I've posted in the past about my 4th grader. He's in an HGT program and to meet his needs next year, the recommendations are either lots of individual changes in his curriculum in 5th or a skip to the HGT magnet middle school. We did the IAS and he's an excellent candidate, which came as no surprise to anyone. The IAS did take about a week longer than expected because the person doing it was unexpectedly out for a week.

So while waiting, I've tried to set up a shadow day at the middle school. It took a while to get a call back, but I explained the situation to the middle school person. Said the skip was one of the suggestions from the district GT coordinator. And the person in charge said I was out of luck, that she stopped scheduling shadows in April and there would be no exceptions. She did offer me and my son a group tour with other parents. When I said there would be no way my son could make a determination on a skip without a tour, she still wouldn't relent, but said we could have a private tour with her. She wouldn't even try to find a half-day or even a two-hour shadow!

When I asked her a bit about grade skippers at the school, her first response was, "Well I'd tell him to keep quiet about it. If he brags, the other kids won't like him." [Her response was not the point of my question.] When the topic turned to how smaller kids fit in, she said it all has to do with the kid's confidence. "If he's confident, he won't be the target of bullies, not that we blame the victims." I'm really not impressed with her.

I followed up with a call to the district person, who wrote an email to both principals to figure out a solution. I also put a call in to the middle school principal and haven't heard back. It's only been 2 days, but there are only 3 more days of school (including today) before the final week.

My son still wants to shadow. He's interested in a skip, but is only about 50-50 on the idea. So the GT person in his current school is now trying to set up the shadow (I was told to do it at first). I have friends with kids at the new school and they like the school and the other students, so I know I shouldn't hold this against the school. But this was going to be a rushed decision anyway and now I feel like it's a bad idea to pursue it under these circumstances. And I'm really irritated at school officials. Grrr.

Who did you speak to at the middle school? There's often one or two useless/rude/irritating people at any company/school, and perhaps you were just lucky enough to get that person at the middle school? Assuming this isn't the person who would be responsible for your son's acceptance, or scheduling, I'd try to reserve judgement until I could speak to someone else in administration at the middle school.

Well...what is your estimation of how well the current school would do in keeping up with the individual accomidations? How are things going socially for your son currently? Is there a way to provide additional challenge outside of school?

What about planning a few playdates with kids from his receiving class and seeing how those go?

It is a shame that you lost that week.
Love and more love
Grinity

To answer Grinity, dd9's current situation is kind of complicated. He's technically in 4th, but he's been in the 5th grade class.

I don't have total confidence the ideas for challenge next year (a mentor for a passion project, online math) will end up happening. If they worked as planned, it would be fantastic.

Socially, he's an easy kid to be around, so I think his relationships with both teachers and other students is really good. He's friends with both 4th & 5th graders, but he pretty much chooses only a couple of kids to be good friends with.

He's in a competitive year-round sport that he's really good at. He trains every day, so we don't have after-school time for additional outside challenge. That's why it's so important to him that he not waste his time at school.

I'm just venting. I had hoped we would have the option of this middle school skip if it's something my son wanted to do after a shadow. My preference is not a skip, though. So I guess this just alleviates the agony of a decision.