Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Middle school choices

Dds will be hitting middle school and high school next year. Dd12 will be choicing to a neighborhood high school about 10 minutes north of our house with school hours of 7:30 a.m.-2:50 p.m. and a late start day (9:08 a.m.) on Weds. I will need to drive her until at least her senior year b/c she won't turn 16 until the fall of her senior year.

We have applied for school choice to two middle schools that are right near the high school for dd10. There are reasons why the assigned schools are not the best fit for either kid.

I am having second thoughts in re to dd10, though, b/c both of these middle schools are very high performing. Like the elementary she attends (and almost all of our local schools), there are a lot of high achieving kids and the academic environment is competitive. Like her current school, 20% or more of the kids are in GT classes (one of the schools brags that over 26% of their kids are GT ided on their website).

This creates two issues:

1) If dd doesn't take the GT classes, she feels stupid and there are a lot of below average kids in the average classes since so many non-gifted but high achieving kids are considered gifted and tracked that way.
2) If dd does do the GT classes (as she is now -- subject acceleration for math and GT reading), she is really quite different from the vast majority of the kids in these classes. She doesn't power through material quickly, think convergently, and consistently perform highly. She feels stupid there too although I'd venture to guess that she is a lot brighter than the avg kid in those classes in that she has some pretty high IQ scores including one GAI in the 99.9th.

So, I'm also finding myself considering one of the lower performing alternative schools quite a ways north of us. It is an expedentiary learning model and goes from 6th-12th. The classes are small. GT probably doesn't exist at all or is not a big deal there. It is also a good 30-40 minute commute and it would be tight to get her there from 8-3:10 (especially pick-up) with dd12 being on the other end of town and getting out at close to the same time. They have early release of 1:25 on Weds.

I don't know that I could even keep my p/t job and do this. I wonder if I ought to just look at homeschooling (which I've wanted to do for a while anyway) if I am going to have to quit my job anyway. That would cut about 30% of our annual income and our health insurance but dd10 is really in trouble. She's not doing well emotionally at all and something has to change.

I really wish that I could find a way to make enough money from home to make this all work but my dabbling in writing, etc. isn't paying enough to replace my income even though I'm not making tons of money.

Any thoughts on whether this is worth considering?

You've got a lot to think about there.
I like homeschooling, but perhaps it seems worth it to try the small, far school for middle school. Are there any jobs near the farther school with flexible hours so the commute won't be so bad?

As always, go sit and observe the classrooms in action. You'll learn a lot by observing. All the talk about 'school philosophy' is just talk until you see the inside of a classroom.

((Hugs))
Grinity

The job market where I live is extremely challenging. It is the hardest place I have ever lived to find a job and that's even before the current recession. It is a very educated population so the decent paying jobs are very competitive, a lot of jobs pay near minimum wage, and my having a Masters degree is a draw back for some of the lower paying jobs from what I've been told. I'm not counting on being able to find other work for that reason. I'd do better to commute south for work than north as the market is more diverse.

We are planning on going to open house/school info nights for all three of these schools in January. Would you rule out the higher performing schools?

Hello Cricket2,

I don't know your situation beyond what you have described so I am overstepping a little. I hope you'll overlook it, but I feel like I can see myself in your thought processes and I know that I sometimes chew at a dilemma until I convince myself that the offbeat choice is the right one, when really the obvious choice is the right one, just not what I had hoped for.

I think you are over thinking the schools comparison. Of course there is the question of what school is right for what child, but in general, a better school is a better school. It seems counter-intuitive to me to seek out a lower performing school for a child with a 99.9% GAI, even if her abilities are uneven. And if she's having a tough time emotionally, it seems a like an unnecessary risk to put her in a school farther away with kids she doesn't know. Not to mention that the additional stress on you is going to be felt by her. Maybe only a tiny bit, but she won't be unaffected.

Do you think it is possible to keep the p/t job and home school? If you have to pay for tutoring and childcare, but can keep your job you might still be better off financially than if you quit your job to drive your daughter to work. Also you could have more control over the curriculum and use this control to help your daughter develop the skills/knowledge to re-enter your local system in a couple of years.

Could part of your home school curriculum be a home-based business? I know you've already determined that this would not be financially lucrative, but something is better than nothing and it would be a great experience for your daughter.

I wouldn't rule out the higher performing school if your DD can handle being 'different' in the GT program. I would use the back to school nights to try to set up a time to observe the classrooms in action. You do know the joke about the difference between recruitment and day to day life, right?

What about hiring a tutor to coach younger daughter through the aspects that make the GT program tough?

huggs
Grinity

That's okay; it doesn't feel intrusive. She is not only possibly HG, but also probably 2e. She has anxiety issues and likely ADD. She isn't doing well academically in the GT programming. She's not failing out, but her grades are wildly erratic and she is feeling stupid b/c she isn't doing as well as the majority of the other kids in the classes. She wants to drop out of the GT program b/c she feels stupid. Granted, she also felt stupid in the non-GT class b/c she was grouped with many kids who, in her mind, aren't very bright.

Our GT programs really are high achiever programs. They really don't serve the needs of divergent thinkers. Someone suggested to me on my other thread about ADD on the 2e forum that a school w/ no GT program might be a better idea.

I could keep my p/t job and homeschool, but it would entail dd being home alone about 25 hrs/week and she is a huge extravert who is very unhappy home alone. My dh is a commercial truck driver so he's not home much and he has very little patience anyway. He yells at her whenever he tries to help her with stuff and transfers his own self image issues on to her.

My hours are really strange. I'm an educator at a hospital with rotating hours that include nights, weekends, and different days each week. I often don't know when I'm needed in until a day or so beforehand. For instance, someone from our NICU called me at 8:30 this morning (Sat.) wanting me to come in at 10 a.m. to teach a class. That one, fortunately, didn't have to happen but that type of thing isn't uncommon. It really isn't the type of job that has been easy to juggle even with what I am doing now and would be hard to juggle with trading kids with someone else for instance (which I've explored).

I have been trying the home based business idea (as you can see via my siggie ). I've been doing a very little bit of tutoring and tested one homeschooled kid on the SAT10 last year. I've made a tiny bit from affiliate programs and advertising on my website, but that doesn't even cover the monthly cost of running the site. I'm writing articles online which pays very, very little. I've mostly written the manuscript for a study strategy book for gifted kids, although I haven't been able to find a publisher. I enjoy all of this, but it really is something like an extra $50/month as best at the moment. I may just suck at business/advertising . I am trying, though!

I'm just confused and I feel like I am failing dd10. Dd12, in hindsight, has been a lot easier and she's the one who is really obviously HG. She just needed acceleration.

OK, this is familiar now. I have a DS9 who is similar and we have discussed it. His writing output is atrocious. He gets As and Bs, but I think the teachers actually cut him some slack because they see me as a potential trouble maker. It's not hard for me to deal with because I am pretty sure he has a different option for next year. Also, my son really doesn't care too much about how he is perceived and seems to rather enjoy busy work. So similar situation in some ways, but w/o the difficulties.

If you do decide in the end to keep her where she is, I really like Grinity's idea of hiring a tutor to help with the difficulties at the current school. Maybe you could even get a teacher to do it so you could get the inside track on what's due when and what the expectations are. Ten is a tough age because there is so much variation in what kids are capable of organizationally. Maybe if you can prop her up artificially for a few years and engineer a few successes to build up her confidence, the quality of her mind will eventually speak for itself.

Every Tuesday my son has to use 15 of his spelling words in a story and he gets one night to write it. He is simply not capable of doing this in under several hours and the kids also have piano on Tuesday. So every week he dictates it to me while I type and I give him very liberal "help". I justify it by thinking of all the additional academic type work he does on his own. I figure net-net he's doing way more than the other kids. He's just not doing what his teacher has assigned.

Aside from the tutor not being mom so she likely wouldn't yell at the person and cry , what do you think we could get out of a tutor that I couldn't do myself? Her main issues with the GT programming are that she doesn't see the convergent answers and starts creating all kinds of new ways to approach the problem that are usually not what the teacher wants and that she's really inattentive to details and just checks out mentally and daydreams. Teachers usually don't notice her mental absence b/c she is well behaved and not physically hyperactive.

Jumping in rudely here -

Not much (except maybe the inside scoop at the school), but do you want to do it? You are a good parent and probably interested in her divergent thinking and unique approaches and on some level you validate them. A teacher familiar with the curriculum might be more able to execute a teach to the test approach with her. Obviously not your long-term goal for your daughter intellectual development, but just a short term crutch to give her confidence.

It may be very different at your daughter's school, but I find it very hard to get info on assignments or expectations beyond what my son writes down in messy writing in a tiny space in his agenda. Also, they have no real math or grammar textbooks. So I might get the info that they are working on predicates, but that is it. I usually never see any of the work. So while I am certainly capable of presenting predicates to him (well, after I google it a couple of times) I would not necessarily be able to efficiently prepare him to take his teacher's test.

Are there busing options for either child? Would either be doing after school at school activities that could ease your commute schedule.

I have heard about some kids using an ADHD coach in middle school to help plan assignments and keep track of due dates. We may be headed in that direction in the near future. With a PG/2E kid, the 26% in the gifted program numbers don't appeal to me.

I recently gave up a hospital job with similar hours be make dd8's after school schedule more consistent. I miss having a job and the long school commutes aren't much fun... We compromised on her riding the very long school ride home half of the time. I hope you find something that works.

Tutors had athority and and outside perspective. They can be good had explaining 'why' it has to be done a certian way. Ours was anyway.

Have you gone the medication route? I'm not a big fan, but my ADD son sure is. He hated missing all the little details, and it fueled his anxiety to be 'always one step behind no matter how hard I try.'

What about bringing your DD to your workplace for homeschooling? Is she too young to get a volunteer job there? Builds self esteem to help others. I'll be she'd be a great tutor to kids who are stuck in a hospital because divergent thinkers can sometimes be great at finding explainations that make sense to other people.

Maybe you DD could learn some relaxation techniques, and teach them to people in the hospital. (I'm thinking HeartMath)

Best Wishes,
Grinity

To answer a few questions:

No, dd can't come to work with me. On an occassional emergency basis (as long as it isn't flu season), I can bring her in but not daily and she is too young to volunteer there. Last winter all children under age 12 were banned from setting foot in the hospital if they were not patients due to concerns about flu.

I am already helping her out at home with trying to see the more typical approach and paying attention to the details in the directions.

Where she is really running into trouble in math in particular is the tests. They have moved toward standards based grading which apparently means that the 2-3 tests/quarter count for 80% of your grade. Even if she gets As on everything else, a bad test scores means that your class grade isn't going to be good. As I said, she isn't getting Ds or Fs by a long shot, but she regularly misses a lot of points on tests due to simple errors. She missed 1/2 of the points on an entire section of one test b/c she overlooked the part of the directions that said to show your units of measure. She calculated everything correctly but didn't write in any units (cm, etc.). Another instance had her doing the calculations correctly but transferring the wrong answers to the answer line. She got zero points on those questions b/c the answers on the line were incorrect.

I'm not yet sure how to help her with that. She does need to work on the relaxation techniques, though!

eta: We haven't tried meds, The psych didn't seem to optimistic that they'd be very effective for inattentive type ADD, worried about stimulant meds increasing anxiety, and worried about dd's size (she's very small -- like 5th percentile). She felt that the non-stim meds might be a possibility but said that you had to take them consistently for months before you'd start to see a benefit. Dd didn't sound too sold on the idea after hearing all of that.

Hate to say it but my mom had to stay home with us a few times when we were kids (premie sis w/health problems). And when she did she had to babysit a dozen kid's daily. Still the most stable home-based business I've heard of, but I think the limit's six. But my sister's watching Kids at home (she plans on homeschooling my nephew). She gets something like $110/week, I think. If you could get one or two infants or a toddler that would be a full-time job at home that might equal your part-time pay. If you put an ad in the paper "stay-at home mom looking to provide childcare in my home.". It wouldn't be that bad for a year. Might get old after too long. Friends and neighbors say I should start a preschool when they see what Wyatt's learning. I'm like, "Shoot. I barely got enough patience for my own kid's and my husband."
I'm going to do the daytrading, but first we just got a new place, then we got another baby, need home improvements. Got a bigger car. It'll be a while before I get the extra money for my daytrading ambitions. But that's my plans for my own future working at home. The hubby believes in me to do it too, we just got expenses first.
I also do like the idea of a tutor, everyone's telling you. And I plan to use the idea that I read here of hiring a college student. They're cheap, fun, and smart. Oh yeah, I don't know the details. But my dad's done freelance writing on and off for years. Never published a novel, few magazine articles. But he told me one time he was actually covering the bills writing greeting cards. Who knew they paid that well?

I'm going to quote myself here . We went to the open house for this school last night and would appreciate any feedback. The commute wasn't as bad as I thought (about 25 mins barring bad weather). Dd really liked it.

The things she liked:

* Very hands on with "fieldwork" and a lot of getting out to do things in the environment;
* Allows for academic diversions. One of the kids gave an example of bringing in a petrified toad she found and the teacher changing her science lesson plans to be about toads and frogs and how this one could have come to be petrified (this became science for the next month);
* Relaxed -- they call teachers by their first names, some of the classes have yoga balls in lieu of desks, etc.
* Small and electives are mixed age with 6th-8th grade together.

My concerns, other than the commute & dd12 being at a school on the other side of town, include:

* The math test scores, in particular, are very poor. Our part of the state has above state avg scores on achievement tests. If the state avg is 60% of the kids proficient, many local schools will have 75-95% proficient+. Their math scores for grade 7+ run around 25% proficient+.

The principal attributes this to turn-over in math teachers and some of these teachers having not been the best fit and to the expedentiary learning model where they focus more on conceptual understanding than "drill and kill." He did say that they were working to add in more memorization of basic facts to bring those scores up.

* Only one elective/semester and fewer choices in the electives (they focus on depth over breadth);

* 6th grade is run more like an elementary classroom with one teacher. Save for math, in which she could still subject accelerate if it was the right fit, she would be in the regular classroom with no tracking for literacy or anything else beyond whatever differentiation the classroom teacher provides. While language arts isn't her strongest area (although she does have an A- in the GT reading class), she has spent this year and last in GT reading studying Latin roots, character motivation, and doing more intellectually deep work than what it looked like they did (book reports, std fare).

Thoughts?

I'm glad dd liked it. I'm glad the commute isn't as bad as you thought. Small class size with flexible teachers sounds good. You can always afterschool Math if you don't think she is learning enough.

The main, main, main thing is to get into that school and observe the recieving teacher. What books are availible in the classroom? Would it start to feel like your DD is in the 'non-gifted' track at her old school? You have to see it in action to even guess. If you think it's ok, try and have your DD shadow for a few days before you make any decisions.

If your main concern is getting her to high school with more of a sense of who she is and liking it - this school sounds good.

If your main concern is getting a good education, maybe keep her where she is with the high achievers and a tutor (really, it's worth a try!) and a trial of meds. I've heard that about Stimulents being better for Hyperactive and not so good for paying attention, but that isn't our personal experience.

Health Insurance and family income are really important - can you find some 'adopt a grandma' type to cover for you while you work so you can homeschool?

I wish I had more ideas.
Love and More Love,
Grinity

FWIW, I have talked to a few families with gifted kids who have really thrived in the expeditionary learning model. In these families, the kids struggled to fit in the traditional school model and their kids seemed to be divergent thinkers.

From what you have said, your dd has struggled on the traditional path. I would let her try the alternative school. You always can supplement math at home using something like ALEKS. I think that its worth a try before resorting to homeschooling an extrovert.

I'd need to look into that further, but honestly the literacy end of this has me as worried as math b/c reading is the one area where dd has had a really good education for the past two years with a teacher who is very bright herself. Her confidence in that area is pretty intact even if she doesn't love to read.

The book reports I saw on the walls were on Diary of a Wimpy Kid and similar books but that's all I know.

Can't I have them both -- lol!?

Thank you both for your thoughts. We're going to open houses for the other two closer higher achieving schools next week so we'll see what we think after that as well.

We've now had a chance to visit the other two schools and dd's preference list and mine are pretty much the complete opposite. Here are the schools:

School A:
* Very high performing (one of the top few middle schools in the state)

* Choice only (not assigned to anyone, so all parents are committed to transporting their kids)

* Has more flexibility in math than any of the other schools in that they offer both the std 6th grade math and accelerated 7th grade math like everyone else does for 6th graders, but they also have an intermediary class that uses 7th grade curriculum at a slower pace for kids who are in btwn the two. In 7th grade the kids who did that intermediary choice can move on to subject acceleration or there is another intermediary class if they aren't ready to do so.

* Nearly 50% of their kids are subject accelerating in math, which could be high stress for dd.

* Has a smaller school feel although it has about 250 kids/grade.

* Offers all of the typical electives: art, orchestra, French & Spanish, etc. plus a drama club (dd10 is very into theatre).

* Conveniently located across the street from the high school dd12 will be attending.

* I liked the teachers a lot especially the math head who told the entire group that although the district tells us we know who is gifted and who isn't in 3rd grade that gifted isn't about who is achieving highly enough to be accelerated early on -- our kids are all special regardless of what they're labeled and only time will tell where everyone belongs and wants to be.

* While there is, again, no accelerated literacy in 6th grade, the 6th grade classes are reading intellectually challening fare like The Iliad and the Odyssey.

* Core knowledge

This is my first choice school and dd's last choice school.

School B:
* High performing, but not as much so as school A. For instance, about 25% of the 6th graders are subject accelerating in math.

* Dd thought that the science program looked fairly so-so like elementary science.

* Pretty std middle school for our area.

* STEM focus so it has a lot of interesting science electives in addition to the std electives: art, music, foreign language (French, Spanish, and German).

* They have a final period of the day that is used for extra support (a lot of kids get that for the final period) or enrichment if you aren't needing extra help. Dd would wind up in enrichment b/c she is generally ahead in math and reading.

* Also very close to the high school dd12 will be attending.

* I really didn't care for the GT approach. There are elective/enrichment classes that are only available to GT ided kids including an art enrichment for which the class description states that they will be learning about how being gifted impacts them personally and interacting with like-minded peers. Dd doesn't tend to find like minds in most of the GT classes as they tend to have about 25% of the kids in them and I didn't like the elitist feel of it. They seemed to misunderstand my dd's experience of giftedness in that they had an "8 gripes of the gifted" sign that had a list which talked solely about how hard it was to be smart b/c people teased them and how boring and easy school was. That isn't dd's problem. She isn't garden level high achiever who finds school easy and boring and feels smarter than everyone.

This is dd's and my 2nd choice.

School C:
* This is the expedentiary learning school.

They cannot get her in to shadow until after we have decided it is the school she wants to attend which would force us to turn down spots @ the other two schools first. I don't see any point in shadowing at that point.

I remain concerned enough about the low academic performance and what I've heard from others locally (it is really a school for kids who weren't making it in the other schools and there can be some "wrong crowd" issues) that I just don't know that I can be comfortable with it.

This is dd's first choice and my last choice.

To add to my long post -- lol! -- I know from past experience that dd will want to do the opposite of whatever I want. If I tell her what I want her to do, she'll acquiesce but then blame me and others for whatever she doesn't like if it isn't perfect.

She really needs to step up to the plate and stop making excuses rather than buckling down if she finds something hard. Dh and I are also concerned that she will coast academically at school C and therefore not learn how to deal with something that isn't a cake walk.

All opinions are welcome . I do feel like we, as the parents, have to have a big piece in the decision but I also don't want to cut dd out of giving her input both b/c it is her education and b/c I don't want to encourage her tendency to feel like things are being forced on her and she can then fault others if they don't work out.

I really worry that you will be trading one set of concerns for a much bigger one if you switch to the school you describe. An "alternative" school with low scores may not give your daughter the intellectual stimulation she needs. She may gain a false sense of feeling good about herself, because she is a top student, but may be bright enough to recognize that the kids she is comparing herself to are not doing well academically. It may be difficult for her to find friends.

I think some meds work well for some kids with ADD-Inattentive. You could give meds a try and see what she thinks. Otherwise, she may benefit from a "coach" or special instruction in ways to make herself focus and reduce the daydreaming. I am not sure that giving her easier work will make it more likely she will focus. She will still have to come up with the "right" answer.

High school does get easier. While in math you have to show your work to get partial credit (otherwise a wrong answer is just a wrong answer), there is probably less emphasis on methodolgy and more on understanding (multiply any way you like, do not have to use the lattice method for example). In Lang. Arts a student may have to follow steps: note cards, outline, rough draft, final draft, which some kids find excruciating. However, there may be more room for, and even encouragment of, divergent thinking.

The other thing you can do is get a special ed plan in place for your dd if she has an ADD diagnosis and gifted IQ scores. Perhaps she can be excused from certain busy work or allowed to work in her own way. Unfortunately, however, to some extent she will have to learn to work within the system both for school and eventually for most kinds of work.

Good luck

504 plans are what they do for 2e kids here. Dd has 99.9th percentile IQ scores and an ADD and anxiety disorder dx from a psych. At this point, her school seems unwilling to do a 504, though, b/c they feel that the things the psych suggested, such as oral testing, would be something all students would benefit from and it would be unfair to give them just to her.

If I were sure that there were a specific accommodation that were likely to help her, I'd push for it anyway, but I honestly don't know what is likely to help. She did have an A- in the GT reading class on her report card and did well on a recent math mid-term (A- with the few extra points the teacher will give them for making test corrections). She isn't doing poorly, per se, in these GT/subject accelerated classes overall. She's just erratic and doesn't feel successful. The GT teacher is willing to try letting her test in a separate room to minimize distractions and so she doesn't focus so much on when everyone else is finishing and turn in her paper at that point whether she's done or not.

I did set up a shadow day next week for her at school A as well.

Sorry to repeatedly reply, but I wanted to address this as well. We've found in the past that when we place her in non-GT/accelerated classes, she can get As easily despite her focus being no better b/c the work is easy enough that she doesn't need to pay attention to quickly pull out the answer if needed. Even if she is overlooking parts of directions on tests and losing some points for that, she has so many A+ grades that they provide the cushion needed to keep her in the A range. Having her get easy As isn't necessarily my goal, though, and I don't know that it will build legitimate confidence.

Interesting, as my child with ADD-Inattentive still had trouble getting As in easier classes due to not turning in HW or making some silly mistakes.

You are correct that a 504 plan will probably not solve the fundamental problem of focus and doing well on tests. The first school sounds perfect to me (the one with the in-between track). My youngest is in 8th grade. He was in a math track that had them do 6-7 grade math in 2 years and HS geometry in 8th grade. He fell off the tracks a bit last year and although he understood the material, really did not grasp the material at a deep level. This showed on the tests, along with silly mistakes common to a 12yo boy.

Knowing how challenging our HS honors math is (many kids drop down) and not wanting to have a tutor for years on end, we decided to drop him a level in math. He is now in the accelerated 8th grade math, but finds it too easy. He said that while the one day per topic approach last year (probably exaggerated to some extent), he also did not need the one week per topic approach of this years class. An intermediate approach would be great.

As other have said, I would not let her make this choice. I agree (as I said above) that School C sounds like a bad choice. Hopefully, you can get her to see the problems with that school. Can you get a school counselor or a teacher to talk to her?

This is also a tough age. Hopefully, things will work out as she gets ab it older.

Dd shadowed @ school A yesterday and really liked it which was great. She shadowed a girl who was in the accelerated 7th grade math and also said that she thought it wasn't too hard. She doesn't like Everyday Math, the curriculum they use in the elementary (and for the 6th grade math she's doing), so maybe she'll like the different math curriculum the middle schools use better.

So, if she gets in, I think that we'll go with school A. Now, here's the problem: at the open house, we were told that there was a very good chance we'd get her in. When I picked her up, the woman at the school who was arranging the shadows told me that she was pretty sure dd wouldn't get in b/c we are out of district. She said to be patient and that, if by lottery she places at a decent place on the waiting list, she might get in as late as August (the month school starts), but we're going to have to choose another school in the meantime since it sounds like this one isn't a guarantee.

I'm putting out prayers that dd gets blessed and gets in, though. Think good thoughts for her!

If your child qualifies under Section 504 due to her disability, they can't legally refuse to give your child accommodations that she NEEDS just because they don't give them to non-disabled students who WANT them. The difference between NEED and WANT is a crucial one here.

I would suggest that you check out www.wrightslaw.com if you haven't already. I feel for you and your daughter.

That's what we found too, especially for the 'erratic class work' sort of thing.
Best Wishes,
Grinity

I can tell that at least the GT coordinator is kind of done with me for now. I know that I've been a pain this year and I'm sure that part of it is due to my frustration with how much better the services are for high achieving kids than for underachieving gifted kids.

That aside, I am really putting my focus on getting dd into the best placement for next year and just getting through the rest of this year. I'm working with her quite a bit at home on memory and study techniques b/c she seems to need a lot more help in that area than her sister has. We'll see how her latest tests came out, but it seems like her grades are coming out somewhat better at the moment.

I do realize that they can't say no to the 504 but I just don't know if it will help enough to warrant my continuing to harrass them. If my working with her can keep her grades @ a reasonably high enough place, I think that's just where we're going to leave it for the rest of the year and not worry about the fact that she isn't getting any accommodations at school.

If we can start fresh with a new school next year, I'll regroup and reconsider the 504 at that point. The dx is recent enough that they'll still have to honor it for a 504.

At the suggestion of others, I am trying to plead dd's case with school A in the hopes that they'll cut her some slack and let her in. Her homeroom teacher also offered to put in a good word for her there.

The school choice applications were due by last Friday so notices of acceptance/wait listing are starting to be sent out. All schools are closed today due to freezing temps (-15F) so I don't expect to get any further word today, but here's what we got yesterday:

Dd12 got into the only high school she applied to (which is fortunate!). The HS is within blocks of middle schools A & B. Dd10 got into school B and we haven't heard anything from schools A or C. I do know other parents who are in district who got "yes"es from school A yesterday. At least one of them plans to turn it down in favor of school B, so maybe that will open up a few more spots.

Hopefully we'll hear something more tomorrow.

good luck! waiting for responses sounds a little stressful.

My two cents on this: You won't know if it works until the accommodations are in place, of course; but that doesn't necessarily mean it's not worth a try.

This sounds counterintuitive, but sometimes it makes sense to set up a plan in the place you're desperate to get out of, rather than waiting until you settle into the new one.

Reason 1: the teachers in the old place have seen the deficits already; it won't take them months to notice what's going on and think about making a plan

Reason 2: even in the best case scenario, setting up a plan can take months; waiting until you get there may cost her accommodations for most of that first year in the new place. Standards will be higher in a higher grade; if she needs the accommodations now, she may need them more later.

Reason 3: right now you are remediating like crazy at home; this work is invisible to the school staff. They are likely to believe the problem has miraculously gone away. This will make it harder to get the accommodations later.

Best,
DeeDee

We'll be waiting at least another day to hear or do anything school-wise since schools are still closed due to record low temps. This is the first time I can ever remember schools being closed solely due to temperatures not snow.

Schools were back in session yesterday and I still heard nothing from the other two middle schools so I called them to inquire. School C (the expeditionary learning one) seemed to have some organizational issues going. They didn't know if she got in, said they'd check, and then came back on to tell me that they didn't think they'd looked @ school of choice applications yet and that I'd hear something at a later date.

School A (the high performing one that dd and I both liked) told me that she is in the middle of the waiting list and that they simply don't call you if you don't get in. She wouldn't tell me exactly how long the waiting list was but I got her to narrow it down to fewer than 40 kids so I assume that dd has 15-20 kids on the waiting list ahead of her. She did also say that there were a lot of kids who were offered spots on Monday who didn't call back to accept or deny the positions and that, if most of them didn't take spots, we'd be hearing back from them early next week b/c they'd then have room for dd.

School B gave us a deadline (Wed.) by which we needed to call or lose the spot. School A apparently gave people the same deadline but isn't holding them to it. If they didn't call by Wed, the school is still holding their spots and will be trying to get in touch with them over the next few days to see if they want the spots or not.

For now we've accepted dd12's high school place (which we intend to stick with, of course) and dd10's place at school B. We'll see if we ever hear anything back from school A. If not, we may just need to find a way to make school B work but that is going to involve a sales job to dd on this school.

Also to respond to DeeDee --


The teachers @ her current school seem to be leaning toward believing that dd is "bright" but not seriously able and that any issues she has are b/c we are placing her in too challenging of classes and she'd be fine if we just put her in the slower/non GT classes. That may be true; as I mentioned earlier, she does get easy As in non-accelerated classes, but I don't agree with the assumption that she is just not able enough.

The other thing that has kept me from seriously pursuing a 504 is that I don't know what we could ask for in a 504 that would make a difference for dd. Dd12 was easy when she had a 504 for slower processing speed/dyspraxia and SPD earlier in her school career. We knew what she needed (to be seated away from noisy stuff and possibly to get a little extra time) and it worked beautifully when she got those accommodations. With dd10, I don't know if any accommodations would make a major difference in her performance and anxiety.

We just got word that dd got in to school A as well. I guess that they got ahold of all of the slacker parents who didn't respond to the offers and started working their way down the waiting list.

What a relief! I'm so glad that your dd got into a school that she likes.
Yippee!
Grinity