Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy NEED HELP!!! Advocating for grade acceleration

Hello,

I'm so happy to have found this resource! I've been scouring the internet for help in advocating for my dd6. She is currently in public school kindergarten and we have been advocating for a grade skip since the beginning of the school year. In early September we contacted the school inquiring about the necessary steps needed to put the action into motion. In October, they administered the district's assessments for end of year K and first grade. They would not test higher and do not outsource testing. She tested out of K and nearly out of the first grade assessments. After conferencing with her teachers, the school's principal, reading coach, and guidance counselor it was unanimously decided that our daughter was a good candidate for grade acceleration. In early November, the principal drafted a detailed letter to the district advocating on our daughter's behalf. She was very confident that the switch would happen in the beginning of December. When we met with her before parent/teacher conferences in late November, she alerted us of the district's decision that the grade skip would not be happening as predicted. The district's excuse: lack of policy on grade acceleration. Upon our contacting them, they communicated to us that they would have to draft a policy to present to the Board for our request to be honored. This will take months!!!! My husband and I are having difficulty getting straight answers from the power that be when we do get a hold of them at all. At the moment, I am still waiting for a call back from the Deputy Superintendent as to when we can meet in person. We have reached a definite point of frustration and are not sure how to proceed.

HELP!!!!!!

Maybe you could offer them a model policy on grade acceleration? Could you ask that based on the model policy, she be accelerated even before it becomes official board policy?

Have you read the Iowa Acceleration Scales and A Nation Deceived? Those can also be effective advocacy tools.

Check your state education website. The state I'm in, OH, has a policy re:acceleration(in favor of it), and all school districts in the state are supposed to have similar policies.

I'd ask about subject acceleration in the meantime. If she could go to 1st for reading and math, that could help until the full acceleration is approved. I hope there wouldn't have to be a policy to do at least that much.

Thank you for all your responses and advice!! Off to do more research.

Subject acceleration is a great start. Maybe the first-grade teacher would be willing to work with her; that would help ease the eventual transition into that classroom anyway. Also, talk to her kindergarten teacher about individualizing some of her work.

I believe that in some jurisdictions, gifted education actually comes under special education, which means she might be eligible for services from the special ed teacher/department. That's some more research for you, I guess.

SPG posted this link in another thread. You may want to send it to the district as they draft an acceleration policy.

http://www.accelerationinstitute.org/Resources/Policy_Guidelines/

The subject acceleration suggestions are a great idea as an intermediary step. My oldest subject accelerated before she skipped a grade later.

If possible, I'd also have private IQ testing done with someone who is familiar with gifted children and then have the Iowa Acceleration Scale filled out in cooperation with her school. An IQ score is required to fill out an Iowa Acceleration Scale accurately (according to publisher guidelines).

I wonder if the district may be hesistant to set a precident of accelerating all academically advanced children b/c they may worry about being barraged with parents demanding the same b/c your dd got it. If you have the IQ piece in place, that would at least give them an out wherein they could tell parents who say that your dd got to skip so their kid should too that they need to have all of the pieces in place and the IAS needs to indicate that the child is an excellent candidate for a skip. Really, they shouldn't be skipping kids who aren't really good candidates and they shouldn't have a reason for denying the skip for kids who are.

What if you have several standardized test scores with national composites etc... would that work instead of IQ testing? Our school psych sucks (doesn't know how to test gifted kids) and I don't want to pay for outside testing. Based on grades, national standardized scores, etc.... do you think that wuld be enough to advocate with? We are in a parochial school.

School gave DD13 one of the tests of the class we wanted to put her in, let her study, and then when she got 100 on the test put her up. Would something like this work?

UPDATE:

Today the principal finally presented us with the school district's new Kindergarten Acceleration Guidelines. We are expected to sign off and agree or disagree to have dd6 (as of Dec. 1) tested. They have agreed to administer the IAS and testing will begin next week. Dh and I are planning to go ahead with the testing but are still unsure about the possibility of whole grade acceleration so late in the school year.

The Guidelines state that the following assessments will be administered: WISC, ITBS, and the WJ-ACH or CAT (depending on who will do the testing).

To those of you with far superior knowledge on the subject matter, could you please provide any specific information on these assessments?

Any help or feedback will be greatly appreciated!!

Have a great day!

I know nothing about the tests, but I wanted to congratulate you on the success of your efforts! It sounds like you have a number of supporters at the school, which is just fantastic.

I hope the train keeps rolling and your daughter is comfortably placed soon!

Thank you for your good wishes BonusMom!

Dh and I have certainly been fighting an uphill battle and we are hopeful it will all pay off in the long run. I think our determined stand to advocate for dd educational rights has definitely rubbed off some of the administrators in our district. The school's principal and dd's teachers have been our best supporters.

Are you in GA by chance? Just curious.

And as a parent of a child who whole grade accelerated after the first 9 weeks, it was a little shaky at first, but has been nothing but smooth sailing since. DS6, who could easily fit well in 2nd grade, is still a big fish in the pond (something we worried about), has made friends in 1st, and now also goes to Target (ALP pullout). DS also has a very supportive school & teachers, which makes it so comforting to us. Best move we've ever made for him.

Good luck & congrats!

Hi JJs Mom,

We live in central New Jersey. It makes me glad to hear that your ds is doing well with the move into first grade. I only wish that the school district would have sped up this process for dd's sake. As it stands now, after testing, evaluation and recommendation, dd will not be moved into 1st grade until mid-February. To think that IAS states that if the child says "no" to the move the entire process becomes null and void. My thinking is that at this point, so late in the school year, any child will at best have second thoughts about transitioning into any new environment.

Testing is scheduled for this week. Now they're lighting the candle up under us and honestly, we feel a bit rushed to get all this testing done before the week is out. It's enough to yank the hair out of my head! Never mind the countless nights of staying up in bed going back and forth weighing in the pros and cons. ARGH!!!

Nobody said it was going to be easy!!!

I was considering grade acceleration until my dd adamantly told me that she wants to stay with her friends. I was looking at info below to give me some gidance on my choice.

You might want to purchase (available at Amazon):

Iowa Acceleration Scale Manual: A Guide for Whole-Grade Acceleration (K-8) 2nd Edition (Paperback)
~ Nicholas Colangelo (Author), Ann, Ph.D. Lupkowski-Shoplik (Author), Jonathan Lipscomb (Author), Leslie, Ph.D. Forstadt (Author), Susan G. Assouline (Editor)

I think it has some checklists and you could go through the checklists and if your child is a good candidate, use your results to present to the school. I have not seen this- but I think that if you are impressed with the content you could even ask them to adopt the standards in the book.

Gook luck!!