Schools can be so different.

When ODS was in first grade, the administration and teacher fought us all year for speaking up regarding his needs for some form of acceleration. (More than halfway through the year, they relented and let him do second grade math from the workbook with little to no instruction.) Horrible year.

Changed schools after that year. He now has split acceleration (half day in base year, half two years up).

Fast forward to YDS, whose first grade teacher suggested, after watching him and thinking about some behavior challenges he had in the classroom, that he move on now to second grade! Worked it out with the second grade teacher and the principal. What a gem! We approved it and he is thrilled beyond belief.

Wanted to share a positive school story! We are still in a bit of disbelief.

Thank you for sharing. This is great news! I am currently advocating for my DS7 to have a similar arrangement as your YDS. The in-class differentiation did not work out well for him in first grade (no instructions and only seeing math specialist ones a week at the most). It's good to see a positive story and it gives me some hope (although schools are so different).

Good luck to you! He did start attending the next class in reading up towards the end of the school year last year (so his K year). We've had good success with single subject acceleration -- it just turned into full grade rather quickly. Fingers crossed for you.

It is always great news to see a school acknowledge and be responsive to a child's educational needs.

It seems the acceleration was done by gut feel... for future, if any discussion of pros/cons is desired in weighing different factors for/against acceleration, the Iowa Acceleration Scale (IAS) is available as a tool to aid in gathering and weighing evidence.

There was a lot more than gut feel involved, I'd say the gut feel was what led the teacher to contemplate where he needed to be placed.

We are familiar with the IAS and while it was not "officially" used, the criteria within it were certainly considered in this decision. He has also had a recent professional assessment that supports this decision (although we had elected to wait and see, rather than push for anything at the start of the year). We have no concerns that something was missed. It may not turn out to be perfect, but nothing ever does.

Excellent! Thanks for sharing. This may be of great help to other parents considering acceleration.

One thing that really impresses us about this teacher is that she was open to considering what was causing the "behavior issues" she saw (which were not responding to typical measures); realized that his having mastered the materials (or mastering it exceptionally quickly) was something to further consider and then investigated options.

Wonderful to hear! It is great when things fall into place, when the schools work with someone to make sure needs are more easily met. I have learned so much from this forum on how to advocate properly. Thank you for sharing!