Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy The ball is in my hands, time to get it rolling.

It's day 15 of kindergarten and my little girl is bored. It was our big plan to send her to public school this year so they would get to know her and so that she could test into the gifted program in our district for next year. We thought she might find the work dull as time went on but that everything would be exciting at first for our highly social child.
We were also certain that the kindergarten teacher would identify dd right away and that there would be smooth sailing.

So, the time has come to set up a conference and speak with the teacher about how we can make kindergarten rewarding for dd. I spoke with my neighbor across the way who has three children identified as gifted by the school district and her advice was just to go in and ask what we can do to make kindergarten challenging for her.

So I am taking my time and gathering my thoughts about what to ask for for her from the school. I kind of have no idea other than the fact that I don't want her forced to sit through lessons she's already mastered.

What's your best advice for a parent in my situation?

I wouldn't say that you want Kindy to be rewarding - that smacks of special treatment.
I wouldn't say that you want Kindy to be challenging - that smacks of 'I'm an overcomptetive Mom who can't be pleased.'

I usually recommend playing the 'I want her to develop good work ethic' card - but for kindy I don't even think that one is safe.

I would focus on your daughter's stress level, and give any specifics that it is rising, and her social-emtional need to have learning materials at her own 'readiness level.' sort of the 'she thrives when...' sentence.

I wouldn't ask to modify kindy, I would as them to check her and see what she is ready to learn and then put together a plan so that she will be able to slowly and gently learn that school is a place where one has to pay attention and flex a few mental muscles to do well.

Also - any where you can throw in the words 'damaging to her self esteem' throw them in. You have to put yourself into the shoes of elementary school folks.

Welcome to the Forum Daytripper! Do you have any specific details that lead you to believe that the reason your dd is bored (a word you must not use with the teacher)? Bring in worksheets, books she reads at home, pictures she drew with words on them, IQ tests, any 'physical evidence' to show what level she is functioning on. If you can spend an hour or two observing the classrooms in the gifted program, and the regular 1st grade that would be VERY useful. No point in looking forward to a program that won't meet your daughter's needs.

Find out from your neighbor how many hours a week the gifted program is, and take a look at the work product that her children did in and out of the gifted program as 1st and 2nd graders. Try to figure out if the gifted program is looked on as a 'fun chance for gifted kids to get together and enjoy working together an hour or two a week' or a full time program for gifted children to learn how to learn and get the same good work ethic that ND (normally developing) kids get from their investment of time and energy into school.

Love and More Love,
Grinity

Thanks for the welcome and the words of advice. I've been lurking around gifted forums for a while so I know what a minefield it can be talking to teachers.

The gifted program in our district is a beautiful thing, it's a full time stand alone school that goes 1-6 with every other classroom being CI or GATE. I would love it if our neighborhood school could meet all of her educational needs, it would be so convenient for me. LOL! My daughter will test for it later this winter.

We've had our daughter write a letter to the teacher to tell her what she wanted to do that day at school. The letter was all about playing "chase" on the playground. My daughter came home and said that her teacher commented that we don't chase people at school. *sigh* We've encouraged her to ask the teacher if she can read her a book but she likes to fly beneath the radar a little too much to volunteer to do that.

Thanks again for your suggestions! I will talk about them with my husband and hopefully he and I can get some things in writing that we want to discuss with the teacher.

In a lot of ways it's great that she wants to fly beneath the radar - it means that she has the social skills to understand her situation well, and the flexability to want to fit in. But it puts MORE pressure on the parents to put their little wall-flower in a garden where she can fade into the crowd and still get what she needs. Hopefully the self contained program will be that for her.

I would still URGE you to go visit the self contained program 1st grade. It may be a good match for you specific individual daughter or it may not. Really. She may need to be in the First grade there now (even if they say they never do that - if the get the picture that it's needed, and it is needed, they will.)

BTW - are talking about getting her to volunteer to read to the whole class? As my son would say - that's social suicide! Be very careful not to push her into a 'teacher's helper' role. You want her to learn as much as she can from her peer interactions - as a peer.

Best Wishes,
Grinity

Thanks Grinity! We encouraged her to find a time where all of the kids were playing to ask her teacher if she could read her a book. We really emphasized the point that it should just be dd and her teacher.
We've had some suggestions from friends and family to allow the teacher to put dd into a helper role but I don't feel comfortable with that. She's 5, she doesn't need a job.
Our meeting with the teacher is on Monday. I am going to pull together a bit of dd's work to present to the teacher and we made sure we had a sitter for both of our children that day. The meeting is for 5 minutes after school is let out, so that makes for an awkward time for getting dd into someone else's care without her figuring out what is going on.
My husband and I plan to sit down together tonight and write out what it is exactly we want for our daughter and some key phrases we want to be sure to use. I have very little idea what exactly we're going to say but I am hoping that our attitudes will help win the teacher over. We know that our dd is one of 20-some students this woman needs to educate and that each child in the class is equally important. We just need to make sure our little girl is getting what she needs too.
We're going to visit the gifted school in November, if it still seems like a good fit I will definitely make plans to sit in on a class or two. Thanks for that advice!

Excellent! So glad to hear that you have plans to visit the giftd school in November.

After you and DH brainstorm, if you want to post the results here - we will applaud you, which is nice, and you deserve.

Good for you for getting the sitter all lined up - go you!

Go You, too, for getting together work samples to show the teacher!

Love and More Love,
Grinity

DH and I finally spoke last night. We don't have much of a game plan but this is what we came up with. We're both going to concentrate on having a spirit of humility and remind ourselves that our dd is one of many. We are going to ask the teacher what she has done in the past for students like dd (ours can't possibly be the first, we know factually that ours isn't the first) and listen to what the teacher has to say. We have a small sampling of dd's work. (A just started Singapore Math for second grade, a book she is currently reading, a picture she drew, and her "report card" from Montessori preschool.) DH does not want to show the teacher any of this but I insisted that we at least take it along.
We don't know what to suggest that the teacher *do* for dd, so we're hoping that she will have at least a few options for us that have worked for her in the past. (She's a veteran teacher, she's been at the school at least 20 years and teaching for longer than that.) We also plan to ask for a formal assessment for dd, which they do in the winter months upon request.
So our game plan for the day is spirit of humility, ask the teacher what she's done in the past, maybe show dd's work, ask for a formal assessment of dd, and hope against hope that this is all we'll have to do to get dd a FAPE.
Our meeting is this afternoon and I am nervous!!!

Good luck daytripper! I think that having examples of her work with you is wise. You can gauge how the conversation is going. If you think that the teacher would be receptive, then you can share. If you feel the teacher's defenses going up, don't bother. I think that humility and acknowledging her expertise as an experienced teacher are also good tactics. I think that diplomatically asking for work at her level is worthwhile.

A word of caution. I think that it is hard with little girls who want to fly below the radar. I have had two. Both of them (one introvert, one extrovert) used their skills to blend. If you had asked the veteran teacher, both of them were "fine" in kindergarten. I now know that it was a mediocre experience at best.

Good for you - this sounds like a wonderful game plan. It's hard to have difference of opinion with DH, but at least you know going into the meeting where everyone stands. Try to listen well to DH and figure out where his objection to showing the portfolio is coming from.

Try and relax as much as possible. Remember that your goal is to build an allinance with the teacher, and babysteps are best. If you are nervous, it's possible that you are setting your goals for what the meeting will accomplish too high. At this point a good beginner goal is to meet the teacher and let her know that if she feels inspired to give your DD harder work you won't be offended and come after her!

Love and More Love,
Grinity

It. was. horrible.
We all sat down at a tiny table in tiny chairs and the teacher asked us why we were there. I said we just wanted to check in with her to see how dd was doing in school. She gave us a short answer that was basically saying "fine." I told her that dd had been grumbling about the schoolwork and we wanted to touch base with her to make sure we were doing the right things for dd. She then told us that kindergarten is kindergarten is kindergarten. There will be no deviation from her lesson plans. She really wanted to convince us that the lessons plans were set in stone, sent down from above and that was ALL she was allowed to teach. Not good.
So we asked what we can do to make sure that dd will have a positive kindergarten experience. She told us to read to her. Then she asked what we were doing to make sure that dd was learning.
She gave us a chance to talk about dd, which I saw as placating us. Let's give the crazy parents a moment to wax poetic about their darling offspring so they'll leave happy.
She did say that we need to nominate dd for the gifted program and that she does belong there. She told us all of the wonderful things that go on in that program but the gist is she is not going to do a thing outside of her lesson plans so we need to wait until next year.
She also implied that maybe we are pressuring dd too much which made me angry since I truly believe we are following her lead. She said she thought we were a bit hasty since it was only the 4th week of school.
I know there is more that I am missing. I am still trying to process it all. It was such a disappointing meeting. It sounds like dd is going to have to wait a year because this teacher is set in her ways.
On the bright side, we did manage to convey all of our points. We know dd is one of many, we know she is busy, dd deserves to learn each day, we want to help, we want to be a part of making dd's school experience positive, we want to do all we can for her. She asked us where dd was in reading and I was able to tell her in the Fountas and Pinnel-speak that our school system uses.
DH says that now we just wait until conferences in November and see what happens between now and then.

ETA: I think I found what was really bothering me about the meeting. The teacher didn't have a single nice thing to say about dd. The only thing she said specifically about dd is that she is a serious child, which we don't find to be a consistent truth. The teacher has known her for 4 weeks, she doesn't have anything she can tell us about dd's school experience from her point of view?

I'm really sorry you had this experience. I too had about the same meeting for my son,with a veteran teacher who basically is clueless about what doing nothing can mean to a young child. It's really sad on so many levels.
I wish I had advice for you,but have nothing more to offer than to say I understand how you feel and hope something changes soon.

In class differentiation for DD8 in K-2 was a frustrating path for me too. That's why, before starting K, her younger sister did outside testing and I asked for subject acceleration backed up with the test results. It's worked much better!

I am glad and sad I am not alone. I had to give myself a good talking to last night, I was feeling terrible about approaching the teacher and dh chided me for not giving the teacher an outline of what we wanted to discuss before we got there. I had to tell him that we should be able to discuss our daughters school progress with her at any time without a list of specific topics and I had to tell myself that we are doing the best we can for our child. That I should not feel bad or embarrassed by this teachers response to our concerns. I was feeling like an overbearing mother but honestly I don't think I was, I think this teacher would have just been happier if we were to just leave her (the teacher) alone to do any kind of job she wants to do while teaching our daughter.
Thankfully we still have dd enrolled in Montessori for kindergarten in the mornings, so we know that she is still actively learning for the first half of the day. We'll have to give public school a little more time and then have another meeting to see what else can be done. We wanted dd in public school kindergarten so that she would start school with the rest of her graduating class, so the school could see her and get to know her before sending her to 1st grade, and so that she would be actively engaged in learning all day long. (Last year with half day preschool she was dissatisfied, she wanted more.)
I promised myself that I am not going to let this teacher make me feel bad, make me feel overbearing, or be condescending to our family again.

Re-posting some good advice I read on this board:

"The trick is to partition the whole past relationship with any school folk who are giving you a hard time and focus-focus-focus on the needs of the child and possible solutions. It's an odd trick, but I know you'll get the hang of it. You may not get the accommodations you are looking for, but at least your entire mind won't go crazy. Just that little walled off part that you can vent about here for the next 20 years. Hopefully somethings will have changed by then."
-Grinity

It's true. We won't be sitting across the table from these teachers in 20 years eating Thanksgiving dinner together and we won't be trying to answer to the teachers about how much effort we put into making sure their needs were met.

Aw DayT,
I'm sorry you got that sort of response, but at least you know what you are dealing with.
Please visit the Gifted school soon and figure out if you think it's going to actually be a good fit....because why wait for something that isn't a good fit.

Good for you for not allowing the teacher to rent space in your head. It's a big world and there is room for all kinds of opinions - there is no need to share!

I was looking back at Inky's quote of me, and it brought back so many memories - bad ones! I had forgotten quite how bad it was at times. It used to take me 2 weeks to post after one of 'those' sorts of meetings - so you are ahead of me!!!!

And things do (often) get better! My DS is really really happy and doing really well at his current school and is enjoying friends and extracurriculars. Heaven!

Love and More Love,
Grinity

I decided to take a look into the teachers credentials. She got her permanent certificate on 9/24/1969. She's almost 70! No wonder she's set in her ways!
What to do...what to do...

We had the official parent/teacher conference last night. I am glad to report that the teacher has now officially drank the same Kool Aid we have and completely agrees with us. Such a change from last month!
I guess she has had more time to assess dd and to think about what to do for her to make sure she is receiving her FAFE. DD will now have enrichment with the reading specialist and will be paired up with an upper elementary buddy a few times a week for other types of enrichment.
It was a great meeting and it is nice to know that the teacher is in our corner. The accommodations might not be perfect but they are trying and dd seems happy and says she's happy so we'll go with that.

Thanks for sharing the good news! Glad to hear things have changed for the better with the teacher and they're trying to better meet your daughter's needs.

So glad this happened. Sometimes I think the teachers need time to process too. Cat