I had probably the most exciting discussion ever yesterday with a school administrator. As a teacher, I have had more discussions with administrators than I can count, but this one was by far the best one ever, so I had to share.

DH and I decided about 3 months ago now that we will be homeschooling DD8.5 starting in the fall. This is a major decision for us, but after multiple attempts to get various schools to try and meet her needs and having had no success we've finally come to the conclusion, that there is no other option in our present location. About the same time as making this decision, I was talking to a colleague, who happens to teach the gifted language arts classes at my school for grades 6-8 (the only gt classes we have in a K-12 school) trying to get some resources for DD, to make a long story short after talking to her I had what I thought was a crazy idea - we should try to get my school to allow DD8.5 to be radically accelerated into grade 6 for language arts and art classes so that she could have this woman for a teacher, as well as the art teacher whom would also be great for DD.

DH and I discussed the idea and had DD take the WISC IV a couple of weeks ago to get more evidence that she would be a great candidate for radical acceleration. I also approached my head of school with the idea, she was intrigued with the idea, but did not commit one way or the other.

Fast forward to yesterday...

I was at school doing various stuff and the elementary/middle school principal saw me and called me into his office to discuss my idea, that he had heard from the head of school. He wanted to know more about DD, so I again told her story, before I could get to the part about her new test scores he said, "we can have her re-tested to get a more accurate indication of her level". (she'd been tested 2 yrs ago) I then told him that her recent score put her FSIQ at 149. He had the typical reaction of "WOW, that's great, amazing impressive." But it was what he said next that was so exciting: he stopped talking for a minute and said, "wow, this will be a great challenge for the school. It is not so much that she will know more than her classmates to begin with, but it is the rate at which she will learn and process the information that will make educating her a tough job. There is no way that a single teacher will be able to do this, it will take a group of us getting together probably once a month to monitor her progress and make sure that we are keeping up with things and doing a good job. I think this could be a great opportunity for us all to learn how to truly meet the needs of a gifted kid. We'd have to take into account her social and emotional needs as well, but X, Y and Z are around that grade and they are very smart, not at her level, but they would be good kids to introduce her to, and they would take care of her."
He went on for about 10 minutes sort of thinking aloud all of the points that we as parents have been discussing about what would be needed for this to work! He was so excited at the prospect, not only for DD but also for the teachers involved in it as a learning experience for all.
I left the discussion feeling like I'd come out of an alternate universe - I have never had an administrator, or gifted teacher understand all of the different parts and concerns involved in getting my daughter an education. We are waiting for the ed. psych person to come back from vacation before a decision can be made about this, but just to have a discussion where we were on the same page as the school was amazing!

I will let you know what happens next week when the ed psych's vacation is over.

Sorry this is so long, I can never seem to make things short and sweet.

that is so wonderful! having been told by schools "sorry, we can't do anything for him" and moving many states away for a good school option I think you are VERY lucky and potentially in a great place for your DD

Fantastic! How exciting

Yay! That's amazing.

Wow, that sounds like a dream.

Yay for you! That sounds almost precisely like the way our principal talks, and we have a wonderful school for DS8. You've got a good one, at last!

Wonderful - here's hoping for an equally womderful follow through!

So lucky! I'm happy for you! And wistfully sad for my DS8.5 because he's not in a similar situation

Wow! He sounds like he is really intelligent and has some common sense about these things. I hope everything works out with this it sounds wonderful.

Love it!

Long and sweet beats short and sweet anyday!

'RATE' ((happy sigh))
g

I LOVE the enthusiasm and open-mindedness!

An update:

We're still working on it, but it looks like we're being foiled by class size restriction laws. Here in Fl there is a size restriction of 22 in grade 6 and since the gt language arts class is considered as an honors level language arts class, rather than as an enrichment class the size limit applies.
We're still working on it though to see if there is a legal way around this though. We will have to be creative, but we'll see what we can do.
The teacher of the class is willing to allow DH to use all of her curriculum and her website and teach it to DD at home while she acts as a guide, so that may be the way to go.
More later, once it is finalized.

Kerry- check and see if it's an actual restriction or if it's a funding issue. In CA, it was a specialized funding category and if you had 20 or less, the school got extra funds. When this was the stumbling block to DS's skip, we researched and found out we were talking about less than $1,000 the school would lose by moving him up to 2nd. We offered to pay the difference and the school ran out of arguments quickly.

Not everyone has the option of paying it, but for us at the time, it was an option and far, far cheaper than private school.

Hope you get the class size thing figured out, and Yay for options!

since you are in FL can they approve the class through FVS to do at home that way?

Good job! not eveyone has the $ but not everyone would have to guts either! Anyway, $1000 vs private school? No brainer

Kerry, you might want to check closely the current interpretation of the class size restrictions. One of the things that I came across recently was that they can't double count students that might be scheduled for two classes at the same time - the specific example on the FLDOE FAQ is for students enrolled in both ESE and mainstream classes in the same session. Maybe you could get around the class size restriction by counting the sixth grade class as an ESE accomodation in her EP while she is counted for class size purpose in her regular grade LA class. Even though it's a core class for the 6th graders, it could be considered an enrichment class for your DD.

This would only work if the school has space in any other class to actually count her there, instead of in the 6th grade class.

One other option - could she 'audit' the class, for lack of a better term? She goes to the class, but is not officially registered and you treat it as a homeschool class, that she just happens to get in that classroom?

Good luck! Hope you get something figured out!

In Fl the class size restriction is actually a limit and if you go over it it costs the school about $1000 per student and gets the school red flagged at the state level. With all of the changes in laws going on right now and funding getting cut like crazy, the school is not willing to even go down that path, even if we could pay for the fine. The hassle of getting on the state's red flag list is not worth it.

Prissy,
Good idea about the double enrollment thing - I'll look into it. I get a headache sometimes trying to figure out all of the laws around here. The principal I'm working with is also having a tough time wading through it all, but we're going to keep working at it.

We are trying to find out if the audit idea is actually an option. I think it will just take a bit of time asking some questions about if it is allowed or not. The teacher is willing to do it, we're fine with that option too, so we'll see.

Well, so much for follow through.
After such a great start about how excited the school was about getting the chance to help educate DD, the person in charge of making the decision let it fall off the plate and didn't do what was needed to allow this to happen.
Somehow he went from completely understanding how this was a great idea and he was completely behind it to having issues with the "mature subjects" that DD would be exposed to in conversation with 6th graders! Ultimately he decided that she was too young to be put into 6th grade classes! We are so disappointed and frustrated.
I could go on and on, but I won't - suffice it to say that all of our prepping of DD to be going into 6th grade and going to a new school and her actually doing the summer work for the classes she was going to have was a waste.
DH will now be doing full-time home schooling. He's a bit nervous about it, and not sure how it will all work out with a 3 yr old hanging around too, but I'm sure it will all work out.
The language arts teacher has said she will work with DH on her curriculum, so at least that part will still be working.

Kerry - I'm sorry it all played out that way. At least when they tell you no from the beginning you have no expectations...but you had expectations that they were going through with it, prepared your DD and then had the rug pulled out from under you. I hope your DH and DD have a successful homeschooling year, where she can learn at her pace, not what the school regards as "age appropriate" <have they turned on the TV...kids are exposed to more just from ads on the side of a bus than anything mature subject wise in school!> Good luck!

Sorry to hear that Kerry, but I hope homeschooling works out for you all. It can be a lot of fun!