Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments schedule? What are they doing at school? IEP?

When I try to understand what is happening at school it is very confusing because I don't get the schedule. It is hard to know from My DS9 where he needs to be challenge most. Ex. what are the biggest chunks of time when he is bored or underchallenged? Any body have insite to getting a handle on this. It feels like it is a mystery what they do at school to a certain extent. The teachers do send home newsletters which I greatly enjoy. My DS9 could not explain to me what his schedule was last year or clarify if he was bored with something fo 5 minutes or 5 hrs a week. I am trying to prepare for his IEP review in Oct. any ideas?

Last years' K teacher for my DD6 said you don't get to see/hear it all but I do alot to challenge the kids. I believe she did. I brought up my concerns for my DD early in the year. Before school started we got a letter - they said kids should make sure they know their alphabet. But my DD was already reading!? The teacher had the kids do things like yoga and sign language. She gave my DD6 a Part in Xmas play that I thought the teacher was crazy because she had to read big words like bethlehem as a narrator. Well my DD did learn to read all those words and memorized her narration and knew everyone elses part. She surpassed my expectations. I felt like this teacher would keep her needs in mind.

I wish every teacher could let me feel so confident.

Our school gives us a schedule at the beginning of school.
I know what time she does each subject during the day. As for the curriculum, ours is listed on the county website.

I would just ask the teacher for a daily schedule and find out where to view your curriculum maps.
I also think this is very valuable information to have at your IEP meeting.
GOOD LUCK!

I would suggest visiting the school and sitting in - at the end of the day - that's really the only way you'd know - and you'd preferably have to do it without the teacher or your child knowing you were there - probably not practical -but that's exactly why we home school now. Even with a newsletter, daytime schedule and supposed curriculum which is never suited to these kind of kids ....you never really know what's going on and teacher's for the most part I think, don't really care - not like they used too. To many of them, its just a job - and there are under ridiculous pressures that have nothing to do with teaching anymore.

It would drive me crazy knowing the schedule of what they were supposed to be doing all the time! It was more than I wanted to think about last year when the teacher explained the system--there are six "specials" classes (PE, computers, art, music, etc.) and they have each one twice during every six day time period. Using a five-day school week. I don't know how anybody knows where their kids are supposed to be at any given time! Every time I dropped by the school for something, he was out of the classroom for something or other.

At least it's not as bad as the neighboring school district, where they decided to set up a system where a kid has a given set of classes on Monday and Wednesday and another set of classes on Tuesday and Thursday, and alternating Fridays between the two. I would have been perpetually in the wrong classroom with the wrong homework!