I met with the school psychologist at our public school today as part of the kindergarten screening. The only thing I had on the document they had asked us to fill out was dd4.5's natural facility with numbers and need for an environment that would allow her to learn at her rate. Here are some things she said.
1. Most kids that enter our school are advanced.
2. We don't have any gifted programs.
3. She is on the younger side so it is not like I can put her with first grader for math. When I mentioned that she has been in multi age classrooms for two years now and used to being around older kids, she said," yeah, but math doesn't happen at the same time for both grades. So scheduling is not easy.
4. We follow state standards and curriculum so a kid needs to go through all of the curriculum for the grade even if they know some of it.
5. If she learns advanced material now, what will she do in higher grades? ( I thought to myself, "yes lady, knowledge is such a finite thing, my child might run out of things to learn. Seriously?) instead I just said that I cannot control the rate at which she learns.
6. My kid was advanced in math. We did not do anything and now she is a happy xx( a career that does not require math skills)
7. Your kid might be good at math facts but we want them to use math to solve problems. I told her that in fact, my kid was better at using math to solve problems than memorizing math facts. i gave her one example of a problem dd solved in her head and she finally said," wow, that is really advanced! We have had one kid like that 20 years ago. Okay, let me talk to the principal and see what I can do."
So, do you think they will really work with us or will they be so set in their mentality that their goal will be to prove their point. Because one thing she said is that if dd is given second grade math, no one is going to read the problems to her. So she would have to read on her own. Now dd is reading but is by no means a fluent reader. I think that would be a recipe for disaster. Any suggestions? Things I should be prepared for? Questions I should ask? Or should I just say it is not going to work and keep her at her current private school.
