Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments We will accelerate if he can show.....

Poor guy! I'll keep my fingers crossed for ya (and him)!

Reading this thread breaks my heart. Belle don't wait around b/c I predict the issues will only get worse during this week. Reading your first description about the card change, my gut reaction is the teacher has already made up her mind about you and your child. (And yes, the kicking of the books deserved that change in color but her hardcore stance about not changing colors is another story especially when it was the first day.) She seems to be the type that rolls their eyes at parents who think their child is gifted. I wouldn't be surprised to see that she is one of the teachers I have seen talking on boards about parents thinking how perfect their kid is and pushing for acceleration when they themselves see no sign of it. You need to talk to her about her vocabulary choices and see if she understands your side and also about a possible change in the card system. If she doesn't allow them to earn the color back then how are they going to want to try? I suspect you will receive a less then warm response to all of this but keep pushing and contact the principle if she doesn't see your point.

Hopefully, you will walk in today and DS attitude will have changed. Maybe he and the teacher will have had a bonding experience, but if not ... don't do the wait and see game.

Well, we have had a very interesting week...Wednesday morning he finally stayed the morning on "excellent" for behavior and when I met him for lunch he was giddy...and gee - surprise, they did math and science that morning and he said he "loved,loved,loved" doing the experiments. I am hoping the teacher put 2 and 2 together - gee....motivated, interested, excited kid=well behaved kid. Then he lost it in the afternoon....back down to "good". I got a call this morning from the guidance counselor stating she checked in on him and again he is on excellent and having an awesome morning so she asked us if we would be interested in trying something (as I crossed my fingers hoping she would say 1/2 day.....) and YES, she said if he stays til 12 he is considered a full time student and suggested a half day program...with sensory kids, they hold themselves together all morning in school settings trying their darmdest to not melt down and then by the afternoon their little systems have had enough so the slightest anything sets them off...so I can come pick him up and do homeschooling in the afternoon with him...so we get the best of both worlds. She was very positive and said that she felt this would be really good for him because he is so focused and works so hard all morning and being successful with both work and behavior that she wants to build on that instead of him ending the day on a lesser note. She said we will do this for awhile until he gets more comfortable with everything and then look at adding on more time until he is back to a full day if we want, we meet on Tuesday with a HUGE team for his IEP meeting to get things going in place in the classroom. The school psychologist called me last night and said that he does qualify for acceleration and the gifted program but that they didn't want to throw that at him right now because it would just be more transitions for him to deal with but would like to work up to that goal.....so I am just happy that this is an option for us....anyone else doing 1/2 day deals?

Belle - 1/2 days sound like a great option for now. That's great news. And great news about the qualifying for the acceleration and the gifted program too. Although they don't want to rock the boat too much, I would think that since it's so early in the year, changing sooner rather than later might be a better option. Just a thought.

We are going to try full days and hope it works (since I'm trying to go back to work). If not, 1/2 days were offered to us as an option already. The principal said the normal 1/2 day kindergarten is just the reading and math, but she told us we could switch to do 1/2 day with the rest of the stuff and do reading/math at home.

I agree with you St.Pauli Girl...I told her that I would like to discuss it at the IEP meeting next week....in my eyes, starting now with the acceleration/gifted program would be better than waiting - I was very upfront and said that if taking him home 1/2 meant that he missed the gifted pull out time (if it happened to be in the afternoon) then I wanted it written in somewhere that I can bring him back to the school in the afternoon for that so he isn't allowed to slip between the cracks. I don't want them to look at this as a way to put off acceleration and hope that mom "forgets" about it...he deserves an education that allows him to work at his level. He and daddy started something new last night...he is learning how to do a microcontroller (which is basically a mix of computer programming and circuitry)...my husband brought home a kit and they worked for hours last night and by the end of the night DS6 was writing programming language in Ascii all by himself...not the typical first grade curriculum item!

Wow, what a chaotic week! I'm so impressed and happy that they've acted so quickly, though, and in such a great way!

I agree with the others that accelerating now would be best - I hope you can convince the administration next week.

Good luck!

I just looked at the website and saw that there were two versions. Is the difference based on more than reading level? My DS is probably early 3rd grade in most math skills. He is a strong reader and wouldn't need an easier version based on that aspect. However, something that requires 4th grade math and up would be daunting. Also, wondering if in a home setting two kids can share one product or if there has to be separate purchases for each in order for both to use it. Sorry to be off thread topic....