I'm new to the forum and would be thankful for a little advice. Our DS7, upon entering public school last year was accelerated from K to 2nd grade. He hit the ceiling on several of the WISC subtests and CoGAT. Also, tested very high on a KeyMath assessment by the school. We've been told by his classroom teacher (who is an amazing advocate for him) that he needs more than acceleration and that we should look into a CTY online math course for next year. (We've already been told that it would be hard for him to take math with upper grades because of scheduling and there are no pull-out programs for math). He's taken the SCAT and qualified. Now we just need to talk to the principal and gifted teacher. I'm worried that they will be reluctant to hear our case, because I think that they may be locked into the stereotype of "children need to be children and shouldn't be pushed"; which is not our case.

Does anyone have experience pleading their case for a CTY course at their school? Has anyone offered to pay for it themselves and had luck? How is it working out?

Thank you for your help!!!

I am hoping for the same thing for my DS7 for next year. I am approaching the limit of what I can pay for myself (for educating a child in a public school LOL), and I am going to try to get the school to pay for CTY courses. According to the person I spoke with at CTY, schools often do buy their courses.

(By the way, we are in a similar situation to you...being seen as "pushy" when we are NOT! DS7 demanded math camp for summer camp this summer...he is the one who insists on doing math workbooks and math online programs...his favorites are taking the tests. An outsider looking in would see pushy parents who want a math whiz for a son, but it is all self-directed!)

I will watch this thread to see what others have experienced with the CTY programs at school. Nan

We cleared ALEKS & EPGY through our district curriculum office; both were already on their list of approved curriculum. And we are in a tiny backwoods district... so if we had it already, then hopefully larger districts have encountered these programs as well.

We then had to overcome the teacher's concerns about the much-feared "gaps" or differences between the on-line stuff and the class work. We also agreed that after completing a given grade-level online, our son would have to pass the regular curriculum's test as part of his final grade. This required that I review & compare the outlines, covering any differences with my son in prep for the test.

He did 4th & 5th on ALEKS and is finishing up 6th on EPGY.

NanRos - That is exactly it! We aren't making him do math problems for 2 hours on a Saturday morning. It's self-driven. Your DS sounds so much like mine (and so like many others)!

We talked to someone at CTY too and she said that about 40% of the schools pay for it. We hope the school will pay for it, but our area is losing a lot of teachers and support staff this year because of revenue short falls. We will be lucky if we still have art and gym in a couple years.

I think we are going to bring up a few points at the meeting; doesn't take away teacher time, we will monitor his progress, isn't a pull out and doesn't rely on other class' schedules, and we will add in Dandy's point of "filling in the gaps" if they have concerns (very good point, thank you!).

Logically, it makes sense. But what I'm wary of are the psycho-social arguments that may be brought up, which aren't always rational or true.

I'm checking into ALEKS and EPGY too! Thanks Dandy! I'm guessing that we haven't heard about EPGY because we are on the East Coast, maybe?

I should add that our son has only used on-line learning for in-class math acceleration.

CTY uses Stanford's EPGY math program for K-6 and then switches to Thinkwell (& others ?) beyond that.

Thank you! I did not know that CTY used EPGY. I have about a month before our meeting to figure everything out! We are also hoping to use the courses for math acceleration.

Has anyone taken the language arts course for CTY? My DS8 has Qualified for CTY. he excels in Math(Self Driven and playing Chess with dad ). gr8 reader, writing is higher than his other2nd graders , but not as good as math. want to enhance his creative writing? Any other supplements? any advice is helpful. Thanks