Yesterday I had my first meeting with the GT teacher at dd's school. Our meeting lasted over an hour and I have to say that I am blown away by this woman. She's been teaching gifted kids for 30 years and to hear her passion for what she does was inspiring. She went over the entire year's course outline (in great detail) and I am very impressed. Dd's school is a k-6 and so her teacher showed me the plan through 6th grade as well. I wish I could list everything here but it would be an incredibly long post! Dd has been to 3 classes so far. I got to see my dd's workbooks and folders and I was amazed to read what she's done already. I was looking at all of her notes and work and I just stared. It was so advanced and so detailed I am in awe of how much she has learned so quickly. Her teacher said that dd has already caught up to the rest of the kids who have been there for a few months. She said that dd is an extremely quick learner and that she has really been impressed with her progress in such a short time. I am just over the moon. I came home from the meeting on such a high!

Her teacher also talked to me about the recent movement for change with gifted education and how there is a group of parents that are passionate about advocating and gave me their information so that I could contact them. She also gave me lots of literature to read on HG kids.

What a great meeting!

Wow - you are so lucky! What a difference between our two school districts.

Wow! I'm completely envious. Enjoy your good fortune!

(((hugs)))
I'm so happy for you!
Hey, if your new parent-friends want to, maybe they would like to stop by for a visit! ((Make sure your identifing info is hidden first))

Smiles,
Trinity

Wow, how great is that? I'm completely jealous! How great for your dd. Enjoy it!

That sounds great

Did she recomend any particular book on HG? I would be interested too ...

Good for you Tammy, for staying on top of it and making sure your DD has opportunities to excell in school. You are a great mom and YOU ROCK!!

Peace,
Incog

Aww, thank you incog!!

Isa - She recommended reading:

They say my kids gifted: Now what?
by Richard Olenchak

The survival guide for parents of gifted kids
by Sally Yahnke Walker, Ph.D.

Stand up for your gifted child
by Joan Franklin Smutny

and for dd:
The gifted kids survival guide - for ages 10 and under
by Judy Galbraith, M.A.



Thanks everyone. I am realizing how very fortunate we are to have this available to us.

Oh Tammy, by the way, I got the same letter today that you got yesterday.

Incog

incog - Im sorry! We just have to keep moving forward. Whats your next step or do you know?

Thanks Dottie and Tammy. My next step is that I e-mailed our tester to ask his opinion of whether to pursue this. If he says yes and has the ability to administer one of the achievement tests, I'd probably schedule her to do so.

She seems to like the challenge of these tests and Dottie seems to think more data is better, even if her score doesn't qualify her for DYS. I think I agree.

Incog

((big smile))
Go Cog!

I actually got a similar letter back in February. I'll toss in my experience, even though it is a bit different so as to help folks trying to put together a better stategy for their kids' applications.

We didn't actually have qualifying IQ scores; he had a GAI on the WISCIV that was over 145, but they don't accept that. And he had an SB5 that was just shy of 145 and a comment from the tester saying that he felt the scores were all an underestimate because DS had hit hard ceilings on half of the subtests; we had started testing when DS was 9 and the tester thought he was probably too old to be testing with these tests. I *thought* we had a qualifying WJ3 score, but DYS had revised their criteria and no longer accepted the subtests we had (and the tester hadn't done the tests they did accept). So I thought I had one qualifying score and one score that was a smidge low, but I counted on them to take the comments from the tester and the GAI into consideration. I really don't think they did; I think when they realized neither score qualified, they were done. It was only when I contacted them a few weeks after I got the letter, that they pointed out my mistake with the WJ score.

Since I really thought DS was a solid Ruf level 4, and I thought I had given them plenty of data to show this, I naively thought we had a good chance. When I asked them about the IQ scores (and the underestimate based on the ceilings and the GAI), they said that they had plenty of kids who met the score requirements and they wanted to make sure they kept their cut-off appropriately high.

I'm not saying that there is a problem with anything that happened--heck DS didn't have a single qualifying score; they're providing a free service and they have every right to do what they want. I just think *I* had false expectations about how flexible they were about the testing standards and their willingness to look beyond the numbers when there was other data.

I still think that DS is a good candidate (based on his developmental history and where he is functioning in school), but I didn't want to chase any more scores. DS will be taking the ACT in Feb and I am keeping my fingers crossed that he will have scores well over the cut-off (he did on the practice test he just took) and then we can consider applying again. Now I'm wondering, though, if it will be worth trying since I don't ever plan on repeating the IQ tests so, at most, he would only have one qualifying score.

The bottom line for me and this whole experience (and all the learning I did about testing in the process) is that I appreciate what a hard job the DYS people have. The tests just aren't all that precise at the high ends, some very smart kids have bad test days, and DYS wants to make their program meaningful by limiting admission to the highest levels. It's all totally fair, but it's still no fun to get the letter!

Agreed. The tails are *SO* tricky, and who's in or out seems a bit...arbitrary...maybe. But then again, what else can they do? Until somebody comes up with a better test (instead of these ones that strive to be better and aren't really) or some other method for IDing altogether, there's not much they can do. I'm guessing the selection committee would agree, even!

<shrug>

Anyway, fingers crossed for your DS on the ACT!

(((acs)))