Great idea Val!
I have been using lots of strategies learned here. I have been very successful in that I got accommodations but not so successful in that it isn't really enough. But using the wisdom of those who BTDT, this will satisfy for now so it's ok - worry about in two years, later!
The number 1 thing that has worked for me is respect - there are some real PITA parents at DS's gifted school. So when approaching this I made sure to make it clear that I respected their expertise. And I have ILs who are teachers and nothing burns them more than parents who treat them like they don't know what they are doing. Granted often they don't have expertise in gifted kids or work outside the level they usual do, but if you go in assuming you need to "educate" them it's going to go badly. We are fortunate in that at a gifted school, the teachers do a lot of development in giftedness.
2. Recognize when there are things you cannot argue them out of. My DS's principal was adamant that he not go to the middle school for learning, even though in certain subjects he might have surpassed them. This wasn't about learning this was about big kids and little kids and since we cannot accelerate, it wouldn't have been practical anyway. We ended up finding another accommodation which is working ok. But if I had been pushing for something that was never going to happen everyone was going to be unhappy. This isn't to say don't ask for acceleration just be on the look out for things that just WILL not happen. Now if that's exactly what you need to happen then disregard this!
3. Get involved in the school. Being there, having people know your name is a good thing to do before you have to ask for something
4. Know your DC's shortcomings. Be honest about behavior. Make sure you know what your kid is actually doing before going over the head of the teacher.
5. Avoid the B word at all costs. Boredom can rub people the wrong way.
6. Try to find out what the other kids are doing - can be hard sometimes but very helpful to determine if DC is really needing something not provided, or if the whole class or prt of the class needs it, or DC is just not interested. And as the parent of a DS, I will generalize and say that tuning out can be because of being too easy and repetitive but can also be due to lack of interest due to regular old lack of interest.
Just some of my thoughts. We are in a very good situation though, it's a gifted school, and they recognize that DS is quite different from his classmates. But they handle it well and since we cannot homeschool this is working. For Now
DeHe
