but his school came up with other acceleration options because he did not want to leave his friends at this age. His principal (also the GT director) called me after they got his ACT results this year to let me know he qualified for a county wide program where he would take a bus 1 day a week(with HS kids) and finish all his HS english/literature in the next 2 years. ...I am curious about the DYS and what advantages it might provide. He took the explore last year (5th) and it looks like his score would have qualified. He took the ACT this year, but I don't see a qualifing score for 6th grade there under ACT and I believe he missed the composite for 7th by 1 point but has 2 qualifiying scores.
It's unfortunate that it isn't polite to talk about intelligence. If it were then perhaps there would be normal, calm, acceptable ways of explaining why your son has higher ACT scores than high schoolers. Notice how you have to say:
(and not dumb by any means)
We have this stunted vocabulary with just a few words: 'dumb' 'not-dumb' 'smart' 'wicked smart.' That just isn't enough shades of meaning for families with kids like ours. The closest we come to striking that balance between overly appologetic and bragging is 'DS is an unusal boy.' Since there is almost no way to not be seen as bragging, I think we tend to err on the overly appoligetic side.
Which brings me around to the benifits of DYS - basically social for both child and parents. It's hard to talk over some of these important (to us) questions with local parents. It's nice to hear: "Wow your school has done a great job meeting your kid's social and academic needs! Wow! It's great that
he qualified for a county wide program where he would take a bus 1 day a week(with HS kids) and finish all his HS english/literature in the next 2 years.
What a cool program - sounds like it would solve the famous 'rate' problem!
It's nice for your son to meet real, breathing kids who are his age and have similar interests.
BTW - that is probably the same argument I'd use to encourage the once a week program - how nice that there are other kids with similar scores to your DS and that he could hang out with them, and compete with them, every week! And if he doesn't like it, then he can always try something else. It takes trial and error sometimes.
Glad you found us!
Grinity
