Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Advice on Early K Entry Mtg. with Superintendent

Love this: "the potential for harm to a child's disposition to learn by inappropriate acceleration."

Clearly, inappropriate holding back has no potential for harm whatsoever, right? They did not even attempt to have their criteria sound balanced.

Tigerle, isn't that amazing? Selective wording, for sure, I suppose one would need something like that to ward off the parents whose child arrived in early Sept. and who now absolutely has to wait a year more for school that those who were able to be born just a wee bit sooner.

There are also references to the "research" about how younger children can be harmed by trying to keep up with older ones. Hmm. I've not come across that research yet. Could it be that children could be harmed if their educational needs aren't met at their level (i.e. no ability grouping) regardless of age, and it's just convenient to blame age?

Oddly enough, our children have flourished in mixed age classrooms starting at very young ages (Montessori and project-based programs). I know that is a sample of two, but having seen more than a hundred kids in the programs go through that experience, I don't think that they were being harmed by "trying to keep up" with older children.

Are these kindergarten curriculums of the 21st century really all that difficult? I keep seeing that claim, but am starting to question whether it is just fluff.

Bostonian, I would have never agreed to that after spending two years on private school tuition to meet my child's educational needs. Class size is the principal's problem to solve. Would he/she have suggested that to a family moving into the district with a rising 2nd grader? "Oh, we are out of room, so your child will have to repeat 1st grade since there's space there." Good grief. Logic be damned.

Here is some from the UK:
How does birth month affect your child's future? find the results here
by Ami Sedghi
The Guardian
November 1, 2011
I have seen research saying that gaps close in post-elementary grades in the U.S., but the point is that educators can point to research showing that the younger children in a class are more likely to struggle in the early grades. And this makes sense, because older children are smarter, have more endurance, and have more self-control on average than younger ones. What is true for children in general is probably not true for high-IQ school starting school early, however.

Now that you mention it, my eldest signed up for honors pre-calculus in tenth grade. The class should have been small-ish, but lots of kids had signed up for non-honors pre-calculus, so the school decided to move some of them into the honors class because of class size issues. I'm not sure how many got moved; my son knew 3 of them personally, but says that there were more.

Fast forward to early January. The teacher got injured and couldn't work. None of the subs could teach pre-calc. One of them told the kids (while doing her knitting), "Honors students can teach themselves." But of course...they weren't all honors students, and even if they were, if they could teach themselves, there wouldn't be much need to take a class, would there?

Fast forward to early March, and they were finally given an online system to use. But...they had to complete the ENTIRE one-year course by Memorial Day (unless they were seniors, in which case it had to be done a few days earlier). And they lost a week to standardized testing in there, to boot.

I have no idea how things shook out for the non-honors and other students, but I remember my son telling me in mid-May that a lot of kids still had so much of the course left that finishing was effectively impossible for them. I felt then, as I do now, that the school cheated children out of a learning experience that they had a right to get.

Funding issues aside, three thoughts:
3) Iowa Acceleration Scale, 3rd edition (also called IAS or IAS-3)
2) Recent threads on acceleration
1) What does the kindergarten program offer, and will that meet your child's academic, intellectual, and social needs?
Here is a link to a related article, Disillusion With the Perfect School, by Carol Bainbridge

Update!
We met with the superintendent and principal. It was a predictable meeting (heard the same ol' routine about how early is damaging).

However, they agreed to consider an early Kindergarten scenario, which would be either transitional kindergarten in the fall or traditional kindergarten in the spring once he turns 5. Transitional K gives some flexibility in on the legal end because he is two months after the cutoff and they felt the board might see that as a possibly solution because four year olds do attend TK. Then, after winter break, traditional K would be considered, moving him into 1st at age 5.5. Which of course, will not be his academic level but the best compromise available. He will be at a 2nd and 3rd grade level at age 5.5.

They are asking for letters of recommendation from our child psychologist and anyone who feels he would be best served by entering Kindergarten early, a copy of his full psych report which was done by the school district and a letter from us with our request.

They said they will read the documents and decide if they would like to present it to the school board for a final decision.
There are only two more board meetings before school begins.

I'm relieved we got this far. Not sure if they are taking us seriously or placating us with more paperwork to come up with in a very short amount of time.

My husband feels strongly that if they say no, they should have a plan of what would they do to accomodate him. They literally have no alternative at this time and freely admit that they have no options for him.

They did say an academic assessment would be involved. I can't help but hope it's a district academic achievement assessment that could qualify him for DYS.

I'm sick to my stomach thinking about-what if he can't go to K early, what are we going to do? We feel that entering at 5.5 is absolutely not an option. So now we are outlining other options and trying to expand our mind about things like skipping K altogether.

A few thoughts:

1) Seeking a process - You may have read this elsewhere on the forums, The Iowa Acceleration Scale ( IAS ) is a tool which outlines a process for evaluating the appropriateness of a full grade acceleration. If your district is unfamiliar with the IAS, you may wish to mention it to them. The Acceleration Institute offers Policy Guidelines to facilitate the establishment of acceleration policies within school districts.

2) It is not wholly true that your state does not permit early entrance to kindergarten. Although mentioned in a recent post: "we are in California... children under 5 are not permitted to attend K", according to this State Policy summary, for CA as presented by Acceleration Institute: If your child misses the cutoff by only two months, it appears that starting kindergarten after those 2 months have elapsed may be an option, and your child may not need to wait for the next school year. It appears that at age 5, a child may also be admitted to the first grade.

When advocating, it is very important to be familiar with your current State laws and district policies. Because these can change over time, you may wish to print them and keep them in a file, ring binder, etc, arranged by year.

3) Other options available A person "feeling" something is not compelling, nor does it obligate the other party to take actions you may wish to see them take. You may wish to do some research on acceleration. Review your State law. The Acceleration Institute has gathered many resources together in one place to make this much easier for today's parents, than it was a decade ago.

One resource offered by the Acceleration Institute, the Iowa Acceleration Scale, is subtitled: "A Guide for Whole-Grade Acceleration K-8"... and single-subject acceleration is mentioned briefly in the Manual on page 104, and Planning Record page 3. Some schools may use the IAS to prepare a complete record of a student's scores and "thoroughly discuss the case and to consider other curricular options and recommendations for the student." (Manual page 34)

4) Next steps You've received valuable information from several posters upthread about possible future acceleration strategies.

5) Have you thought ahead... are you well aware of tradeoffs (possible downside) to early entrance? There are several threads on this, including Grade skipping tradeoffs. Here is also another thread on what to ask about early K. I am a strong proponent of acceleration, and believe its success is enhanced when parents are well-informed, anticipate and are prepared for trade-offs, and have realistic expectations.

6) Linking to your related thread, Help me write compelling points in letter... as this may be helpful to future readers.

Did they show you any evidence to support their belief that early admittance is damaging for children like your son? I'm guessing no.

My guess is they realize, even if they aren't willing yet to say it out loud, that your child is indeed ready for K. So that's a good thing.

Well, he was enrolled in K before turning five a few weeks ago.
He's thriving. I've never seen him happier.
This was a long, emotionally exhausting process, but worth all the tears and sleepless nights.