Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Could use some public school advice on testing?

Hi, my name is Michael.

Hello everyone this is my first time posting, but hopefully not my last. I'm writing today in respect to my son who is six years old and attends public school in the state of Florida. He was tested for being gifted in October 2007. We were notified that he was administered the Kaufman Brief Intelligence test, second edition. He obtained the following scores 123 verbal, 133 nonverbal and an overall IQ composite score of 132.

In June of 2008, He was administered, the differential ability scales (DAS-II) a second edition test in order to get an estimate of his overall cognitive ability. On that test, he performed very well in certain areas. He performed very high in the verbal ability cluster having a standard score of 133 in the 99th percentile. In the spatial ability cluster, He measured a standard score of 124 in the 95th percentile and on the nonverbal reasoning test; he received a slightly lower score of 107 in the 68th percentile.

Upon summary of those two evaluations, the school psychologist at that time found that my son's general conceptual ability is in the high range of cognitive functioning. He also goes on to state that when the results of this evaluation of been received by the school, a student study team meeting should be held. It should include the child's parents, and the purpose would be to review the results of this evaluation.

While the summer of 2008 came and went our son began first grade, with the promises of enrolling him in a �gifted� program. We then receive a document dated August 28, 2008 attended to by a SECOND psychologist which plainly states the state of Florida requires full-scale IQ of 130 or above to be eligible to participate in the gifted program, and at this time our child does not meet this criteria.

Now we are not supposed to include large or heavy images and documents in these posts. So what I've done is I've built a webpage to show these documents I hope you don't mind, but I've blocked out a bit of a personal information simply because it's the web. What I really need or what would really help us would be someone who has experience in these matters taking a look at these documents perhaps and helping to determine if I have cause to go against this.

My issues stand as this. Why were two psychologists needed to examine the same test? His current enrichment teacher from last year is on our side fighting that he should be in as much enrichment as they can provide for him. The signatures at the bottom of the minutes from the meeting include the school guidance counselor (that he has never met). His first grade teacher whom he's only known for five plus days and his enrichment teacher as well as the new school psychologist (#2)(that has also never met my son), and staffing resource specialist, whatever that means.

The budgets in our local schools were cut last year to the point of having to fire several teachers over the summer. I seriously hope that this has not affected the enrichment or the availability of enrichment for my child. And I hate to think that these tests may be altered or that a second psychologist was brought in for what I could only figure to be a second opinion.

Like I said we could use as much help as possible from people who have more experience in this field than we do and don't want to go to the school and make a fuss if I have no reason to. It�s very difficult as a parent who has no experience in these tests to determine whether they've been given or handled accurately and whether my son�s best interests have been adequately represented.
My wife and I were never informed that this meeting was taking place nor were we invited to it.

The documents are located at: Http://www.mrmrepair.com/test/

-Michael

It may be a procedural violation that you were not given notice of the date/time/location of the meeting--I'm not familiar with Florida ed. law.

Since this is a borderline case, and one of his teachers is strongly recommending him for the program, I think it's reasonable to contest the decision.

Hi, Michael. I have nothing to add - Dottie's the testing expert. Just wanted to say welcome. I guess I do have something: I'd give it a couple of weeks and see if his teacher understands him ("gets him") and is able to provide some enrichment or differentiation. I'd also check out the gifted program and see if it offers enough benefits to warrant a fight. The program at our public school was a pull-out program (meaning they pulled the kids out of their regular classroom) that met only 1 1/2 hours a week. It really wasn't much.

Just saying that you might want to pick your battles. Getting him above-average work in the regular classroom might be a better one to fight than getting him in the gifted program. Just depends on what that program does for him.

TY , lol I guess I missed one :P No matter..

He is easily reading harry potter books and doing triple digit addition and subtraction as well as writing full book reports for me on a daily basis simply because he loves to do it.

He has has no other testing beside what I have listed, thou I can say that the day he took the test was a very hectic one as his 4 month old brother was sick and we were 20mins late to the test..

He currently has spelling words like cat and hat, whereas he can easily spell words like television and elevator and bristlefish (He loves studying sea life and bugs).

You mention achievement testing? Such as? The school has pretty much shut us out and and said to just have him tested again next year, but I feel that would be a wasted year. He is being scolded for not paying attention and for going ahead of the class.. I don't feel it's right.

Thank you Soooooo Much for you time on this!

Oh, I was also in all gifted classes as a child with an IQ of 134, till High School where they didn't offer them.. I got bored.. Got in trouble, fell in with a bad crowd and well you know the story...

-Mike

Will they accept outside testing? Maybe you would get more accurate results.

Thank You so much for all your answers, My wife and I need some time to digest it all and look into private testing prices.

Again TYVM! Please feel free to add more comments if you would like I will be checking them all day.

I will also be discussing perhaps WIAT or WJ Testing with his teacher.

-Michael

Hi Mike,
I'm in Florida. I found the FL DOE website very helpful. http://www.fldoe.org/bii/Gifted_Ed/

My suggestion is to find the gifted coordinator for your school district. That person can explain to you what the requirements are. For instance, in our district there is a minimum 130 IQ plus the teacher's evaluation is weighed heavily plus standardized tests (STAN 10) must meet a minimum as well. The IQ score alone doesn't determine eligibility.

You have the right to see all the variables used to make the decision.

Well, I just spoke to the Psychologist who first tested my son. He says he can't see why they can't include him, he did say that he has tested just under the requirements and I should push this, just not right now. He feels we should let him go through this year and tested again next year. Namely because he states that a child's IQ tend to average out around 2nd grade and perhaps things would go better then.

Maybe it's just me, I just felt he would be wasting a year, but I guess it's just a year. I am just worried about him being scolded for going ahead of the class and not listening/being bored.. I don't want him to get a negative feeling about himself from it.

-Mike

Oh P.S> TY ELisa I am trying to track down the Gifted Coordinator for Seminole County Schools as we speak.

The gifted coordinator for his particular school is backing us 100% but it seems her voice is not as loud as one would think.

Welcome Mike!

First I want to congradulate you on getting your son in the habit of doing 'extra work' for you at his readiness level. This is key.

Second I want to encourage you to spend time in his classroom, in the classroom of the gifted program, and in the classroom of the grade ahead.

Then I want you to list all of your concerns - they are legitimate, and this is the battle you need to fight. Not 'he has to be in the gifted program' - but 'he is developing bad habits through bordom, AND he isn't developing good habits because he isn't being given the chance to develop good work ethic at school.'

Look at each subject and compare what your son's readiness level is to what is offered in the various classrooms.

If it were only that your son wasn't going to learn anything academically at school, but he loved going there and behaved well, and was developing intellectually at home, no problem for this year. But this doesn't sound like the situation.

When my son was in first grade, he saw an comercial on TV for Sylvan Learning Center, and said: Mom, that's me, I'm just not challenged enough. Call them.

I did call, but heard that their evaluation fee was about 300$ and said - no way, that's crazy expensive! I just didn't really believe him. I didn't have my 'gifted ears' back then - so the words just bounced off me!

At that time, all my son's behavior problems were in place and just getting more and more noticible at school. He was about to start down the path of refusing to do a drop of 'extra' work at home, not that we would have asked him to - we were 'nurturing' parents - not parents who hothoused! After a while, he was spending so much energy trying to control himself in school that he really was too worn out to do any work afterschool.

So now, after paying for private school for two years, I look back at what the fee for the tutoring center would have been and I laugh and laugh! How do you spell 'pitance?'

Now he's back in the public school(after a painful gradeskip) and we are paying for tutoring after school to keep him working at his readiness level. He 'gets' that he has to work at his readiness level one way or the other. Yesterday I had to punish him for reading a book about Chaos Theory instead of doing his homework. ((Proud Mamma tone!))

It really is sweeter to succeed after huge struggle, but if you can take a fork in the road and avoid the mess we created - please do so!

Michael I am guessing we might live in the same county. Since you mentioned the massive teacher layoffs (no worries 200 will be coming back in the next two weeks since the 9th day counts showed they were extreme in the estimation of how many students would be lost.)
PM me and I can tell you what I know about the legislation. I check both the IQ path and the below the threshhold paths when applying for DS as most here call it I was being in denial before his test and thoguht might have to see if just the fact he would be constantly sent to the reading center to read for an hour or so a day till the rest of the class caught up to him to get him in the program. But his scores were more than acceptable so didn't have to do my Throw down with the superintendant who is already afraid of me after the PE coach made DS wet himself not once but twice!