So, I just got through my first act of advocacy to NOT have my daughter repeat Pre-K next year solely due to my state's age restrictions.

I had no idea how hard it would be to stand my ground -- I mean they were non-hostile, but I don't like to pretend I'm an expert on things I'm not. Believe me, I understand that reading a few books & a few studies to support (and even a few to attempt to refute) my point does not make me an expert in gifted education.

That's what made it difficult, talking to people who educate and work with children every day and having to tell them that their reservations need to be removed despite the fact that I'm only an expert on one single child.

Has anyone else felt this way? How do you handle advocating for your child?

When you are advocating for your particular child, you are the expert on the subject at hand (your child).

IQ and achievement test results can be helpful for showing your child's departure from the norm. Portfolios or samples of work which are not age-typical are often helpful for purposes of illustrating your child's unique approach and interests as compared with age-mates. These things can help powers-that-be at a school or district to see the same advanced abilities which you observe in your child, and therefore help them better gauge an academic and curricular fit.

Not really.

The administrators and teachers may be expert in educating kids in general but we, the parents are expert in our own kids. As long as scores, results, benchmarks to back you up, and the kid has not been challenged and bored, I would do it all over again.

It seems like you were successful and the teacher might have agreed that your DD does not need repeating. Kudos to you and the teacher!

I would send a nice thank you e-mail/ letter to the administrator/ teacher. Everybody loves to be appreciated.

It's just hard to wrap my head around sometimes. It's just frustrating that due to her age they determined that she should have to redo pre-K but be taken out to do enrichment work for Math & English and Spanish at the K or 1 level.

It just made no sense to me that a child who is already well integrated into a pre-K classroom with children a year plus older should have to be housed in pre-K solely because of her age (she'll be 4.5 years at school start).

I definitely would like to thank her for her work, but I don't want her to think that I'm trying to suck up to get a favorable outcome. This has been so stressful!

The school emailed today and said that their administrator is going to do a visitation/observation during the school day at DD's Pre-K on Tuesday.

So, we'll see how that goes!

Yeah, I am going to be there someday soon. So, I understand your predicament (I will face this issue next year if my oldest goes to public school out of completing a K year in a private environment)... best of luck & keep us posted.

It's good to read other's stories about this. My daughter is three but on a Kindergarten level (or above) in most basics already. I have no idea where she'll be by the time she's actually Kindergarten age so I already feel lost as what to do about getting her into schooling.

You might find preparation by looking at their side of it useful.

This is from our district:



She answers parent questions at the end. Some of the material is district-specific but you will get a good idea of what to expect in terms of responses.

Also keep in mind their perspective. They are dealing with a couple of hundred children, and don't want four and six year olds in the same class. Letting them know that you're aware of these issues (as well as restrictions on child-care limits with younger children, for example) would be helpful.

They've settled on Pre-K admission with pull out for K/1 level academics (The entire school has a set schedule for Math/Reading/Science that they all switch class rooms for simultaneously - like a mini high-school). They've decided to continue the evaluation in classroom because they are concerned that despite her academic, social and emotional skills being impressive they feel that most children don't do well outside of their age group.

Apparently in our state (and our district especially) it's almost unheard of to place a child above grade level no matter the aptitude. It's unfortunate, but we are out of options and this seems to be our best choice. We talked to DD about it and she understood that she'd get to learn K level things but play with kids her own age & she seemed pretty happy about that...

We'll evaluate again in like November when we have seen how the coursework is going!

Keep us posted. I don't think it is a very sensible decision on their part.

Do you have outside testing? Or is the advocating based on her performance this past year at school & your experiences at home?

On the upside the school's schedule organisation is very impressvie!

And the consistent schedule makes it possible to remove the child for one subject if necessary.

We didn't bother with the testing because at no time after meeting her did they question her intelligence level. The decision was made because they feel that the ONLY way for a child to be brought up for early entrance is if that child demonstrates the behavior of a 6 year old 100% of the time. They were also concerned because at 4 she's very tall (she wears a size 6 so her pants will reach her ankles), but she's thin (we love adjustable waist pants).

We made the decision based on the fact that she is currently top of her class in Pre-K (all children going into K next year) and her Pre-K teachers told us that she was indistinguishable socially from the older children & recommended she be in K next year because there was no way she'd remain interested in Pre-K academics for a second year. We thought we had all our ducks in a row, but on the public side our county strictly forbids children under 5 from entering school, no exceptions & due to this, the private side is VERY picky about doing it. They've allowed it 2 times in the last 5 years among the 3 private schools we've interviewed & the kids in those cases were born within 1 month of the cutoff (we're at 3.5 months).

I agree -- that's what we liked about it. It allows for kids of varying ability to get the level they need while not feeling segregated from their peers since everyone is going elsewhere for their subject matter work.

Well, it may work okay. You have one big thing going for you--they want to keep you and your dollars at the school. So, they may want to make this flexible schedule work out.

This is weird to me:


So they don't want to advance her because she's thin? Hmm, maybe we should hold my 3rd percentile DS back a grade...

FWIW, my DS, who is socioemotionally mature, goes to 1st grade for a good chunk of his academic day but stays with K for specials, lunch, recess, yoga and dance, etc and seems happy with this. I mean, I think he would also be fine in 1st, but he likes the "fun" "play" elements of K. As he should, because he's K age.

Yeah -- I found that VERY odd too. She's the same height as all of the other kids, but she's 10th percentile for BMI. As a kid, I was ALWAYS skinny - I didn't even crest over 100lbs until I was in my mid-20's!

My daughter is very mature for her age, but they are still very hung up on that *age*.

Our SD said the same thing, and we dragged in everyone, because they have a written policy for acceleration, so we tried to follow it. Turns out it's not possible unless some combo of parents/school or parents/district agree, and they flat out refuse to do so in any case.

And then we found the crack in the system, via word of mouth. It turns out that you can homeschool your child, then re-register them at the grade you say they should be, and they'll accept that at face value. DD's school offered no resistance at re-registering despite knowing full well what we'd done.

Maybe that can be your plan B.

Homeschooling isn't an option for us at this point. We both have careers and giving up either of them would be very detrimental to our ability to continue living in this area!

I've also heard the "hire a tutor to homeschool" idea, but then she'll miss out on the social interaction -- which my little extrovert would be miserable without!

I'm hoping this works out & that it goes along with some of my other friends experiences (once they are past age 5 they will place them to the appropriate grade -- they just refuse to look at kids under 5).

We were very reluctant to homeschool our highly extroverted DD for the same social reasons, but it worked out pretty well. She found having her educational needs met to be a higher priority than having her social needs met... though we were able to help with some of that when we hooked up with another homeschooling mom down the street for daily "recess" together.

This year (her first following the grade skip) DD is being appropriately challenged for part of her school day, and is enjoying the social benefits of school as well... but she's still saying that, all in all, she'd prefer to be homeschooled again.

As far as outsourcing that, that's not something we had to worry about, but assuming the price is right, obviously finding the right homeschool tutor presents a major challenge.