be a good fit for DD. He assured me that he would accerelate her and we could make it work.
I'm not sure if they have a lot if experiences with accerelating kids there;I do know that there isn't any child in my son's classroom that is being subject accelerated.
Which is why private is sounding good right now. Except the tuition part of course.