Hang in there! It is really too bad that we are all fighting this battle alone in our own little school districts. Sigh! I wish there was a way that we could flood each other's school with a letter writing campaign... a form of testimonial to say that "My child is a highly gifted child whose behavior and progress in school dramatically improved after a grade acceleration!" We could stuff your Assistant Principle's mail box to the brim!
Oh yeah, I could help!!!
My son has benefited though from the scattered others. I literally have a story or situation to meet with every objection my school throws at me.
Maybe I spent too much time working for a dotcom in the late 90's, but this smells like an enormous opportunity for someone to create highly useful website.
Are any of our web/software programming savvy young adult gifties out there up for the challenge? Build it, and they will come ...
I am envisioning a searchable, quotable, quantifiable database of experiences. more than just a list of anecdotes or eye-rollers (ridculous things I heard today...) (No offense to Hoagies. It is an awesome site and an awesome resource.) But I think you are on to something here eBeth and Dottie... How can we aggregate our experiences into an easily accessible format?
I am thinking it would have to be anonymous, like this site. But built in a way so that individual incidents of setbacks and successes could be compiled into a nationwide reference tool.
example: you could go to a site and fill in some brief (hopefully non-identifiable info)
J.Smith: 10 yrs old. (or childqqR752)
school: public middle
tests completed: WISC... received FISQ of XXX on a good test day
grade level: full grade skip in X grade
accomodations: meeting student needs for the moment
teacher: supportive of child's needs.
etc.
Then once enough data was compiled other folks could go back and reference it. Like pull a report that says: In the last 6 months there were 578 reported instances of children who walked out of the classroom when the book being read was X years behind their current reading level. Or: In the last X months, 72 parents reported behavior issues improving after their child was accelerated at least one grade level. ETC.
OK, I am starting to ramble here but does anyone see where I am going with this?
Anyone interested in building it? After all Hoagies, craiglist, and many other great sites were once a just labor of love of a single person.
