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.