Well, our IEP meeting is over. The roller coaster ride continues. While I think that many in the meeting particularly the School Psychiatrist are truly interested in help in our son to succeed. Others seem to have a very dated approach to what will help him. Much of the attitude in the meeting had a sense of your son is doing well in school. His grades are good and his test scores excellent. Why do you want to change anything?
The words from both the Gifted coordinator and the Emotional support teacher pretty much sum up the results of the meeting. �It is good for high potential children to learn how to deal with boredom since they will experience it all of their life.� Further bells of doom included the words that the school district has a zero acceleration policy. Any gifted services must be enrichment only. The only enrichment that he will be offered is a 3 hour pull-out every seventh school day. The thrust of it will be a handwritten research project. Not a great fit for dysgraphic 8 year old. The other hands on activities in the pull-out include logic puzzles and creative writing. They looked like copied pages from the Mindware books that DS was doing 3 years ago.
There will be no formal enrichment in the classroom. If he finishes his regular seat work, he may be provided with more work. I could not clarification from any of them what would be offered in the more work. Will it be more of the same regular class room assignments or would it be different in some manner. I guess I will have to wait and see what he starts to bring home.
As far as accomodations, DS has made alot of progress this year. Cursive writing seems to work better for him than printing so his skill is marginally at grade level. As a result, he will not be allowed any keyboarding. No online programming will be considered since that falls under the classification of Acceleration. He will be given some in school incentive to keep his desk neater and to stand quietly in lines...
The only positive note is that our son is happy to be able to go to the pull-out. His first will be on Thursday. At this point, unless I am willing to forgo my income and home school him, I think I am at a stopping point. DS has agreed to some additional after schooling projects so I�ll try to make those as interesting and diverse as possible for him. DH wants to take a wait and see approach to see how things go. Meanwhile, I remain concerned that DS is learning that it�s OK to coast and that he doesn�t have to put effort into school. Socially, I think the school has a lot of benefits. DS is an extrovert and loves having lots of children of all ages around. He also seems to be getting along well with his school mates no matter the age.
