Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Excited for new school year?

A new school year is around the corner! I am excited.

Anyone else excited?

This will be DS17's last year of high school, and his first year with an IEP. I'm on a balance beam of trepidation and excitement. Right now, though, I'm the coach on the sidelines helping him, and trying to get him enough support, to successfully complete his online summer course that fulfills a graduation requirement. His extension was just granted.

Monday I'm checking with a Fusion campus to see of they can offer the "beyond the AP" level courses he's up for at the HS.

DD11 will bus to the regional high school for Maths. This is something that she anticipates with not a little trepidation but we expect her to adjust well to it. If it isn't a good fit then we will just do AoPS Geometry instead.

She finished last year with a >95% average on all subjects except 'science' - 94% due to failing a test that she was not allowed to make up due to a 6 day school absence caused by EBV. Hopefully she will not have that intellectual pigmy as a teacher this coming year.

Last night DD11 asked how long until school starts. I was shocked when she said "I'm SO excited!" First time since preschool she had been excited about school rather than dreading it. As a 2E kid so much of school has been focused on remediation and services and all the things that are so hard for her. Summer, school breaks, weekends and after school have been devoted to the fun, interesting, exciting things that support her strengths. This year, though, our district has placed her in their TAG program and that makes all the difference in the world. One day a week with smart kids who are just as eager to learn as she is sounds like heaven. Holding my breath and hoping she loves it as much as she is expecting to and that she really is as independent with her AT as her school tells me. I doubt it will be a real intellectual challenge but having a group of gifted peers? Priceless...

DS9 will start fifth grade in a full time gifted program. And ride the bus for almost an hour. We haven't really worked out the morning and afternoon logistics yet. It's going to be quite a challenge. He was okay socially in his catholic elementary, but I did a lot of engineering of play dates behind the scenes, with good natured moms. Now he is socially on his own, and I am hoping for this program to provide the peer group in which he can find his feet. Academically, I am not sure how much challenge to expect, it is an advanced curriculum (sort of like a honours curriculum) additionally accelerated, with enrichment. Executive function demands will probably go up appreciably. So, both excited and apprehensive.

DD5 (soon to be 6) will start first grade at the same elementary (first year of formal schooling where we live) where she will be supposed to start with the alphabet and numbers up to six. It is going to be interesting since she is so different from her older brother, much more interested in age appropriate things such as role play, physical play, crafts, clothes and princess stuff, and prefers to be read to rather than read herself, and has already a solid grasp on how not to be different. I have a hunch she is actually reading and doing maths at third grade level, but prefers not to let it show. Her older brother was so much more in your face at her age, and socially almost oblivious. There's benefits and drawbacks to both ways of being I guess, but I have given up thinking there is much I can or should change about either. She is VERY excited - can't wait really!

DS3 may have the most interesting journey this year. We have decided against mainstreaming him for the moment so he will remain at special ed preschool for the physically disabled. When we decided on leaving there in February, his speech was still very much delayed and and needed a walker. Now that he has suddenly started walking unassisted and his expressive speech has caught up within the last six months to at least age level (receptive, they tell us, he was always two years ahead), he may be very much underserved there cognitively, but over served physically. Emotionally, though, the tiny classes and teacher student ratio are still what he needs. Socially, I just can't tell just how fast he will outgrow his friends, who all of them have some cognitive and language disabilities as we'll I can't imagine he'd find a much better fit in regular preschool though, so this year, we will just see hotw it goes.

cautiously hopeful is about all I can muster up. We have yet to have a school year that is truly "good". DS is going into a self-contained g/t program, I am really hoping that he likes it. Otherwise it will be homeschooling. DD is going into middle school in the gifted track (core classes are made up of g/t or high achieving kids only).

I'm excited, but nervous. This is my first year in an honors class, the gifted program, online gym class, and more...

I am cautiously optimistic.

My son was homeschooled K-4, skipped 5th, did 6th at a private school, skipped 7th, did 8th at the same private school, and then has been homeschooled for the past two years.

He has decided to go to the local public high school as a 9th grader. I'm hoping for a decent social experience. If he actually learns something, that will be a bonus.

This will be DS8's second year in a full-time gifted program. We're all pretty excited.

This time last year, the school year couldn't start soon enough for us. We wanted to see how the program would work out. It was nothing short of amazing.

Yes, excited and hopeful!

DD6 will get to start the gifted pullout program this year, for which she has already been telling me about projects she wants to pursue. She is also being considered for SSA in reading and math.

DS2 will start a 3-year-old preschool program two days a week.

I waver between excitement and dread. Our school administration is notoriously difficult when it comes to addressing the needs of outliers, and DS8 would be considered extreme. I suspect this year will be a serious battle to get suitable accommodations to match his educational needs. I am already exhausted just thinking about it.

A little excited and a bit stressed. This is DS/DD's last year at the magnet middle school so the whole magnet high school application process will take place this fall/winter.

I'm excited and a bit apprehensive. DD8 is being accelerated to 4th grade this year and will start the gifted pull out program one day a week. In addition, she will be taking a JHU CTY course during her school day to further accelerate her reading and, depending on how well she adjusts, we may add a CTY math course for use in class as well. The 5th grade cohort isn't a group of kids I want her with, unfortunately (it's a small in-fighting group of kids), so SSA into that class isn't a good option. The teacher she will have this year has never dealt with an accelerated kid but she's being extremely helpful and flexible with everything!

Add me to the list of people who are cautiously optimistic about the new school year. We are making some big changes that we really hope will work out well.

I'm anxious about the upcoming school year.

I'll be taking 2 "generals" college classes to test out my ADHD meds and see if I can get through a degree since my ADHD dx.

DS9 is doing public virtual charter school again. He will be doing his schoolwork at the community college campus 2 or 3 days per week. I'm a bit worried about this, but it's hopefully a better situation. I hope he will be less likely to throw oppositional temper tantrums when he is in public.

I'm cautiously optimistic about his schoolwork though. I did a grade-skip acceleration on paper, doesn't affect anything other than he can take high school classes for credit. He'll be taking 2 high school classes, a high school level independent study, and 2 middle school classes. If he doesn't start throwing tantrums because it's "not fun" and he'd "rather do something else" or just "don't wanna do it"..... it will be okay. The odds of no tantrums... very low. He has had a few good days recently, but not enough to give me confidence.

You may already be aware that there is a difference between tantrums and meltdowns, but just in case this may be helpful, here is an article from Understood.org: Taming Tantrums vs. Managing Meltdowns.

I'm hopeful. We are trying a new charter school this year, a change from our local public elementary school. I'm trying to tell myself that no school will be everything that I want for my kids. But it would be difficult to be as bad as last year.

BRING IT!

Same schools for both children, this will be their last year at each of their schools. For my dd that means, last field day, last Valentine's party, last recess...

Yes & No.

It's going to be a rough year emotionally. But S17 is honestly doing fairly well. But he is already ready to move out of the house. The good thing is this means he's motivated to pass his classes & apply to colleges and little nagging is necessary. It should be an exciting and fun year. The bad part is even though I know it's developmentally appropriate it can sting when I'm not wanted. Particularly as I know when this kid leave the house (probably next June) he's likely to be GONE except for holidays.

Plus my older D has moved home & the house is feeling a bit crowded. I'm super busy with a start-up. This summer has just flown by.

On the frustrating side. Just found out that S17's H.S. counselor has moved to another school. Uggg. Explaining DS's 2E situation is tricky and she really seemed to get it. He did registration for classes this AM (School start in 9 days) and I should find out in about an hour if that went OK. His counselor was supposed to give him preferential teacher choose as part of his 504 but IDK what a new counselor can do.

DD8 is starting 4th grade at the gifted magnet she's been at for 3 prior years. She cannot wait and I am excited for her. She will do Math Olympiad, Robotics, and somehow also fit in travel basketball and rec soccer this fall (at her request). Her dad coaches both so neither will be practice intensive. I am not looking forward to dealing with some of the emotional issues I've seen developing, namely perfectionism-light which manifests itself mostly in self-criticism. I just hope I'm up to it.

DS11 will start 7th grade (second year of middle school). He did well in 6th but most of the teachers really emphasize neat, pretty work that does not have to be too deep. And piles of piles of it. That is difficult for my deep thinker with horrible writing who likes to question whether the "right" answers are really right. Not sure "honors" really means anything at his "highly-ranked" middle school. I just hope he makes a few more friends although he does have a handful now. He's doing his second year of orchestra with the cello and loves it. He will do that, piano, and school yearbook.

I'm going to be swamped at work all fall, which is kind of scary for me with both kids likely to kick it up a notch in terms of work.

Good luck all. I look forward to seeing updates!

My sympathies. It is so annoying when you think you have things sorted with someone then they leave and you end up back at the start.

My kids are both in their same classes so no changes there. DS5 is zooming through material. It'll be interesting to see what he accomplishes this year. Outside of school he'll be doing swim lessons and scouts.

DS8 will be doing Beast Academy for math and MCT for language arts. These are new for him so I hope he enjoys them. He'll be doing swim, drama, a coding class and scouts.

They both really like school and I hope that continues.

My kids are excited! Younger son is in our gifted program for sixth grade, which our school is eliminating in a year. He will be in our city-wide sixth grade orchestra for one hour a week, for viola, which will be super fun.
Older son DID get to skip Integrated Math 1 for 8th grade and go into Math 2. He is very excited. He also has Orchestra for viola and is trying out in November for the all state junior high orchestra. Hopefully he can do his Eagle project as that is all that is left for Eagle Scout.

So, first of all -- LOVE this thread and enjoyed reading about your upcoming years. I hope things go very well for all.

As for us -- DS6 is going into 1st. It seems like K was this HUGE build up and 1st is kind of just... not? But we have no real anxiety about this year, and that I am VERY excited about.

Many of our questions were answered last year, good and bad (mostly good!), and we expect more of the same this year. We found language immersion was great and kept the majority of K interesting. We expect that to continue into 1st.

The school overall was amazing and supportive and DS had a few intellectual peers in class. He found his tribe.

Math was our disaster last year and we expect it to be this year too.

For this year we heard they're combining the gifted kids across the grade and DS may have a group of ~6 kids all in the same classroom. I hope this is true and if so I might have a little more hope for actual math differentiation. Maybe? I would be excited about that.

DS is going to take math enrichment a year ahead at an after school math academy with a mostly gifted population. His excitement for math kind of died last year in K and never picked up again this summer the way I was hoping. It was like watching a light go out. I'm really excited to see if he enjoys it again once he has a chance to do it in this new environment.

DS is going into grade 5 and DD into grade 3 and this is the first year that I'm not dreading school, yippee!!

School was rough from day one with DS but last year he transferred into a full time gifted program. The transition was rough but in the end it turned out to be AMAZING!! This is the first time he's ever said that he is looking forward to school.

Things went pretty smoothly with DD until last year when things went downhill. She's transferring into the same program that DS is in so hopefully it has similar results. Fingers crossed.

On the way to her first day of school this morning, my first grader announced, "I can't wait to learn!" I hope she is not disappointed.

With more trepidation than excitement. DS14 and DS12 are both heading to HS(two different schools). Heard one too many horror stories from other moms about the HS DS14 is heading to, pregnancies, drugs...and we live in an "award winning" school district. Not sure how well DS12 will adjust either being in a new school not knowing anyone, and I mean, goodness he still looks like a baby and will be taking some classes with 17-18 year olds! I think my kids are readier for HS than I am. I'm not ready to send them off to college in 4 years! Where did all the time go?