Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Feeling frustrated! Advice?

Hello everyone,

I had a conference with my ds7's teacher, principal, and GT coordinator yesterday and now I am really concerned.

When I first told my son's teacher about his test scores, she suggested radical acceleration. Well, now that the principal is involved, it seems that NOTHING is going to happen instead.

No less than three times during the meeting, the principal said that we need to slow my son down. She also said (after the GT teacher said she would be willing to give ds her 5th grade packet on greek mythology per his request) that GT teacher "shouldn't teach him everything now or there won't be anything left." The principal's plan, which the teacher just went with, is to keep ds in the highest 2nd grade math and reading group just like he is now because he "has a lot to offer the group."

Is it just me or does it sound like their plan is to do precisely nothing for my son except frustrate him further? A couple of days ago, ds said he "feels like a giant fish crammed into a very tiny fish bowl" at school. I am afraid it is just going to get worse.

To her credit, the GT teacher did say she would show ds's teacher how to "do some compacting" but the first thing the teacher said to me during the meeting was that if they didn't make her class size smaller she was going to have a heart attack. That doesn't sound great to me.

Any advice on what to do next?

Thanks for reading this very, very long post.

Jeni

Jeni,

I'll leave the advice to the more seasoned of the group but I wanted to send hugs. There are several huge red flags - 1) we need to slow him down, 2) shouldn't teach him everything now or there won't be anything left, 3) he has a lot to offer the group. He's not there just to offer the group something, he's there to get something in return preferably learning and not just social skills.

If nothing happens, what are your options? Is your DS unhappy?

Dazey

Hi Dazey,

My son has been very patient but is definitely getting more and more unhappy. He is always asking when he will get to learn something new and is starting to complain about school being a "waste of time." We have a lot more years to go, so I'm a little worried.

I'm not sure what my options are. I would love to get him into a private gifted school nearby but it is EXPENSIVE! I would also like to homeschool but I am a single parent and think that might be hard to manage financially longterm(even though I do work from home currently).

I would like to make public school work but this certainly doesn't feel like a good start. Any advice on making the school help me would be very appreciated.

I second that but have a question: Is his test scores high enough to get into the Davidson Institute? b/c if they are they provide an advocate to help with these matters.

I am sure the more seasoned members will give more advice, but from a researchers perspective I could offer you this. There was an article posted on this site from a teacher's point of view. I will look for it and post it to your string, but it might benefit you to contact the author since she is a GT teacher and is speaking out specifically on exactly what you experienced. She might be able to give you some tips from the angle of a teacher on how to deal with the school.

In any case I totally feel for you and especially your son b/c he is definitely at risk and by the meeting you attended it appears that the P. is going to be no help.

Does the gifted school offer scholarships, or are you in that unenviable position of making too much to qualify for aid but not enough to actually afford the school? Just a thought...It might be worth asking about.

Any way to keep the principal out of it? I realize that's unlikely now that he's involved, but he seems to be the only one not on board.

Can you provide some independent study sorts of things for your son to do during school? If the teacher doesn't have to think about him a whole lot, she may be more willing to let him move at his own pace (again, quietly circumventing the principal).

If not, I'm thinking you might have to take this to the next level, over the principal's head. I'm no expert, so get ***LOTS*** of advice before you even THINK of going that route because it could backfire! But if the problem is the principal, and he seems pretty solidly and philosophically opposed to serving the needs of GT kids, then I don't know how you work with that. Educate him? Put the request for a grade skip in writing? Maybe?

It's a rough one, I think. I'm sorry! {{{Hugs!}}}

The link I was refering to:

http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/unwrapping_the_gifted/

Thanks for your responses!

Katelyn's Mom: My son's scores are high enough to get into the Young Scholars Program and I just sent his application in today (thus setting myself up for a very long wait). I don't know if he'll get in or what kind of help they will offer if he does, but here's to hoping! Oh, and thanks for the link.

Kriston: The gifted school offers a half scholarship, which brings tuition down in to the mid $7000.00 range - still hugely expensive for me. As far as leaving the principal out of it, she seems to be very much a micro-manager. My son's teacher has answered my questions before with, "Well, don't tell (principal) I said this, but..." To be honest, all of the teachers seem to be afraid of her and I don't know if I can disagree with her without having to remove ds from the school - which, despite this, is supposed to be "the best in the district."

I honestly don't know what to do right now.

This brings up a topic of conversation my DH and I were having today and I just wonder if your school district fits into our questions. Is it the best b/c socieconomically there are more funding and more advanced students than the typical school district? In our area we too are in the 'best' and have come to realize that there are way more students in the gifted side than most school districts. (This is of course from parents of a 2 year old so we are on the outside looking in), but know that most students have tutoring sessions in at least one topic and most all the students are in at least one honors class.

As far as my DD I really don't know what to make of the district. Did we hit the jackpot or if she is HG+ which we suspect than will it even be a harder battle? And I am wondering if your district fits this mold and therefore the uphill battle begins.

This is definitely not the best district in the area (there are two much wealthier towns south of us whose districts are supposed to be better and are also way more crowded) but it is supposed to be the best school in our particular district. I don't think it has a higher percentage of gifted kids in it than anywhere else though.

When ds was in kindergarten in the school closest to my house, I was told to take him to the school he is in now because it has a full time gifted teacher and is one of the only schools to do anything with gifted kids before third grade.

What I'm realizing though is that their gifted program doesn't really have that much to offer my son. And what it does have to offer, the GT teacher is being told not to offer to ds anyway because "there won't be anything left."

Oh, yeah, it also seems that, since they have a gifted program in place, they are less willing to believe that they aren't meeting his needs.

Sing it, sister! Great post, gratified!