No questions here... just venting.

DD8 desperately desires to go to school, to be around other kids. This is the only reason we're not homeschooling through elementary school. The private options in our area do not provide adequate support for gifted, and so we cannot justified the price, leaving us with the public option. She has been yanked out twice and homeschooled, due to various issues. She has returned twice now, based on changed situations that were expected to make the fit better. This time around, the change was that we made the grade skip that the school refused to entertain via the homeschool route.

Here are the changes that made things look better for this attempt:

- She's enrolled as a 4th grader now. That should make her homeroom time better socially, and at least less awful academically.
- At the 4th grade, the number of hours in the G/T pull-out increase. She spends most of her day there now.
- There are more G/T kids at her grade level now. When she was in first grade, she was the only first grader in G/T. In second grade, there was only one other, and it was a boy. They didn't connect.

So, a few weeks in... how's it going?

Well...

Good:

- DD has a friend in G/T, who is also assigned to her same homeroom.

- Another kid in the neighborhood who had been besties with DD when she went to public school (Episode II) and mysteriously stopped playing with her when we pulled her out, has started playing with her again. She'll even be joining DD in Girl Scouts.

- So far, DD seems engaged, enjoys going to school, and even looks forward to homework.

Bad:

- DD's lunchtime is 20 minutes. This includes the military drill of lining up and being yelled at, before marching to the cafeteria, filing through the line, etc. It also includes the cleanup and marching out time. DD's lunch is mostly coming home uneaten. This inspires her to seek unhealthy snacks when she gets home.

This appears to be out of the principal's hands, because every elementary school in the district allots exactly 20 minutes to lunch for each grade separately.

- DD notes that none of the 4th grade kids want to play at recess. They walk around a chat. She also notes that 3rd and 4th graders share the playground at after-lunch recess, but they're segregated into different parts of the playground. The 4th graders get the grass. Some kid "got in big trouble" for violating those boundaries.

What the...?

In other news, this is providing a teachable moment for behavioral perfectionist DD, as we're explaining that sometimes rules are stupid, and cry out to be ignored.

- DD's G/T pull-out schedule has forced her to choose between her favorite subject (math) with her favorite teacher, or PE, library, and music. She chose math.

- DD's math schedule also overlaps with her homeroom's science and social studies time, two subjects she's expected to keep up with nevertheless. DD is never present for any class discussion on these subjects, and has to work the worksheets on her own, so it's not surprising she's struggling some (currently earning a C+/B- in social studies). DD says during reading time in homeroom one day, she opened her social studies book, and the teacher ordered her to put it away and open "a real book."

There are no words.

- On a nightly basis this week, we're noticing DD swinging wildly between uncontrollably silly to despondent, with no middle ground. This is an indicator of lack of sleep. It's turning bedtime into a battleground.

DW and I are taking action on the social studies/science issue. DD will bring home each textbook (one per day, so she doesn't hurt herself) and DW will see where we can get a copy. If we can't score one for a reasonable price, we're going to ask the school for a home copy, citing DD's lack of class time on the subjects.

Playground and lunch seem like typical PS stuff. Annoying, but things to live with and adjust to.

Science and social studies seems like a real issue. She misses all class instruction?? That doesn't seem right. Did you agree to this beforehand? Is it the only option? The book solution seems like a first step, but I don't know. If they offer a pull-out like this and that's a standard thing, it doesn't seem like it should work this way. Why doesn't she get pulled out for math during MATH?

I'm more than annoyed. Something like 75% of the school is on free/reduced lunches (they're VERY aggressive about signing people up... they nearly forced DW to apply), and the kids are basically throwing all those taxpayer dollars into the trash. They're not getting adequate exercise at recess, and they're not getting adequate time to eat. How on earth are they expected to learn?


Because they've never made ANY attempts to synchronize the G/T pull-outs and the homeroom. Every year we've had to contact them about a major scheduling conflict, and ask for remediation, which they half-heartedly do.

There's also the issue that DD does math far longer than her class does. We would basically be asking them to cut the thing she loves most. They'd also still expect DD to keep up with the math in G/T. It'll be much easier for her to independently keep up with the glacial pace of the sciences in homeroom than to keep up with the G/T math.

She is present for about 3.5 days of each week's science time in homeroom, so she's doing better there (I think... I haven't actually seen any papers yet). Social studies is a complete miss.

They try to make sure people apply so they don't miss anyone who may be eligible but doesn't think they are (the guidelines are pretty generous for reduced price lunch--you can make close to 40K with a family of 4 and still qualify, IIRC). But of course, they wouldn't actually give you free/reduced lunch if you didn't qualify. I guess I'm just saying that changing the length of lunch would be a massive battle. 20-30 minutes seems to be pretty standard, unfortunately. I think my kids get 25 minutes. They are slow eaters, and DD often doesn't finish her lunch either.

It seems really ridiculous that they don't synch up the pull-out with her homeroom, though. Is there anyone else in this situation?

Dude, we had the same issue with 20-minute lunches at our public school - oooooh that was so beyond ridiculous! And so unhealthy - the kids all rushed through lunch and trashed whatever they hadn't eaten at the end of lunch to be sure they didn't miss recess. My talkative dd routinely never ate *anything* more than a few bites. My ds who isn't all that talkative also didn't eat much of anything because he was so stressed out about not finishing lunch in time for recess. And that 20-minute lunch was usually very early in the day, so then the kids had all afternoon to feel like they were starving while they were doing most of their academic work (pullouts for pe, music etc were in the morning before lunch). OK.... I'd better stop talking now before I get stressed out all over again over it!

Anyway, fwiw, I wasnt the only parent who thought it was a *really* bad way to handle lunch. I'm guessing you're not the only parent in your school or district that has the same issue. If you feel like fighting it, I'd at least give it a good try - talk to your superintendent or school board or do something. It might not change anything, but at least you and your dd will know you tried.

Re the math, honestly, I'd not let them take her out of science and social studies with her class - even if it means you ultimately are having to give up her favorite math teacher or as rapid acceleration. But that's just me. We accelerated our ds and are doing the same with our youngest dd in elementary through after-schooling. That worked for us because our kids like math and they wanted accelerated math so they were ok with doing math at home. When ds was in upper elementary he was then able to accelerate to his appropriate placement within school. I don't think you're there yet - I think you need to request that the school differentiate in math at the same time the rest of her class is studying math. I know it's not as simple as it sounds from what I've written, but I think it's worth fighting for. The thing that would really concern me about the current situation is what might happen during science and social studies that's spontaneous and not part of the lesson plan or perhaps not included in the textbook. This happens all the time at my kids' schools in science and social studies etc - during classroom lessons kids will be exposed to something new, questions will come up, discussions will go off on slight tangents or include new info or direction etc. Those things might never show up on a test (or they might?) but they are a big part of being part of the class and also potentially play a part in inspiring a love of social studies or science or just learning in general that you might not get from reading a textbook.

I'm also curious what specifically is holding her science/ss grades down - is it accuracy on worksheets she does in class, is it test grades, discussion grades...? I think that if you looked at the specifics of how it's impacting her grades that might help in advocating.

Best wishes,

polarbear

eta - about the pull-out times not being in sync - do you have a district-wide G/T coordinator that you could discuss this with, and ask for help in advocating or for suggestions?

We've gone the differentiation route with this school, on more than one occasion, and it has never worked out well. It was always something promised to us as an alternative to a grade skip, and it was never delivered in any consistent or meaningful way. Also, it would be hard to argue for differentiation when that same need can be provided through G/T.


Actually, this is why we'd rather have her textbook at home, where DW or I could set aside some time each week to discuss the current material. She gets all her questions answered, and I know that whenever I'm in the mix, I take her well beyond the written material. DW has already assigned social studies to me (I'm a history junkie, and she's not a naturalized citizen), and some of the science will get kicked my way, depending on the topic.


Test grades. I'm sure it's because she's never there for discussions, and doesn't get enough time to read on her own. Her exposure to the subject is pretty much limited to flipping through the book while doing the worksheets. That method only fosters the collection of a few memorized facts... not learning.

Dude,

I can completely commiserate with you. I'm going through similar frustrations. That which doesn't kill you will make you stronger, right?

I'll follow your format and outline DS11's first experience of public middle school:

Bad: The first week was an utter, inept, disaster, which left most of the children without schedules or if they had them, they were slap-dash with no prior thought given to who the children were as individuals. DS was supposed to enter middle school as a 7th grader and the computer had him as a 6th grader. So that first day, I had to go in an make sure he started out in the right grade. That was sorted out, but whoever found him a place in 7th grade didn't take into consideration the fact that he was grade-skipped, that he was supposed to be in compact math, and that we'd asked him to be paired with another grade-skipped kid (years earlier) who is an academic peer and also a friend. They (the inept counselor) stuck him in remedial classes that happened to also have a lot of behavior issues. So I had to go in two days in a row and ask that the counselor remedy this and I was told over and over that they couldn't do anything about it at that time. Also, that whole first week DS was stuck in band, even though everyone KNEW he wasn't supposed to be in band, including the band teacher. When he came home with a band instrument, I went back to the school and I was told he had to just go to band until it got sorted out. So, I asked, if he's to go to band, and it's wrong, why can't he simply show up in another wrong class, until you are capable of correcting things? I was told it would be too confusing for the adults (not the kids) and that it was easier on them to keep the status quo.

The school took so long to try to get the boys together that my son decided he didn't want to switch one of his teachers to do so. I predicted that would happen.

20 minute lunches: yup. Ridiculous. As well as the fact that he doesn't eat until almost 1:00 p.m.

The county has made some strides in gifted education, but for some reason we are the only middle school in the county that doesn't have an AIG teacher hired yet. Another school close by has two.

Thus, my son has no real advocate at that school.

The principal is new and has different ideas about gifted education and clustering than I. Nothing new there. Same old love for heterogeneous classrooms, which would be fine if some of the kids would stop misbehaving long enough for the teacher to teach something. DS is clustered with a whopping 2 other possible AIG kids in each class. Not sure how much differentiation will be happening in some of these classes.

He has a killjoy for a language arts teacher who gives punitive homework, punishes the class for what two or three are doing, passive-aggressively keeps them in the classroom too long so they are late to their lockers or to the bus/car lines. And when I met her, I noted that she prefers a talk-down-to-the-kids manner of communication. This is all new to DS, who is a rule follower, sensitive, and made the astute observation on day two that this teacher didn't seem as though she liked her job or the kids. Oh joy. I may need some advice on this soon...

Good:

He has an AMAZING social studies teacher who is engaging, smart, and digs deep.

He has a amazing math teacher who may inspire him to love math again.

He has a quite competent, lovely science teacher. (down side: most of the curriculum is matter he's seen before)

He goes to tech/science club after school

He has tech class and the school has a STEM team for enrichment.

He's out of band and into chorus where he can use his nice voice.

He's managed through all of the school's nonsense, he was able to suffer the fools, and he's stronger for it, I'm sure.

Phew. I've been holding all of this in for over a week. Feels good to vent.

This is a completely unacceptable situation. Something similar happened to a friend of mine's son last year because he had to go to advanced math in another school. The child ended up missing science and had to teach himself social studies in the back of the room.

Just utterly ridiculous. Sadly I don't have advice, but I do have sympathy for all the parents here.

I agree with polarbear on this. It makes more sense to afterschool your daughter in her favorite subject (math) with more advanced, varied and fun curriculum compared to what the school district can provide, at her own pace. Since she is so interested in math, it might be easier to do it as well as go even faster than the pace set by the school. You might even outsource it to a tutor if /when she reaches a stage where it is hard to cope with her abilities.
And it makes less sense to me to afterschool her in 2 subjects (science, soc studies) with 2 parents involved in it to shore up grades.
Why not give up on the subject acceleration at school and do it on your own? And then consider the subject acceleration during Middle school?

Best wishes.

Perhaps you should bring this up in the newspaper or with some other parents. If enough people complain, the schools will be more likely to do something (not because it's right but because they were forced to act).

If it takes five minutes to line them up and get them to the cafeteria and another five minutes to get them out, and they only have 20 minutes...well, anyone can see the waste.

MoN, that sucks. Really, truly, sucks. Why aren't the parents of the free-lunch kids rioting?

I hope this isn't revolving around not being able to keep the school open for an extra 20 minutes so that children can eat lunch.

Not at DD's school. Each class has to go in their particular order, and each student has to be in a defined order in their class' line. The end result is that it's the same girl in my DD's class who sits last EVERY. DAY.

DD has reported that as soon as that girl sits down, the teachers call, "Pass your forks!"

DD has been seated for a few minutes by this time, at least, since she brings her lunch.

In my district, it appears the reasoning is based on that age segregation. They only let one grade in the lunch room at a time, and they basically lock them in for 20 minutes, so that someone else can be on the playground. It fits into a pattern, because it explains lunch, recess, and their appalling lack of support for acceleration.

Apparently, someone thought that 8yos and 7yos are volatile compounds that cannot mix.

With this as a basis, it would be impossible to extend lunch beyond 20 minutes, because then some classes would be eating too early and/or late.

I feel you on the 20 minute lunch, as probably most of us that have public school attendees do!

That being said...

I know it can be hard for schools to work schedules out for everyone. We have also dealt with this issue - one of the reasons our school told us DD can't go to a higher grade for certain subjects is because of scheduling. Of course we feel like they could probably make it work....somehow.

You mentioned your DD now spends most of her day in the G/T pull-out - is this entirely for math, how long is the pull-out, and how many days a week? I'm pretty sure one of the rules of my DD's pull-out is that she doesn't have to make up what she misses from the regular classroom. Now there have been times she has done the missed work anyway, but she doesn't have to.

How flexible is your G/T teacher's schedule? Maybe she could rearrange her time to allow your DD to at least catch the beginning or tail end of SS. If the pull-out is every day, could she skip one day a week to give your DD some time in the regular classroom with the other subjects?

If the G/T pull-out is a substantial amount of time, could they work on some other subjects while she is there?

Just throwing out some ideas....good luck!

This is insane. What kind of people are running schools that they would "think" like this?

There are two pull-outs, each with a different teacher. One is ELA, and the other is math. It's 5 days a week, for a combined 3:45.

DD does not have to do any math or ELA in her homeroom, but she's responsible for science and social studies, since that's the only way she'd get that.


The schedule is not flexible at all for the teachers, since they take different grade levels at different times of the day.

We were given the option of pulling her out of G/T math, but she'd be responsible for keeping up with what she misses there. That's why we figure she's better served maximizing her G/T time and keeping up with the other subjects at home... it takes so much less effort to keep up with things missed in the homeroom than in G/T.

I figure if I'm helping her with social studies at home, we can easily keep pace with just one hour's discussion per week. She'll probably get more out of that than 4 hours in homeroom.


I've noted that she's getting a lot of social studies in ELA. They're currently reading historical fiction set in WWII. Today she was learning about Jewish traditions. It seems to me they could easily overlap math and science while they were at it, too.

Unfortunately, she's still required to know what's on the state assessment exam, and there's nothing about WWII on there. Nice going, NCLB.

Dude, I am so sorry. Now, I know why my friend took her son out of that school. I know some nice kids there but they are 3rd grade. I don't understand our states obsession with keeping kids in herds with their exact own age. How this is positive socialization, I have no idea. There is also the problem of the huge budget cut that came to gifted education. All the elementary kids are only getting 2 day a week pull outs and it so far appears to be a huge failure. I am helping someone I know get her kid put in the school 3 of my 4 go to on a grade skip because the child is so miserable in a different public school in our area. You might consider going back to homeschooling until junior high when there are class periods and more gifted options. Maybe put her in classes or clubs with other homeschool kids or something. You might also just at least take a visit to LC. It has got to be better than that foolishness. I know in another post you said you weren't very religious, but I'll pray for you anyway.

Wow, words don't even begin to describe how I feel about this.

The lack of adequate lunchetime I find appalling (especially about that poor kid who is always last!) DD is a strong daydreamer and slow eater; she eats very little of her lunch. I know the schools have to get everyone through the cafeteria, but it shouldn't be difficult to change the policy so that there's a little more time. (I see on our school menus that they have a new "grab-and-go" lunch once a week, so kids can just grab a premade sack lunch and head straight to the cashier.)

Some minor advice: would the school be open to some sort of recess-time enrichment? Our PTA has a KIKS (Kids Into Keeping Strong) program for the kindergarten classes, who otherwise don't get PE. I think they used to do something for the older kids before we had a PE teacher. Some parent volunteers organizing a game during recess could help get more kids doing something.

I guess tge weather makes it impossible for the kids to eat outside? Here everyone eats outside with a duty teacher and after 25 minutes they are allowed to go and play or they can keep eating? Or the kids who bring their own lunches could eat in the classrooms which is what happens here when it is too cold or wet.

Update: I took DD to school Thursday morning, and spoke to the asst. principal about borrowing a home copy of science and social studies books. DD brought them home Friday afternoon. We spent about two hours last night catching up in the two subjects. She's caught up in social studies now, and just needs another hour or so in science. So that's basically three weeks and two subjects in three hours. That time even included a science experiment.

DD seemed to really enjoy it. My belief that she can get far more out of me on the subjects was augmented when I was able to relate just about everything the science book said about methods to the episode of Mythbusters we'd seen together the night before. That's not a connection a school teacher can be expected to make.

Okay, that sounds positive for her. Great.

Will you be in charge of science and social studies instruction now?

Not quite. My role is basically to fill in for that classroom lecture/discussion time that she's missing while she's in the gifted math pull-out. I'll be following along with the school curriculum. DD will be responsible for keeping track of where the class is in the material. I will set aside some time each week to cover it.

Basically, the school is still in charge, and I'm just filling in as a substitute teacher.

A pretty awesome one, IMHO.

Dude, I am glad everything is working out. It seems like all the schools have done an awful job of managing these gifted pull-outs. That's quite a task to ask a kid to keep track of but if she's happy, great! and its always great when dads have an opportunity to teach their kids.

* I sent you a PM with a question.

I agree with the problem of short lunch periods. Ours are slightly longer - 20 for recess, 30 for lunch. Part of the issue is budgetary, in our district at least. The lunch aides' hours are 11:30 to 1:30 (or something like that) and the principal doesn't have control over that; it is a district HR issue and principal can't unilaterally change it (although ours is lobbying the administration). When parents in our community were lobbying for changes in our lunch timing/protocol, once we found out that information, we changed how/who we approached and got our principal to be an ally rather than blaming him.

No, it's the welfare system not the weather. Instead of giving parents money to buy stuff for their kids, it's preferred to cook a dreadful plate of slop and serve it to them, which necessitates a cafeteria style area.

There's no indoor play area for cold or wet weather, which is another effect of having free and reduced lunches instead of welfare is that the schools are large but to save on cafeteria staff they serve lunch in shifts, so playing is also in shifts. The gym cannot fit the whole school for wet weather play and is not available anyway - while the first graders are having lunch the fifth graders are having PE in the gym. And that's why you have to move on after your eating time is up. The next grade needs to come in.

Knittingmama, if you add five minutes to every shift in the cafeteria the K kids would be having lunch before 11. It's like trying to start high school after seven means elementary then starts at ten because of the buses.

There are plenty of kids here who could use free lunches. We don't really have anywhere for them to play in the wet they just play in their classroom and as soon as it stops raining the junior school teachers drop everything and take them out for 10 mins running about so the kids don't go too crazy cooped up inside. I see the problem but there must be a better way than teaching lifelong poor eating patterns.

I would do what you are doing - keep the maths at school and do science and social studies at home. They probably waste more than half the time anyway and you can do some enrichment while you are at it.

Some updates -

- As mentioned in another thread, DD brought home her first report card - 4 As, 2Bs. I told her I was more happy for the 2 Bs, since they show she's in a place where she actually has something to learn.

- DD brought her school copy of the science book home last night. Why the school copy, when we have one at home, you ask? Because that's the one she'd already written the answers in (they can write in these textbooks), and she wanted to look them over at home. I asked her to show me what they were doing, and she did, and I commented that it didn't look familiar. But she said not to worry, she understood all of it, which I could tell was the case by the fact she'd answered all the questions.

Which brought the big reveal: DD's homeroom teacher had, unbeknownst to us, adjusted her schedule to accommodate the two kids in the gifted pull-outs. They have been starting science, then putting it away when the two GTs leave, and coming back to it when they return.

Huh. I guess I don't need that science textbook anymore.

Also, DW recently met her, and reports that she's very nice.

Oh, and at the car line last week, DW received a friendly wave and a smile from the one GT teacher that wasn't originally supportive of DD's skip. This same teacher kept ignoring and turning away from DW, so it may be that that relationship is thawing, possibly as DD is demonstrating that she belongs.

Then again, it might be that the teacher was crossing in front of our van, and DW was kind enough to ignore the insistence of the other teacher urgently waving DW forward.

My first and third grade get 15 minutes for recess (recess first) and then 15 min. for lunch. I have refused to let DD buy school lunches because she throws literally everything out. She takes in a lunch box and doesn't eat that either, but at least I can salvage some of it rather than it being a total waste.

DS, my younger one, stuffs his face quickly so I allow him to buy lunch there.

Recess is so short that DD gets outside and wanders around the playground searching for friends from other classes. By the time she finds them, it is time to go in for lunch.

they have to do that schedule to get everyone in and out of the cafeteria before school ends. It sucks, but I don't know how anything would change.

Good to hear, Dude!

Two steps forward...

DD8 recently took a practice exam for the statewide, high-stakes assessment test (LEAP). DW attended a meeting to discuss DD's performance... and it was not good. It was recommended that DD get some after-school tutoring to bring up her scores.

DW consulted with me, and I stated my position: I do not want DD to attend any tutoring, as this would be an indication the school could use to show how DD was not ready for 4th grade, and should be held back. DD was adequately prepared for the 3rd grade version (iLEAP) when she was homeschooled through 2nd and 3rd grades for approximately 3 hours a day, they have her for 8 hours and are responsible for advancing her only one grade level, so there are no excuses.

In reviewing the results, DW was particularly stricken to see how DD performed on the fractions portion of the math section. DD had done fractions with DW the previous year, and had excelled at them. In conversation with DD, it has been revealed that DD hasn't been doing any fractions in her G/T math pullout, so she hasn't seen it since she did it in homeschooling nearly a year ago. Which begs the question... why is my 4th grade DD not doing the 4th grade math that she'll be tested on in the 4th grade assessment test?

So now I'm anticipating the possibility that DD comes back with subpar LEAP scores, and the school attempts to use that as justification for holding her back a year. We can slam the door on that line of discussion when we hold up her iLEAP scores from the previous year, to demonstrate that she has the ability, and 4th grade was an appropriate placement, so any failure to perform on the LEAP represents a failure of the school to properly prepare her for it.

That's a conversation I'm not looking forward to having.

My expectation is that she's not the only G/T kid having this issue, and the teacher has seen the results, and will be focusing on the subject area deficits from now until test time. I also expect the school to be doing an intensive test-prep review in the weeks prior to the test, because that's what schools do on these things, and at least I now know that this won't be a colossal waste of DD's time.

We'll see how it goes.

In my bitter experience, bad teaching can undo wonderful previous learning. Last year my DS11 had a fantastic teacher. He got As and Bs in math without any help from us or outside tutoring. He's verbally gifted but not super-mathy. His end-of-year test scores were very good, with more than half in the 8th stanine range and none below the 5th or 6th (don't remember). Great.

Fast forward to this year. The entire 6th grade has been forced into pre-algebra and he is LOST. The book is a dog's dinner of bad mathematics and the teacher has been nicknamed Math Harpy by another member of this forum. DS11 generally gets Ds and Fs. Between the Harpy and the non-textbook, we aren't surprised. IMO, my eldest son (taking pre-calculus at age 13 and won the school math award in 7th grade) would have crapped out in this course.

We finally started DS11 with a math tutor in December (2-3 times per week), where he's reviewing elements of 5th grade math (NOT pre-algebra), with sixth grade math to follow later. The last time he was there, he did 10 sections with his teacher in an hour (average in this center is 3-4). He says, "Math is my friend again."

My advice to you is to teach your daughter or get her a good tutor. I agree that teaching her is the school's job, but she's the one who's going to be lost to mathematics if she doesn't learn how to work with fractions, and you and your wife are the only people who can save her. If the school was going to give her a proper understanding of mathematics, it would have done so by now. Sure, they can slap a Band-Aid on her, and it may get her through high-stakes tests. But that doesn't mean she'll actually understand anything.

And unfortunately, they may very well decide to hold her back if she doesn't pass. Perhaps they will even use her failure as a justification for claiming, "Sorry, your kid isn't gifted."

But, WHY? Why would you not want your DD to have tutoring. You/your wife/an outside math tutor could tutor her in fractions or whatever area she needs help in and NOT let her school know about it. So, you are helping your DD and ensuring a good LEAP score and not give the school any ammunition to fight with you about holding her back a year. It makes more sense to help your child now and what she does in her private time is not the school's business.

If I were in your shoes, I would buckle up, tutor my child, ensure that there is no justification for holding her a year back from the school's point of view and save my energy for a bigger fight with this school which is sure to come down the line.

Ofcourse, I am not an involved party and I may be missing some piecs of your story, in which case, please ignore my post.
Good luck.

ashley: I would not want my DD to get tutoring because:

- She's already experiencing something of an overload, and we're firm believers in the physical, developmental, and stress-relief values of free play. She just lost most of her three-day weekend because both of her G/T pull-outs gave her major projects at the same time. The stress was noticeable.

- There are no reasons for DD to be having issues with math. It's her favorite subject, she's enthusiastic about it, and she considers herself very strong at it. Whatever homework she brings home on the subject, I do with her, and she looks forward to that activity. She's been asking me to demonstrate more principles of algebra, and her school isn't even looking at that yet.

- This would effectively punish her for the failure of her school.

- The homeschooling option is still on the table.

What Val said. Emphatically. (Also what Ashley said.)

Look, I understand your mixed feelings and indignation. Truly. We've been "mitigating" the "education" that DD receives via school for quite some time now. I'm beyond irritated that they have the GALL to keep bothering her with things that merely interfere with the process... as if all that we're forced to endure here already weren't trouble ENOUGH. Grrr.



~another member, whose child apparently lost 2 points out of 70 on a final exam for using "x =" notation to describe an asymptote for a function defined as f(x) = in the problem itself... A final exam that had about 10% alignment with the high school dual enrollment course that she's had not one hour of actual LIVE instruction for over the past 16 weeks. A final exam upon which my child was not even allowed to ask whether or not "a" in part b of a question referred to "the resultant value from part a of this question" or to "a variable, a"-- oh, and she guessed wrong. -4 on THAT one, too, even though she demonstrated mastery of the concept/procedure asked for by this item, and in fact even INDICATED what she was using for "a" in the item. Believe me, what passes for "education" these days is playing pretty fast and loose with the very definition. My advice is the same as Val's-- when your gut is telling you that they've jumped the shark, DIY and listen to Jiminy Cricket-- let your conscience be your guide. It's up to you to supply the integrity if there's to be any. BTDT, no tee shirts awarded. LOL.

Can you talk to any other parents to find out if this is the case? DD's school works a year or more ahead in math, but around (cue evil music) HIGH-STAKES STATE TESTING TIME, they assess them all on grade-level stuff, then do review for a while. In other words, if the kids are rusty on the stuff they haven't seen in a while, they hammer them over the head with it till they are back up to speed. I live in a VERY VERY high-stakes state, though.

Are there any practice materials available online? (There are here. This was DD's HW around this time last year, which lo, she did protest mightily.) If she is strong in math and this is typical state test stuff, it shouldn't take her very long to recall the material. I do sometimes find that DD forget stuff (usually the metric system--she canNOT remember the metric system), but it really is a brief time investment before she is like, "Ohhh....yeah." And she is not all that gifted in math. I would describe as competent and strong but not math league material.

I don't know how LEAP compares to our exam, which I believe is known for being easy.

I can certainly sympathize with what you've been going through Dude, we've gone through the mass majority of what you're experiencing over the years. I've come to realize a few things in that process:

1. Right, wrong, or somewhere in between, no school public or private (without moving out of state likely) is going to provide all the needs of your gifted child. As parents, we need to expect to search out opportunities and supplement not only our GT child's education but social / emotional well being.

2. Being "right" often has little bearing on getting things done in public schools.

3. Be careful how much time you spend fighting the good fight of providing for gifted education in schools. Oh, certainly it's a noble cause and it's needed, however, you can spend a great deal of time attempting to get your child what they need from a school and by the time you make a little headway, the need has passed. It's still a worthy cause for other gifted students, however, for your own child often times it's just better to provide the solution by other means.

4. You're not alone, though often it feels that way. As evidenced by this forum, a lot of people go though such things with their gifted kids if not having experienced it themselves in school. For most, it gets somewhat better as they get older and we all seem to be alive, kicking, and reasonably well adjusted in spite of all the difficulties.

The whole lunch thing has been a pet peeve of mine for decades and it seems to be the norm. We're sending a really poor message and developing bad habits among children with that practice. As with many practices though, there are reasons, not necessarily satisfactory reasons to us as parents, however, few things are as simple as they appear without fully investigating the reasoning behind such things.

I obviously am not familiar with your state testing so feel free to disregard my post. However, I would first check to make sure that it is actually an issue of your DD forgeting all the fraction concepts from last school year. Sometimes these tests can be a bit strange and other times it may be an issue of failing to provide adequate explanation/procedures in support of the answer.

It is possible that there is a big change from the 3rd grade test to the 4th grade test. However, given the endless spiraling in most elementary curriculum, it seems odd for a gifted student to go from a high score in 3rd grade to a low score in 4th grade. My point is to make sure that it wasn't just an issue of a bad test day for your DD or some other idiosyncrasy with the test first.

If your DD did in fact forget all the fraction concepts, it should not take very long to give her a quick refresher so that she will score highly. It would create unncessary stress for her as well as damage her self-confidence if she scores poorly and the school challenges her placement and it turns out that the other GT students score highly on the test.

BTW, such testing problems don't stop later. Our eldest DS taking standardized tests didn't show any gains his Jr. & Sr. year of HS for math.....but the top of the standardized test was advanced algebra which he hadn't taken since 7th grade He didn't remember a good portion of it but had calc coming out his ears.

Agreed, Old Dad. Happened with DD on the PSAT, even-- she tried to way overthink the math.