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I just sent an email to our state gifted coordinator complaining about the way my son was treated in our public school and asking for part time school for kids who can't seem to get an appropriate education at school.

My son was born with hypotonia and had motor delays possibly due to mild birth asphyxia. At 12 months his motor skills were 50% delayed, but tests showed that he was 50% advanced in receptive/expressive language skills. During the test he pointed to an A in an alphabet book and said A. He was obsessed with letters and numbers and by 2 1/2 he read his first easy reader book--only 12 months after he was finally able to walk.

He didn't go to preschool because he didn't fit in. He loved shows like Between the Lions and other educational shows.

At 4 1/2 he started musical theater classes and was able to memorize his lines (300 words) and he did this faster than the much older kids. One teenager said he had to be "autistic" to be able to do this. He does not have Asperger's or any form of autism according to his developmental pediatrician.

The month he turned 5 he had his Kindergarten Assessment and I was able to listen to it. The teacher said he was at the 4 and 4 1/2 year old level. When asked to name animals he was counted as being at a 4 year old level because he didn't name very many--he was spelling some of them and then tried to recall all the different kinds of cats--tigers, lions, etc. before moving on to a different type of animal. He refused to try to write numbers because of his motor skills. It bothered him that he couldn't write or draw very well. He asked too many questions and the teacher called this "verbal overflow." She thought we should keep him out of school until he was six.

He started Kindergarten at age 5 anyway and on the first day of class the teacher handed me a list of instructions. I handed it to my son who both read out loud and followed the instructions--Flesch-Kincade 5th grade level. He read a page from an encyclopedia for his "letter of the week" show & tell but he wouldn't color in the lines. For this reason, the teacher recommended transitional first grade (a year in between Kindergarten and first) so he could spend most of his time coloring--which he absolutely hated. Ironically, he was already scheduled for a proficiency based promotion test to see if he qualified to skip first grade. He did not make the required 90% to skip first grade but his scores were high enough that they would have been considered passing scores for an end of year first grade student. My son said he saw percent questions on the first grade test and he hadn't learned about percents.

We even told the kindergarten teacher about my son's highly gifted half-brother who dropped out of school because he wasn't learning anything. We told her about our son's unusual way of doing subtraction with negative numbers before he turned five. She was only concerned with the fact that he wouldn't color in the lines.

A first grade teacher with training in special ed told me I needed to either homeschool or put him in private school because it was my duty as a parent to see that he got an appropriate education and it would not happen at that school. I did not have any training as a teacher--just an associates in accounting--but I thought I had no choice, so I homeschooled. Twelve months later, after my son homeschooled maybe two hours a day, the individual achievement test given to him by a certified educational psychologist at the developmental pediatrician's office showed that he was at just turned seven, reading and comprehending at 5th grade level and doing math at 4th even though he had not been taught at that level. The educational psychologist said he thought my son could have scored even higher because he complained about being tired and he seemed to have some vision problems and time ran out before he missed enough questions to stop the test. In fact I had tested him at home and he was easily reading and comprehending at a 7th grade level. A few months later he read Time magazine and answered questions about what he read. He has since had vision therapy.

My son did play online educational games and must have learned a lot there. It is a shame that he can learn more at home just by playing games than he can in our public school.

We took the achievement tests to the school and spoke with the special ed director about possible accomodations. He never called us back. The superintendent said he couldn't really help me because this was "a good problem to have."

I think other twice exceptional kids in our state are being treated the same way and it makes me angry to think about this. I am sending in an application with a portfolio to Davidson Institute to see if he qualifies for their Young Scholar Program, but since he does not have a full scale IQ score I don't know if he will qualify. We can't afford testing. Insurance paid for the achievement test but will not pay for an IQ test.

My son just turned nine and is enjoying reading a college level psychology book and he studies SAT word books that are written for high school students. His gifted middle school friends tell him about the robotics class that the gifted middle school kids get to do, and I hate for him to miss out on these things. We also need a math mentor because he wants to solve math problems in ways I was never taught and we end up fighting over math.

I don't think it is fair that my son should have to do without. We pay our fair share of taxes.

Hi, Lori!

Unfortunately, your story is all too familiar. You are right, this is not fair. Just remember that you are not alone.

Your son is lucky to have you for an advocate!

Cathy

A few suggestions from a "oh gosh that sounds so much like my kid" parent who has been there done that!!

1. www.dyspraxia.org, www.dyspraxiausa.org yahoo groups dyspraxiafamilies forum and yahoo groups dysgraphia forum

2. www.2enewsletter.com

3. your states "special education parent training center" (every state has one, just google that quote and add your state's name and one should pop up. if not send me a message with your state and I'll find it for you.

4. Today write a letter with the following....

I'm am requesting a complete and thorough evaluation for special education services for my son, NAME, age and birthdate, school name.

Indicate that you are wanting your son to return to public school.

Send the letter to the principal of the school, the special education teacher at that school, the school district special education coordinator and the school district special education director. If you don't know those names, just put those titles on each envelop and mail the whole envelop to the school district's main office.

Since it is the last couple of weeks of school, things won't go quickly, but they MUST respond to you in writing within 10 days, I believe. So, if you haven't heard from the after 10 days, email me and I'll tell you the next step.

A special education evaluation request must be made in writing or they will keep blowing you off. They will try to postpone interacting with you for as long as they can. At this point you will not get the eval until next fall, but get the ball rolling. The eval WILL include an iq test, most likely the WISC IV. They may suggest a pre-meeting before testing. Technically they aren't supposed to, but I have found these to be to my advantage as I want to make sure they do everything the kid needs.

Keep us posted. We'll coach you through the process. As you have already figured out, it is a battle.

Oh and the achievement tests can be interpreted into rough predictions of iqs, but don't let them try to do that. You want both iq and achivement evaluation as well as behavioral and occupational.



Send the letter to the principal

Thank you.

My son doesn't want to go back to school full time and at this point I am only interested in some kind of part time arrangement which the superintendent told me a couple of years ago they can't do.

I am hoping that our state can change this policy. My son wants to write a letter to his state senator asking that our laws be changed to allow part time school for 2E kids.

My husband talked to a state senator, who happened to be a former teacher, about this last year and she said she was all for part time school but homeschoolers in our state are against it. I posted a message on our homeschool message board and several people said "they don't want the government involved in their children's educations." In our state we are not required to test and can do what we want as far as homeschooling. They are afraid if part time school is allowed that will all change.

At that time I worried that people in our small town would be mad at us. But you know, I am not close friends with any of the homeschoolers anyway. I have not seen any other gifted kids in our local group. I don't feel like I belong. The few friends I have here are teachers, one a special ed teacher. They both have gifted kids. The special ed teacher believes my son would be better off with some kind of part time arrangement so he could be around other kids.

In my opinion, all that should matter is that a child gets what he needs. The fact that it might, in the future, make it inconvenient for some homeschooling parents is not something I am going to worry about. My child getting what he needs is more important.

The school would not even allow my son to play on the playground during school hours because of liability reasons. There are no kids near us for him to play with. There are no sports that he can really do because he is not coordinated enough. He spends way too much time on video games when he really needs to be more physically active. He is in musical theater which includes dance (which he has a tough time with) and piano. We can't really afford anything else and then gas is so expensive. We live in a rural area and have to do a lot of driving to get anywhere.

I would be happy if they would just let him play on the playground with other kids during school hours, let him attend the gifted class (I think it is just a once a week pull out) and maybe attend the music class.

One of the things that I hate is that gifted kids at our public school are bullied. Two of my son's 13-year old gifted friends had problems with this. I asked one of them if he thought my son would also have a problem with bullies and he said yes. I think it would be even harder for my son because he is 2E. I think he would be miserable if he had to go full time.

We did talk to a special ed parent advocate after my son was tested at the developmental pediatrician's office and he said that I needed to send any correspondence to the school by certified mail and to get everything in writing to keep them from blowing me off. I wish I had talked to him before we had the meeting with the special ed director. I asked the special ed director to put something in writing at our meeting but he didn't even call me back.

The parent advocate even said I might have to have my son in school full time for a while before they tested him and my son does not want to do this, probably because of the bully problem and I can't blame him. So we just let the matter drop for a while.

I am waiting for a reply from our state gifted coordinator before doing anything else.

Best Wishes Lori!
I hope it all pans out for you.
Trinity

Lori,
I saw this and thought of your son:

Newsday, founded in 1940, is one of the largest daily newspapers in the nation. The paper serves Long Island and New York City with its print editions, and publishes a Newsday website.

One of Newsday's features is NEW VOICES, a weekly opinion piece of original, nonfiction essays by college, high school and middle school students. The students may send submissions of up to 400 words to Opinion Department, Newsday, 235 Pinelawn Rd., Melville, NY 11747; send an e-mail to newvoi ces@newsday.com; or fax to 631-843- 2986. Please include a photograph of yourself along with your address and your telephone number.

Trinity

It has been two weeks now and the only reply I received from our Dept. of Education Gifted Coordinator's office was that my email was being forwarded to some other people who are supposed to answer my questions.

I did find some information to include in our letters to our senator requesting a change to our state law to allow homeschooled students, especially twice exceptional students, to take some classes at the public school, for example band and gifted class, and to be allowed to play on the playground with other kids during recess.

My special ed teacher friend thinks I should also ask for the physical therapy for his sensory issues and hypotonia that he should have received from the school when he attended kindergarten at age five. We did ask about that a couple of years ago and we were told by the special ed director that my son would no longer be eligibile for those services since he was by then age 7. I think the school is supposed to identify kids that are suspected of having a disability or delay. But then, they are also supposed to report the number of gifted kids and they didn't do that either when my son was there. She thinks they might help me if I threaten to get a lawyer.

It just seems that twice exceptional kids are left out where we live and it is wrong, but nobody around here seems to care. I think the Dept. of Ed. is just going to blow me off again, but that is okay, we will include that info in our letter to the senator also.

Still no answer from our state gifted coordinator, so a few days ago I sent an email to our state superintendent of public schools with a copy to the gifted coordinator.

My special ed teacher friend set up a meeting for me with the speech therapist at the school who has an eight year old son with sensory issues similar to my son's. Her son just started listening therapy and I wanted to find out what she thought about it. Her son is receiving OT and PT at the school. She thinks my son would benefit from the services the school offers, but she said she thought the only way to get these services was to enroll him in the school, which I don't want to do.

I tried to explain why I don't want him in that school, but I don't think they really understand. I tried to explain that he likes to argue about things and ask too many questions and I think this would drive a teacher crazy. It isn't really that he argues, it is that he points out things that are not in the book. Most teachers seem to like to teach from the book. For example, when he was reading in a book that playing in a treehouse is healthier than playing video games he pointed out that wouldn't necessarily be so, if the wood was treated with arsenic and the video game was on the Wii which reqires physical activity, the Wii game would be healthier. He likes to get into discussions about things. He asks questions that aren't easily answered. I know he got on the Vacation Bible School teacher's nerves.

I get the feeling from some teachers that I have talked to that they think kids should be taught to not ask too many questions. I don't discourage questions. My husband supports me in this. We welcome a debate on any subject. I want my outside the box son to learn more that coloring in the lines. I want him to be able to say "why can't we do it this way?" or "what would happen if we do this?"

I want him to stay in the habit of looking up definitions of words he doesn't know or things he is curious about. I want him to keep asking questions. I don't want him to not learn anything in school and then spend hours doing busywork for homework so that he has no time to learn the things he wants to learn. I can't say that though, because they have their kids in school.

The speech therapist and my special ed teacher friend have both told me that teachers at the school are not encouraged to tell parents when they suspect a disability of some kind. They both agreed that teachers could use training in spotting learning differences (especially at kindergarten level) and that teachers should be required to report these differences to the parents and tell them testing and therapy are available. I intend to include this info in my letter to the senator.

My DS is just like this. He points out whenever I mispronounce a word, or if I've accidentally made a pun, or if what I say can be made into a pun, or if what I say could be wrong. And he's fearless about pointing stuff out to other adults (the other day he politely asked some young adults to kindly refrain from using the F-word!).

Like you, I feared that this attitude would not be appreciated in school or that he would learn not to question things. I remember last year when i was helping out in DS's classroom, I found out that he and the teacher pretty much kept up a running conversation the whole day. She would put a spelling word in a sentence for the class and DS would critique the sentence, or revise it, or come up with one that was funnier. She seemed to take it in stride, but I was ready to crawl under the table I was so embarrassed. I asked her during recess if DS was always like that and she said he was. I wondered if that was OK and she said she loved it. She liked having kids who understood her sense of humor and she felt that his chatting helped other kids realize that it was OK to ask questions, share ideas, and just generally participate. Over the last 6 years, I would say that he has had 2 teachers that were able to tolerate him admirably and 4 that thought he was a fabulous addition to the classroom, which I think is amazingly good luck. I do pre-screen teachers and choose people that would be a good fit.

This year he got sent to the principal's office once for talking back (and he was right the text book was wrong, but he just would not let it go after being asked to). But that was with a substitute and we had a talk about how you have to be nicer to sub's because they have a lot more that they are having to keep track of. and he really seemed to understand that sometimes he had to turn his mouth off, which is not a bad lesson to learn!

Around the time he turned six my son my tried to correct my grammar in front of other people (one was a teacher) and I asked him if he was the "grammar police." He told me that would be plural so he was a "grammar cop."

He did figure out really fast that other people don't appreciate pointing out errors, but he still likes to tease me.

I wish we had teachers here like you have at your school, but we don't. They are more like the substitute. Any questioning at all is seen as "talking back."