I am sorry you are going through this. I have a similar problem also. Hope you don't mind. I feel like venting also.
DS7 is supposedly in a charter school that uses GATE curriculum to teach all kids. However, we got a non GATE trained teacher this year for first grade. She came from public school and the only differentiation she did was to pull non-english speaking kids out for english language instructions.
She got a "little" nervous when she found out there are a number of gifted kids in the 10 students class. She doesn't seem to like gifted kids because she seems to think differentiation is a burden to her. One time when she got upset because some rumors were floating around, she threatened to shut all the parents out, stop all differentiation (she called that favors) and pull DS back to 1st grade for math. To me, this is showing she doesn't like gifted kids at all.
She differentiates in language arts. I think she did an OK job.
Many parents has mentioned to her that she needs to differentiate in math also, but she has ignored us. My son is doing math a couple grades above and she had no idea until I showed her his work. So she sent him up to second grade.
There was a mismatch in the math schedule and the second grade teacher was going on leave. DS is currently back down to 1st grade for math.
I wanted ds to continue 2nd grade math, so I brought this up with the administration. The philosophy of the school is not to accelerate, but to challenge kids at their grade level. First grade teacher was not supposed to send ds to second grade without checking with the head teacher first. Since ds is back down to 1st grade for math, it's impossible to send him back up to 2nd grade again.
First grade teacher is very upset with me, because she is now working with the head teacher to learn how to differentiate in math. She needed training and I brought her training. Why is she upset with me?
So DS has been doing even and odd numbers, counting money, and matching correct amount of money to cards. He is doing multiplication, division, fraction and algebra at home.
I feel like I am done fighting.
