Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy public school meeting tomorrow!

Hi all, after a lot of...shuffling and drama and back and forth, we have decided to go to a meeting with our public school elementary principal and curriculum supervisor/asst superintentant, to discuss any potential possibility of making public school work for our PG DS5. We have no expectations really, and are sort of prepared for the worst, but we are doing our due diligence, and have been told by numerous people that, at very least, might be able to get some sort of resources/assistance out of it (again, not holding our breathes).

I was wondering if anyone had any last minute advice with how to go in there, what to bring, what to say/suggest, questions to ask, things to look out for etc etc. I know a lot of you have been through this so your advice is invaluable. I want to stress that DS5 is pretty asynchronous and very advanced (esp in math...we are talking about (with gaps here and there, of course) a clear understanding of ~7th grade topics and above.) But he's 5. So it's rough. Beyond rough. Reading is probably not as bad - more like a 3-4th grade reading level...and pretty good fine motor writing skills, can write in sentences etc. Anyway, just looking for advice/support. Thanks, as always, for your endless helpfulness

You may have read this elsewhere on the forums... there is a crowd-sourced list of tips on preparing for a meeting. Also this
recent thread has several posts which discuss reasons to not use the word "bored" when advocating.

Best wishes with your meeting!

I think it's a good sign they are at least willing to meet with you.

For my DD4, the best I could have hoped for from the public school system was partial/hybrid homeschooling, which our state provides through a charter school.

Maybe you can ask for an appointment for a GT specialist in your district if they cannot point you to more resources.

Good luck! I met with our school about my DS5 and found it helpful to put together a folder of information. I included:
* a number of solid articles about acceleration (I highlighted parts I thought particularly relevant and then called out the most important highlighted parts with sticky flags) -- these included the chapter about early entrance from A Nation Empowered volume 2, and the one about long-term satisfaction with acceleration, and then some popular articles and as much other research as I could get (send a PM if you want a list)
* an excerpt from the Iowa Acceleration Scales Manual -- the case study of early entrance to K/1
* iq & achivement testing
* work samples showing he was working 2 grades above his current grade (since he's preschool this year, that meant 1st grade-level or beyond) -- some of this was from school, but also work he did at home, like several worksheets he did about analog clocks and some very traditional addition problems, and (because the principal had requested it specifically) a half-dozen samples in which he drew a picture about something and wrote a sentence about it.
* a supportive letter from his preschool teacher
* some misc information about physical skills (good), height (tall), social skills (very much), previous preschool experience (years of successful separation & class participation), involvement in organized activities (including being successful as the youngest of 20 kids in his 4-H club)

I thought about including--but ran out of time--photos of him or even a video of him doing presentations in 4-H (he did 2 this year)

What worked for us was emailing ahead of time the scores / report so the principal had a chance to digest the info. I also included in the email our goal for that year "Dd settles into school, has fun and continues to enjoy learning" not unreasonable? We mostly pandered to the school saying we were certain Dd would be fine but if she had issues we wanted to be sure the school was prepared to help. So far so good. Teacher said on her first day for us to pick her reading level and she would focus on confidence building. We are expecting an iep to be set up in the next month for math and science.