Well, I figured I'd report back as to how things went.
I was pretty darn amazed!
The teacher gave a nice presentation of what the program is about and a run down of the main units each grade would be covering, which look pretty cool.
She talked about the emphasis they put on developing independent and creative thinking and how they go about demonstrating and practicing strategies for this sort of thinking.
The differentiated services plan comes out twice a year in Nov. and again in the spring. They are pretty similar from student to student in a grade and in the same area of eligibility (usually l.a. or math) but there should be one area of difference which will be an independent project, if they are assigned one.
Not absolutely perfect, but better than nothing.
There are no grades per se, but progress reports do come out which would have items like 'indepedent thinking' and how they are progressing.
She ran through some information on the testing which occurs this year for 3rd graders to see if they will continue on in the more formal gifted program for 4th grd +.
One part of it was a little surprising - the students themselves do a sort of assessment of how they are gifted and have to talk about projects they have worked on and interests - soooo, that should be pretty interesting! (course I won't get to see it I'm sure
She talked about having a couple of family nights,and there is a parents group the next year up so I didn't feel too much pressure to form a separate group - but I did get a couple of email addresses so I will have some other parents to bounce questions off.
She said there is an enrichment folder which goes to the regular classroom which is used as a way to coordinate between both teachers on areas the child may be assessed/allowed to go deeper into, have some curriculum compacting in or skip altogether (assess out of? can't remember the phrase).
She literally said 'these kids are smart, if you just give them more of the same work, they are going to figure out a way to avoid doing it!'
Pretty darn informative all in all - and what they had to say did not make me nauseated! Whew!!
