Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy building groups to advocate for policy changes

Hi everyone. I feel bad that I've been skimming occasionally but not posting even when really interested! I've never tried to join a community while raising a tiny baby before, and it's not working well for me!

So to get right to my points before baby wakes in prob. two seconds...

1) I want to build a group of parents to pressure, gently, of course, the school AND the boards of finance/education to address the needs of kids who could learn more deeply and/or faster than they're being taught now. How do I find these parents? Suggestions on how to approach people, organize, talk to schools and boards? I've found four families who are interested just over the holiday party stretch, which surprised me. Made me sad, too, b/c with two moms, they were saying what do you expect, it's public school, I just look for classes I can pay for elsewhere, and when I said, actually I DO expect better, then they suddenly were willing to think about HOW things could be made better. But it seemed before that they were pretty resigned.

and 2, super fast, b/c baby IS crying now, I want to volunteer to research changes to teaching/classroom practice that would be free but might help...who do I talk to about this? Principal? Superintendent? etc.

argh... thanks all!

oo, kcab, that's brilliant! thank you! I'll go follow that up, and I'm hoping to get them to look at the davidson site, since they seem to offer help setting things up to schools free. and you've reminded me that I did talk to someone from CAG about giving a talk to the school but she was on vacation and we never followed up. And I found what looks like a really good set of free teaching training materials, too. And the books gifted kids in the regular classroom, or some such, had so many REALLY good ideas...I think it could make a real difference to get these out to all the classrooms with some sort of school support behind it. Our school has no program, no coordinator, nothing, and no money for one. They'd like us to agitate for money, which I'm more than happy to do, but I also want to show them ways to reorganize just a little bit to make things better for kids. I feel like I've really found so many free resources, I'd like to help! And, I feel like if there was some sort of plan getting put together it might make the boards actually consider some extra money for at LEAST new books, you know?

I met this terribly bored 3rd grader this weekend and felt so depressed. He was clearly just so unhappy about school and didn't think it ever COULD be interesting. He called it a waste of his time. And I'm thinking, all these kids shouldn't have to have parents going through more than a year of agitating to get just a bin of interesting books in the classroom!! It's dumb to have everyone reinventing the wheel in every classroom every year. My son is so much happier just having the higher level books in the classroom available to him, you know? I want, while I'm in baby land and not working, to kind of help them codify this kind of thing so I don't keep running into really miserable kids who think that the nature of school is to be a waste of time.

thanks for the baby wishes, too...he's fallen asleep!! which he really hasn't done not on me in weeks...I think he's got a tummy bug and it kind of wore him out this morning, poor kid.

I'm not sure I'll be too much help, since I have not created such a group myself. However, my mom did, and I am a part of a young group and friends with that group's creator. So I know a good bit about it secondhand, at least...

The big thing is to find other like-minded parents to help. What's the old saying? One person is a crank, two are a nut and her friend, three are a group, and four are a movement...or something like that. You want to be a movement, not a couple of nuts if you can.

Plus it will take some time and effort to get a group started, and trying to do it all alone--especially with a new baby--would not be very smart! Having a core group who are there regularly will keep things from stalling out, too. Nothing ends progress like a mostly empty room for a meeting. People don't come back if they see that. Recruit people who will show up and get help wherever and whenever possible.

Also, it's smart to ask people what fires them up. If you want to attack the problem from the perspective of individual teachers, but someone in the group wants to lobby Congress (or whatever), you're not going to get very far on your specific goal. Be sure you're enabling people to make the progress they think matters.

Finally, I'd recommend starting small. Better a couple of short-term goals you can achieve (though presumably in the framework of larger goals) than some grand, huge ideals that scare people off because they sound like so much work.

Dunno if that helps...