We have been homeschooling for 5 years now - we attempted for years to see if DS10 could possibly have access to the gifted program as a homeschooler and our county refused until a few weeks ago (we honestly stopped trying probably 2 years ago and hadn't given it much thought lately until the phone call we got). He has been getting Speech services as a homeschool student for several years and someone at the state level noticed that he had gifted written on his IEP (I submitted private testing years ago trying to get him access to the program where we were told he more than qualified for the program but he wasn't allowed access to it)and so they contacted me wanting to know why he was not in the gifted program...they informed us that they were now going to allow him access to the program.
The only catch is they called it an "all or nothing IEP"...meaning that if for any reason this gifted class does not work out and we pull him from the class, then he loses his Speech services and his whole IEP.
Our zoned school's gifted program consists of a 30 minutes once a day class at the beginning of the school day. So every day, we drive in for 30 minutes. I was very skeptical at first wondering what the heck are they going to accomplish in 30 minutes once a day. DS10 was just excited to be able to possibly meet other kids that understood him so I was willing to give it a try.
We are now into week 4 of the program and I am sitting here wondering if what has been going on in his class is the "norm" for gifted pull-outs. The teacher has 24 kids in the class from grades K-6. In the 4 weeks he has been in class - they have read 2 plays aloud (both plays only had roles for 5-6 kids so the kids who did not have a part just sat there and read along - my son informed me that yesterday one child spoke up and said he was tired of the plays and that this was the 32nd play they had read since the beginning of the school year), they did one "cool" activity that my son enjoyed where they used index cards to measure the distance between the planets, they shared their New Year's resolutions aloud, and now they have spent 4 days researching for a written report they all must do on a President. My son does not have a student ID so he is not allowed access to the school's internet so while the other students go online to research, my son sits and reads a book the teacher found for him on his President choice. They plan on spending at least the next week to two weeks researching and then writing out their reports. Is this really the norm as to what occurs in a gifted pull out? I was SO disappointed and my son is totally bored out of his mind and is now dreading having to go in every morning. These are all things they do in a regular classroom...the only higher order thinking activity they did was the planet activity. It just seems like the teacher is trying to come up with busy work...how are these activities supposed to meet the needs of gifted students? I am now frustrated because if we pull him he will lose his Speech therapy which he honestly needs. Can anyone share if this is the same kind of stuff that goes on in your child's gifted pull out program? We were really hoping that they were going to do some neat group interactions that would really allow our son to think and get creative.
