Hi all,
I have a 4th grader and a 5th grader, both with gifted IEPs in their public school. Up until this year, I was the gifted teacher in their elementary school. We all loved it - they both spent half their day in my class, and we completed creative and collaborative projects with other gifted classes in the district, developed inquiry investigations for district-wide science conferences, and entered statewide writing contests. I coordinated most of this, along with other elementary gifted teachers in the district.
This year, I was asked to move to a middle school - this happens occasionally due to gifted numbers, availability of certified staff, etc. I was very distraught about the move, not only because I loved my job, but because I would no longer have my own kids in class part of the day.
The situation would be a lot easier to take, except for the fact that the gifted teacher who took my place is AWFUL. My girls say she sits on her computer or her phone most of the day while the kids have to sit quietly and fill out endless vocab and long division worksheets. I never see anything come home, and the special events from last year have ceased to exist without me to coordinate them. Other parents have already complained, but the principal in the building is not strong and they've gotten nowhere. It's getting harder and harder to get the girls out of bed in the morning, and they both say they hate school. I have considered pulling them out of gifted services, but haven't for two reasons:
1. The gifted community in our district is fairly small, and it would be politically difficult for me to do so without possible ramifications (the current teacher is related to someone high up in the district)
2. My kids are both performing 2-4 grade levels above in math/LA, and putting them back into regular ed. might even be worse than what they're experiencing now - especially with our district's mandated curriculum, which I feel is dumbed down.
My thought at this point is just to get my 5th grader through the year. She is very intense - the type that needs her mind engaged - so some days I feel like we're hanging on by a thread, but I've told her she needs to make the best of it for one more semester. My 4th grader, on the other hand, is another story. I'm not sure she can do another year like this one.
So....I'm trying to think outside the box. She is very independent, and I think she'd be a great candidate for homeschooling. The problem, obviously, is that I work during the day. Would I be crazy to enroll her in some online classes, say CTY or the like, along with giving her instruction in the late afternoon/evening and assigning her work to do during the day? I guess it would amount to something more along the lines of "unschooling," but she can't possibly learn less than what she's getting this year.
One caveat: If we go through with this, it would only be one year. I currently work in a competitive program for advanced middle schoolers, so the girls will likely join me once they reach middle school.
Thanks for reading - and I'd really appreciate thoughts from anyone who's either solved a similar problem or started homeschooling successfully.
