Sadly, the tone at the top is rotten, and the result is trickle-down of a misguided ideology that seeks to engineer equality of outcome, because feelings of belonging are more important than things like being educated.
Yes, you've hit a nerve and I totally agree with the above, except it's the feelings of belonging of all children except the gifted ones that are important. Our board is adjacent to yours, if I recall correctly, and DD, in second year of kindergarten, has no peers - NONE. She only recently said she found a friend at school who would listen to what she has to say. There is no one to talk with about the things she is interested in and so she spends most of her time conforming to the games other children want to play or the topics they want to talk about. Why aren't her interests as valued as the other children's? She can belong only if she goes along with what others want, otherwise she has to entertain herself. This is the antithesis of fostering a sense of belonging.
In terms of academics, again, she is a second class citizen. Her teacher told me that the stretch goal in reading for children entering grade one is level 6 and that they usually get about %40 of the class to that level. DD is at minimum level 20 and so she gets no instruction in reading. Sure, they've subscribed to Raz Kids and DD can work at her own pace but I've had to teach her all of the background info around answering comprehension questions myself.
How can her teacher focus on working with DD when she needs to get 60 percent of the class up to speed and is busy putting out fires all day? DD is constantly called on to model behaviour for other children who are having difficulties or help teach/explain a topic they are learning about in the class. Her teacher is always telling me what a big help DD is. That's nice, I want her to be helpful and kind, but it is also not DD's job to teach or help with classroom management. She's at school to learn and work on improving her weaker skills.
Of course they aren't seeing a difference in outcomes between the gifted and non gifted students. They are holding the gifted kids back and not teaching them anything and then giving them all the same test. Other kids are told they should strive to achieve new academic heights and my DD is being told, indirectly, to hold herself back and be kind, don't get too far ahead because others will feel bad.
All of this and we actually have a teacher who gets that DD is ahead and needs more but just physically can't because she's got her hands full including everyone.
Sorry for the personal rant. It just makes me so mad. We are working on getting an IEP. I do wish you the best of luck with getting your school up and running. It is sorely needed.
