His classroom teacher just doesn't think that he shines. She didn't make any comment when she saw EXPLORE scores. Maybe it is not a strong score to her at all although it meets DYS requirement? Or most kids in the gifted school can meet DYS requirement? Anyway, based on her reaction, I am pretty sure that she won't write a recommendation letter if I ask. Who else can I ask for?
I wouldn't assume she won't recommend him or that she wouldn't write a great recommendation letter. I'm not sure there's a reason why she would have said anything about his EXPLORE scores? Do you know what the requirements are to get into the program he's in? Maybe he's in with a bunch of other DYS level kids, so she's used to seeing high EXPLORE scores. Maybe she just didn't see any reason to mention them. Maybe she hasn't even seen them... honestly most of the teachers my kids have had pay very little attention to test scores outside of the tests they personally give in class.
You can probably get an idea of what the level of giftedness of the students is in the gifted school by looking at the requirements for admission. OTOH, I don't know that that would predict a good recommendation or not from any one teacher.
I think that the worse thing that could happen is she'd write a horrid recommendation not recommending him, and Davidson would ask for another recommendation or something more in addition to her recommendation. Although we haven't run into it with Davidson, we've been in a similar situation with other programs where our kids' teachers wouldn't write a letter of recommendation, and the program administrators in those instances let us provide alternate recommendations. So in this case, I'd give the teacher the benefit of the doubt, and also give Davidson the benefit of the doubt - send her the form, get the application turned in, and see what happens!
polarbear
