I hate to be a pest but this is really new territory for me and I have found your support,knowledge,and experience to be invaluable.

This letter is in response to DS5's principal regarding the email discussed here. I am trying to get at the root problem here but am not sure I'm going about it appropriately,clearly and respectfully.


Principal,

Thank you for getting back to me regarding this subject. I appreciate the effort that you are making on DS5's behalf. DS5 does say that he is a happier in Ms. W's class. He finds the interactions more interesting and enjoys the fat that Ms. C allows him to write number sentences/equations on a dry erase board if he finishes his work. However he still says that he doesn't feel like he is learning anything new. I will set up a conference with Ms. E, like you suggested,should Ms. W or anyone else also be at this conference?

I'm finding myself uncertain as to what can be done in this system. I enjoy, and am thankful for, our pleasant and collaborative relationship. I would hate to see it turned antagonistic because of misunderstanding or miscommunication. I am hoping that you could explain a couple of things to me so I will be aware of any necessary school policies and understand where the school is coming from in the future. I appreciate your patience in this matter.

- Why do you not test/assess children past one year ahead in reading and the current level in math? As a parent I want you to see/know my child and I believe that the school would like to also. I am confused as to why the discovery process is stopped before this has been fully accomplished.

and

- Is subject matter acceleration, participating in an out of grade class, something that is an option? Is full grade acceleration an option? Is there a reason why you might feel that either of these is not a reasonable option to consider. I would love to hear your view/opinion on these as I am not an educator myself. I understand that you have a wealth of experience in this area and I like to be well informed when trying to make any decision, especially one concerning my son's education and well being.

I understand that we are but one family out of 700+ that are your responsibility but I also hope that as an elementary school parent yourself you are familiar with the need to communicate and work with the school if you find that your child is not feeling excited or challenged with their education.

I look forward to continuing this dialogue with you and continuing to work towards DS5's best interests.

Thank you!

Eibbed



What do you think? Do you view this as an antagonistic letter? Should I cc anyone on this is of just leave it at the principal?

I think it is smart of you to acknowledge in your letter that they have a lot of experience with educating a lot of children and that you would like to hear their thoughts and experiences. However, I think you go a little too far with buttering them up and that you sell yourself short regarding your knowledge of acceleration and knowledge of your son. I wouldn't be so quick to come right out and say that they have a wealth of experience with acceleration, when they really may not (and may, in fact, have biases against it not from experience but from lack of experience).

I really like the part about working as a team and continuing the collaborative relationship. And I like that you thank them right off the bat for working with you in the past and for continuing to work with you.

Also, when you ask about assessing beyond one grade level above, I would specifically ask that your DS be assessed beyond that, perhaps until he gets less than 85% (or so) on an above-level test. And maybe ask for it in all subjects in which your DS excels.

Good luck with continuing the process. I hope your letter moves things farther forward.

mnmom23 - I had been thinking more along the lines of a wealth of experience with elementary kids in general. I'll have to go back and look at that. This letter is in response to the school saying that they would not test/assess DS5 to find out his full capability so that is why it is not included here. I'm asking for clarification as to why they won't.

A few typos to fix: "enjoys the fact" not the "fat", "you suggested; should", not "you suggested,should", and "to consider?", not "to consider."

I would take out the line about "I would hate to see it turned antagonistic because of misunderstanding or miscommunication." I think it's a little threatening to state it that way, and the context of "I love how collaborative this is" is clear enough.

Personally, I like "Thank you for all that you do for my child and for all of the children at xxx school," as a last line, instead of just "Thank you," but YMMV on that.

I'll add to the corrections ... this sentence is missing something .. "DS5 does say that he is a happier in Ms. W's class."

Also, addressing the principal simply as "Principal," would probably rub me the wrong way if I was the principal.

... I can't wait to see what response they'll have for you. We'll be in your shoes soon so I am getting inspiration from all of you who are a year ahead of us! Good luck!

I would leave out the line about "as I am not an educator myself." That may be true, but I think you're setting yourself up if you do that. We had that experience with a school principal who said she didn't care what the research said, she didn't believe in skipping-- and btw, she hadn't read the research. This was after the DISTRICT approved a skip for my son to her school.

I think you're right to press for an answer to why they won't determine what your son's actual level is-- that's invaluable to teaching him something new. But I think you could also ask, "If you don't know where he's starting, how can you be assured he'll have a full year's growth in a year's time?"

Good luck with your meeting. You seem like you're approaching it very respectfully, and I think that will go a long way.

ElizabethN - Thanks for catching the typos. I had caught one or two of them but not all. My DH also said to take out the sentence "I would hate to see it turned antagonistic because of misunderstanding or miscommunication." for the exact same reason.

Mk13 - I addressed the email with the the principal's name. I used "Principal" here as a name replacement. I'll be sure to update when I get a response.

Eibbed, sorry if this is a stupid question but is it possible to meet with the principal in person to discuss the issues instead of sending a letter? I ask because the principal could take the letter in a good way or bad, depending on his/her personality, the mood he is in, etc. While your letter is polite, if the school has dumb policies that the principal feels he needs to defend, he will find a polite response to your letter that quotes the policies and shuts the options for you. Maybe a meeting to hear what he really thinks and discuss options, followed by a letter detailing the agreed plan might be a better approach. Again, sorry if you already considered this and dismissed it.

Lovemydd - I've already sent the letter. What will be will be.

I did not suggest meeting with him in person because we have already met twice and when I suggested meeting about my math concerns he was not interested. I would love to sit down and actually have a real conversation about this. I think email is so slow and you can't always tell what people actually mean with the absence of tone of voice and body language. However with that said I am easily intimidated and I might not get out what I am actually thinking in a face to face conversation if it appears like they are dismissive or defensive.

I will be very disappointed if he takes offense or blows me off. My intention is really to understand where they're coming from. I am not a confrontational person by nature and if there is a way to work with them I'd like to know what it is.

Hope your letter gets you the response that you are not only hoping for but you deserve. It is sad that the school is not willing to just provide the answers to your most basic questions. Best and keep us posted.

Good luck.

So I received a response last night.

Eibbed,

I'm glad to hear that DS5 is enjoying the math class with Ms. W and Ms. C. They have enjoyed getting to know him as a math student and to encourage him to continue to share his thinking, which at times is quite unique. As with all students we continue to find ways to differentiate our instruction and challenges for our students.

Thank you for scheduling a conference with Ms E, we will make sure that Ms. W and Ms. C are available at the time as well.

As for your questions:

1. We do test students in reading beyond just one year ahead. We use the Fountas and Pinnell benchmarking system to determine a students instructional reading level and then work to instruct them at that level.

2. Within math, we often test above just the current grade level however we don't choose to test to a level of frustration. In 3rd and 4th grades students can take a GT (gifted and talented) test that would put them in a curriculum that is two years above grade level. This is then continued within the middle school as well. As I shared earlier, DS5 will be assessed around some concepts from both 1st and 2nd grade. We look forward to sharing the results with you next week and to discuss how we are meeting his needs as a math student. I do know that Ms. E has enjoyed working him over the past weeks.

3. Subject matter acceleration is something that we often provide within the classroom. We do it in a variety of ways, having our GT teacher take time to work with students, I know Ms. I is working with DS5 and his group in reading/writing as we had discussed. In addition, by having a co-teacher in many classes it allows us to differntiate/accelerate in many ways. Math often allows us this opportunity as we expect multiple solutions and defense of their thinking, which allows students to truly be stretched! Grade acceleration is something that could happen, however there is a lot of research around this topic and it is something that schools typically do not do. I would encourage you to read about the impacts both socially and academically. I would love to talk more about this information.


I look forward to talking next week!

Principal


This response is lacking in so many different ways I don't even know where to begin.

- It's great that say they test past 1 grade ahead but DS5 aced the end of 1st assessment and that is where they stopped and wouldn't go any further.

- Nothing is mentioned about how they determine a child has made adequate progress over the year if they don't know where he/she started.

- If I read this correctly it sounds like they do not do subject acceleration in the lower grades. DS5 is in the new K/1st grade math but it does not seem like it is meeting his needs.

- The principal obviously didn't want to give any opinions on full grade acceleration except to say that most schools don't do it.

Just uuuggggghhhhhhhh!!!

He did say that I should do some reading on the topic which I've been trying to do. I've got A Nation Deceived, Academic Advocacy for the Gifted Child, and the blog Unwrapping the Gifted Child.
I am interested in the Iowa Acceleration Scale but it appears that you need testing to make the scale reliable. We don't have test scores. I read everything here but I'm not sure he would consider this reading or research.

I'm not even sure I would want full grade acceleration for DS5 but I would like a dialogue about it's possibilities.

Could you please suggest other books or resources out there on acceleration? I'm going to have a busy few days ahead!

Sorry, I don't know of any particularly good resources for what you need--although there is that "Genius Denied" book that is featured on the Davidson site that might discuss it. But I just was struck by the letter (and I suppose one might expect this sort of thing in writing, because the principal is probably cautious about what he puts in writing) in that it looks like he's prepared to cite various studies to back up handling it how they want to--which I would bet is what they're already doing. (Such as citing the "Fountas and Pinnell benchmarking system"--showing you that he has expertise, which would be good except from the tone of the letter and what is said I'm betting he's going to try to shut you down from asking for more even if you think your kid really needs it). But on the other hand it does sound like the teachers are trying to be helpful, so I would be sure to express appreciation for that even while also expressing that DS5 needs/wants more (remember, DS, or you on behalf of DS, not just you--my own DH unfortunately talked about wanting to 'push' DD in a meeting last year when it is her pushing because he has not read so much on these things, and in that setting I think it totally undercut what we were saying about trying to get more advanced math work for DD, because DH did most of the talking, as he is wont to do --so be careful). Good luck!

Here's some to get you started:
http://www.nagc.org/uploadedFiles/Information_and_Resources/Position_Papers/Acceleration.pdf

http://www.sengifted.org/archives/a...ceptability-of-extremely-gifted-children

http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_print_id_10422.aspx

http://www.marylandpublicschools.or...512/32797/COMAR_13A0407_GT_Education.pdf

It's really good that he came out and pretty much said that evidence is against skipping. That's when we got some good movement. I prepared a packet and brought it to the meeting with all my references.

Eibbed,

I wouldn't be completely discouraged by the Principal's response - my experience has been that a written response from the school is *always* going to be conservative and guarded because the school does not want to put anything in writing that they would be held legally accountable for. I don't know about your school district, but in our school district there is a large worry about legal action from parents.

I read the response and felt it was encouraging because he *did* respond to each of your points and he didn't completely shut you down re acceleration etc. Soooo... you will have your meeting and your chance to reply - that's all good! Gathering the evidence to support your advocacy is good too. When we were advocating for our 2e ds, I tried my best to think through every argument the school staff could throw out against what we were asking for and have my own counter-argument well prepared before the meeting

I also think that the three most helpful things we had in early elementary school to use in advocating for our ds and differentiation/acceleration were his IQ test results, background knowledge of what the school district used to determine "giftedness", and understanding statistics. We had one IQ test given through the school district and another private test. The school district psych at his elementary school tried to argue that the school district's IQ test was highly unreliable at a young age... but she couldn't really argue having two IQ tests with almost identical results. So the school tried to argue in turn that those high results were meaningless and that there were lots of those high-IQ kids running through the halls - that's where understanding and being able to explain some very minimal statistics re IQ test scores helped tremendously. Granted - the school staff should have understood that already (and I'm sure they did) - but - by us demonstrating what *we* knew and understood it helped prevent the school staff from summarily dismissing us as they wanted to.

Hang in there! And let us know how your meeting goes -

polarbear

Eibbed, you received one strong positive from the principal's response-- "Grade acceleration is something that could happen."

While I can't comment from personal experience on acceleration advocacy specifically, I do have a background in corporate negotiations, which can be equally challenging to navigate. I have a few thoughts, which I hope are useful.

As I see it, your argument will be framed from the following information:

A. Achievement quantification: securing evidence of ability
B. Evaluation of social readiness (neuropsych/parents)
C. Assessment of intellectual detriment of current environment
D. Assessment of social/emotional detriment of current environment

My first priority would be ensuring that reliable, measurable benchmarks supported by gifted assessment best-practices are used. Other folks wih experience in this area could probably point you in the right direction for those.

The principal has forwarded three positions:

1. Skipping is socially detrimental (general)
2. Testing should not account for ceiling effects (math)
3. Reading assessments are not formally tested

Points 2 and 3 can be undermined in reference to district policies and gifted assessment best practices. Both assertions are ridiculous.

Point 1 can be refuted by keeping the discussion specific to your child to undercut the generalizations the principal will be arguing from. The issue at hand isn't the principal's general, (presumably) untrained opinion. The real issue is the school's responsibility to teach each individual at his level, a responsibility that the school is eschewing with its current approach. View policy as 100% adaptable to individual needs.

In crafting your case re: point 1, I'd present as many concrete, dated examples as possible to show a trend of decline in your son in his current situation: cognitive, social, behavioural, and emotional. If your son is beginning to have any difficulty relating to peers, highlight the gap to undermine the principal's tack. Keep a record of instances of upset/boredom/conflict and graph frequency over time.

I'll be interested to follow along. I hope my lack of BTDT experience doesn't render these thoughts so general as to be useless!!

Best,
Aquinas

ETA: this post assumes you discover need for a skip and wish to implement it.