Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Finally got the full report/scores

Well, we had the meeting last week and I've spent some time processing it. I learned that the gifted services include twice a (6 day) cycle pullouts where DS will get to do fun projects that are supposed to challenge him. Other than that the teacher will be differentiating in the classroom. I did ask what they would do for math since DS has pretty much mastered 2-5 math (the school is grades 2-5)... they said it was a good question but that they don't have an answer right now. They offered OT consult of 15 minutes per month (we upped it to 30) and a social skills pullout with peers with similar needs. They were also very pleasant and seemed quite willing to work with us. They said how much they enjoyed DS and how polite and kind he was during the testing. Oh, and they also wrote up a section on using keyboarding and dictation to show knowledge in subject areas due to his difficulty with planning and producing written work. Overall we were very happy with the meeting and with the district.

That said, I am concerned about differentiation within the classroom, especially if the general ed teacher is in charge of it. I can see it would be all too easy to not do enough, even if intentions are good. And I am very concerned about math instruction, not because I care a lot about math progress, but because DS really wants to push himself in math and very much hates practicing mastered skills. We did discuss him using Khan Academy at school to do what he wants during math class, or even just letting him do code.org during math and get any additional math instruction he wants at home. The fun projects they proposed for him to do over the course of the year in the gifted pull out seemed pretty easy for DS. There were only two and one of them was the zones of the ocean and what lives there, a topic he was into and exhausted a few years ago. I let them know he would rather do chemical bonding/electron shells or genetics and heritability or something related to space. They seem willing to consider our suggestions at least. Overall, I think maybe we could make it work?

OTOH, DS is so happy at his gifted school and wants to go again next year. Unfortunately as he is moving up to the next class and his 2 friends are not. I am concerned about him going into the school year with no friends in his actual class. He will see them at lunch and recess though. Obviously we don't much care for the cost of gifted school either. But lately I have been in heated arguments with them on two very important issues: Academic and behavioral.

First off, they want us to continue with his aide next year as a condition of his attendance and we can't get the insurance to pay for the aide unless he shows need. Which we can't show if he can't attend without the aide. He has an aide now, but all data shows he doesn't really need one. He is not engaging in behaviors that warrant insurance covering the service. Which is good. But also causing us a problem, obviously. His current authorization is up at the end of the school year and I have already been informed he will not qualify for the 1:1 service anymore. The school wants us to consider paying out of pocket for 1:1 support. This on top of tuition is so unreasonable for us that we just lolled at the idea.

Issue number 2 is academics. I have stated here many times that the school refuses to budge on writing requirements and that DS really struggles in this area. Just yesterday he came home upset and told me he was supposed to do a writing assignment and he couldn't even get started because it was too hard. I talked to him about the basics of a story and how to do an outline and gave him some ideas for how I would write a story using the given criteria. He asked me to open up google docs and he dictated to me a very well thought out story in under 5 minutes. It was actually quite clever and creative. I sent it to his teacher and she had him share it with the class today and his classmates really enjoyed it. I think this makes it obvious that he can do the written work with a little support, he just can't be creative and perform the motor skills at the same time, it's too much for him. He has nice handwriting, they do HWT, we practice functional writing at home (notes for dad, thank you notes, greeting cards, etc.) I just can't see why DS if forced to write out every worksheet answer at school in addition to being unable to show his composition talents because he has to physically write everything down. Grrr.

And item number 2 academically is that, while they won't give him a break on writing, they won't accelerate him as much as he wants in math! They have him doing 3rd grade Beast Academy (which he already completed over a year ago when we homeschooled grade K) and he just started (at my insistence) 4th grade in Khan Academy. They keep saying they base his placement on his MAP score, but his MAP score is 230, well above 3rd grade! They keep tellin me performance at home and at school are often different and that even if he is doing higher level stuff at home he is not able to transfer the skills to school. I didn't know math was a skill that was difficult to transfer? Oh, and that 160 on his WIAT probably means something too. I'm getting very frustrated as I'm being treated like a parent who doesn't understand the real science that they are basing his math placement off of. Ironically he gets a special math pullout where he has learned calculus basics, early algebra, higher level stuff with fractions, etc. But he doesn't go to that class every day and is stuck practicing math basics when doing math in the classroom. How can they teach him 7th grade stuff if one class, but say he is at 3rd grade in another? I'm hesitant to even have him take the spring MAP as it takes him days to get through it and they don't even seem to use the data properly anyway. Oh, and DS is complaining, otherwise I wouldn't care one bit. I don't like sending my kid to expensive private gifted school and still get complaints math and science are boring/too easy!

So obviously we have a difficult decision to make. Some aspects of his current school are wonderful and won't be replicated at public school. How this particular public school will handle him is also a complete unknown at this point. I just wanted to update anyone who was following our story and also reiterate how thankful I am for all of the helpful advice. I'd go crazy without this board and all of the help I have received over the past year!

Edit: I just remembered, I had asked about additional testing due to verbal discrepancy and the tester said that similarities was the first test she administered to him and she feels that he wasn't really on board with the testing at that point. She thinks there is a good chance that it is low for that reason. Obviously this answer gets the district out of doing any additional testing, but if this is the reason it is low there may not actually be that big of a discrepancy after all. I had asked if there was anything I could do with him at home to tap into the skill that is being measured on the test to see if he struggles with it, but she couldn't think of anything. Is there some online resource or subject workbook that would use these same skills (or just questions I could ask), specifically something that is by age so that I can see if DS is performing above agemates? I want to make it clear that I don't want to practice the skills for the purpose to increasing scores, just assess where he is at to see if he is weak in this stuff. For instance, I know that DS is terrible at find the difference pictures or what's wrong with this picture type challenges, but I don't force him to practice these skills so that he will excel at them in case they are ever on some test. It's all about finding out for sure if the low similarities score is accurate or not.