Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Disaster Grade Skip Really Need Some Help

This.
IIRC you and your DH have a history of coming on this board to complain about one another? And you have been stressing out about middle school and accelerated placement for years?
This grade skip sounds successful! She is getting As. She is happy. She has friends that SHE feels are friends. Take it year by year.

And as far as having no access to the actual reading teacher is concerned, this does not sound like such a hard problem to solve. This can't be classified information. Phone the school.

Also, as far as I understand (I do not live in the US) it IS only math where falling off the accelerated track could create problems down the road. There is no such clear cut progression in reading or English lit, right? Or does your school system actually do that? The one I live in actually does, and not making accelerated track for middle school could be a disaster for some kids, but I'd be very surprised if things were set in stone by fifth grade in yours, as you appear to be worrying. A school this large must have tons of options and flexibility.

2-5 test. I noticed something really odd about the test this year. Each year both my DD's have taken the test, in the following fall they maintained their reading (both are avid summer readers through the local library summer reading program). But this year, both DD's fall scores fell significantly. Older DD fell 10 points which was never seen before. Younger DD fell 7 points. Both taking the same 2-5 test that's been given at school since older DD was in 2nd grade (3 years now). I'm wondering if anyone else noticed something wonky like that with scores this year? We had never seen such a dramatic drop in scores before this school year.



She got an F on the last reading test which concerned me. At this level they are allowed to make up tests which renders the official grades useless as so many corrections are allowed. From the combined classes of students (about 50 altogether), 7 students failed. DD and one of her friends both were in this group. The teacher had spent alot of time in class going over the unit (propaganda, bias, etc. as it relates to non-fiction, advanced reading) and the whole lesson flew over DD's head. Her teacher chalked it up to socializing during reading and has since moved her. I had to work with her for a week in order to get her up to speed. She kept saying she didn't understand. She took the test twice and passed the second time once I worked with her. Granted, she had never taken a written test like that before. But these sorts of corrections are not allowed in middle school. I don't even know why they are doing it in elementary. DD always has an A because "corrections" are allowed. Without that, she would be more of a B/B- student. With the F on that last test she would have a C.


No and that is what is unusual. DD's older sister went all the way up to level V with this same teacher. No stagnation at all. While younger DD seems to have regressed. But she is not receiving the same amount or quality of instruction older DD did. About half as much. The class was entirely changed this year in format compared to what older DD received last year. She doesn't have her assigned teacher for reading, she has another teacher who is co-teaching.


No. As far as I know no testing was done. I do not know how DH was able to do this behind my back. He had many conversations with the school and with the staff which I was not involved in. Should there have been some type of testing? Isn't this required? What types of metrics determine success? Shouldn't this process be more formalized? I can find so little about the formal process of grade skipping. I will be reading through the link you provided.


Earning A's with "corrections" and at what cost? I know others place alot of value on socialization, but in my experience, I am more concerned with outcomes. A person has a lifetime to make a friend. Unless a kid is miserable, which DD never complained about before, I feel this is overrated. What concerns me is that it seems in this district where you start at 4th grade is where you will also be in 5th grade. There is no period of "high growth" on the horizon that I can see so far.

I know the middle school environment because older DD is already there. She is in an advanced class and has had zero growth as well for the first semester. She has read no books at all this year at her Lexile and the school uses the Achieve 3000 software for instruction. This is it for next year. I don't expect younger DD will move up in any way with this. Older DD hasn't. There are no reading groups, etc. It is self-guided through the Achieve 3000 software.

And while DD may do OK in this type of environment and "get by", she will never be a top student. There is no way she can compete with those students much more astute than herself in a large district where there are alot of advanced students coming in at the middle school level without massive after schooling which DD is loathe to do.

Myself, I never would have been happy with graduating in the middle of my class. Both DH and I were in the top percentile of our own classes.

To see DD in this position as an 85% student in any grade is horrible for me. This to me is failure. I never had 85% in school and DH never did as well.


While I do believe this in earlier grades, I feel once a child starts middle school the die is cast on placement without massive work outside of school. Kids in the low math classes don't suddenly jump to the high classes. I feel the same with other subjects. In fact, my sister who sat on the board at her school and I were just talking about how difficult it is to get out of a low placement situation in middle school. DH feels DD can "catch up" on reading but from what I've read, after 3rd grade, the gaps only get wider. It seems true with the current stagnation. DD can't catch up to 4th graders who are already advanced and maybe themselves should have been grade accelerated.

You may want to look into this and have a factual answer, for your own benefit.

It appears that the school, child, and participating parent were in agreement.

As stated many times on these forums, use of the Iowa Acceleration Scale (IAS) is recommended for full-grade skip.

- You may want to check your State's education laws to see whether anything is mentioned about full grade acceleration (grade-skipping).
- You may want to check your school district's website to read their policies on acceleration.

The IAS looks at several factors including academic/intellectual, social, student's preference, and level of family support.

This acceleration information has been presented many times in the 3 years that you've been registered on the forums. A large part of advocacy is proactively educating one's self, in order to be well-prepared with facts... rather than emotion.

Unfortunately, your posts indicate that if your child does not score not in the the 98th-99th percentile in reading, you are looking for someone to blame... the school... the spouse... the child... this will tend to poison one or more relationships, ongoing.

As noted by others, it sounds as though you and your husband might benefit from a few sessions with a third party to talk through all these mindsets and philosophies re: education that are causing so much angst. I am troubled by your thought that 85% is failure. That said, that you two were not on the same page re: acceleration and he got the school to go ahead without discussing it with you speaks volumes which are very concerning. This alone seems likely to cause issues for your children. It would behoove you both to fix this situation.

On a side note, our son is in 7th grade (two grades acceleration) for math and language. The students are allowed to go back on certain assignments and revise their work for a partial grade increase (if done correctly the second time). I am a fan of this approach, because to simply grade and then penalize children (with a "bad" grade) at those ages does nothing except encourage perfectionism (imo). I think it far better to learn that writing is a process and to have a chance to understand what went awry, fix it and do better for the additional effort.

I think it's normal to take a hit in terms of percentiles after an acceleration because the child is then being compared to more advanced kids. Most kids who are gifted will then quickly catch up to their classmates once they acclimate to the advanced material. I understand your concerns about how maybe she won't get put into appropriate gifted programming in the future. Hopefully the school has enough common sense to not track a kid indefinitely in a lower group based on a couple tests in a certain time period right after an acceleration. If she stays at 85th percentile, then maybe she doesn't need any more accelerated or enriched placements and you have nothing to worry about KWIM? As long as she is placed with kids who score about the same, she should be challenged sufficiently in school and able to continue to make progress. I don't think it's ever a good idea to try to push a kid into classes where the other kids actually are more advanced. I also would keep in mind that scores like MAP scores in the early grades seem to relate a lot to what the parent is doing with a child and 98th percentile kids might start to drop in 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc. So much depends on their cognitive ability level and what is going on at home. My son's reading scores have stayed very high because he is a bookworm and constantly reads but my other child isn't making as much growth because she doesn't read that much at home. As long as she stays at grade level, at least, and isn't struggling in school, I've decided not to stress about it. She was grade accelerated a long time ago. Her perecentiles would obviously be higher if she was compared to kids her age rather than her grade. But the point of an acceleration is so that the child is challenged at the right level and not bored in school.

My take is there is no perfect answer. It very much depends on your and your kids mental makeup. Note both these options assume the kid is more than academically ready for a grade skip.

Option 1: Do not grade skip if:
- Kid is happy and not complaining
- You are able to deal with academic challenges outside of school
- You or your kid tend to get stressed out about grades.

Option 2: Grade skip if:
- Kids really want to move up
- You believe the path of education predominantly channelled through the school

In either case please note decisions are always reversible.

Not sure it is that reversible in this case.
A) It was her husband (ex?) that arranged the skip.
B) It would be hard to justify a kid doing so well repeating a grade.
C) If she did repeat it would dent her confidence and she may not be considered for advanced classes anyway.

It doesn't sound like the advanced classes are that good anyway and maybe her current placement is a better fit.

I'd like to start by asking a simple question. Who was the driving force for her great MAP scores at 2nd grade? Was it herself? Or the parents? The fact that she read one book in half a semester would be the most worrying signal, imho.

You seem to put a lot of faith in numbers from standardized testing being an indicator of future placement. Here is my opinion for what it is worth: when a child is grade skipped, she might need a long period of adjustment - there are a lot of factors involved - new levels of expectations from teachers, harder academics, older classmates with whom she needs to figure out relationship dynamics, higher level of executive functioning skills, more rigor in homework and tests, etc. etc. It is not unusual for a grade skipped child to not perform well immediately after the skip. Also, her scores are NOT poor - anything around 80% and above shows ability to keep up with the majority of the classroom. Do not compare your child with yourself - each child is unique and has their own strengths and challenges. There is no educational neglect involved if a child skips a grade and gets above 80% in scores. When I request a grade skip for my child, I do so because he consistently scores 99% in all the tests - this is an indictor to me that he has mastered all the material for his grade. If my grade skipped son scored below 90% in the tests in the new grade, it is a rough indicator to me that he has room to grow and improve in that grade because he needs to master more material to get a perfect score - I actually think that it is a good placement when that happens.
You might want to provide some fun reading materials for your daughter to read in her free time if you want to work on her reading levels.

Agreed.

I'm also very concerned about 85% being a failure. Bottom line: it isn't. Really.

Developing from being a child into a well-adjusted, responsible adult involves much more than high grades --- and being expected to constantly perform at an unrealistic definition of acceptable can be emotionally damaging. I've seen this in others, including my kids' friends.

People learn from lessons taught by their mistakes. When mistakes aren't allowed, a child can develop a dangerous type of perfectionism that can make him or her afraid of challenges for fear of not getting it 100% right every time. This fear can be crippling and can lead to all kinds of serious problems. In particular, it is a path away from meaningful success and self-actualization.

If an individual has an internal drive to get As every time, that's one thing. But when pressure from a parent turns a B into a failure, the psychological consequences can be devastating.