Ya know, I just love Mite's principal. This guy is the balm in the open pustule of education. Sorry for that visual, but really dealing with the education system is like dealing with an open festering wound. It is so nice to deal with someone who is calm, knowledgable and caring.
Even though we don't agree on MANY things, this chap can facillitate communication so well, I always leave feeling like I've WON!!! There are gains made in every conversation. In addition, he follows through on our conversations, checks on the teachers compliance with the IEP, researches alternatives and in general sees to it that things are flowing well for Mite.
Today, for the first time since last summer, we sat down to specifically chat about Mite's giftedness. We made long strides towards understanding each perspective and then came to the realize that our perspectives are pretty similar. Mite is highly gifted and needs stimulation.
He's going to work on getting Mite a grade advancement in reading for next fall. That's all we want right now. I might hit him up for math in about 6 weeks, but right now we aren't seeing accomodations being made in the current math and we know Mite won't succeed without accomodations in a higher math.
His reading/language arts is getting accomodations and his grades are finally going up. We're still duking out the keyboard issue, but we feel he would do ok (B grades by our standards) if he skipped a level.
We have considered a full grade skip and are considering pushing for a full grade skip EXCEPT for math, too. But, we feel Mite would handle this reading/L.A. skip well enough, show his salt and then when he's 11 will be better prepared to skip 5th grade and move up to 6th. Because of his disabilities, we want to go where we KNOW he'll do fine.
So, I pointed out that Mite would probably do just as well in a 5th grade reading/language arts class as he's doing now. I also pointed out that they would merely have to continue accomodate and maybe, regardless of the grade, have to add accomodations like the AT things that are being discussed, but that would happen in either class.
The principal needs to arrange the 4th and 5th grade schedules so reading/L.A. will coincide. Right now 4th grade coincides with 3rd, but 5th's is at the opposite end of the day. So, he has to get all those teachers together (7 of them) and figure out how to plot the day and facility usage to get 4th and 5th grade reading/L.A. lined up so Mite can move easily between the two grades.
Does that make sense?
Anyhow, he says he'll work to make that happen.
Now I'm in the "wait and see" mode, but I feel calm having interacted with Super Principal.
I'll let you know.
