Ugh Kate, I feel your pain. Living in NY we too have no gifted mandates and actually are in a school district that has no gifted programming at all. My DS5 is also similar to yours in that he too tends to act out when he is bored. Thankfully that has helped the school attempt to accommodate for his needs better. Although our district does not have any official gifted program they have thankfully created his own program, suggested he skipped K and also differentiated for him. (He is definitely a level 5 on the Ruf scales and tested accordingly when we did testing for him as well). He still acts out at school some, they still have him do some of the other work, and he still gets frustrated at times. But he seems to like school and enjoys other students in his class. He continues to act goofy and is immature often (typically during work material that is way to easy for him). Anyhow I am happy with our current situation, even though it needs some modifications that I am waiting until January to bring up. They have actually been doing so well that I don't want to bring up any complaints quite yet. My big issue now is math and them needing to teach him things and give him an actual curriculum instead of random dittos and assignments.
Okay, now that I went on and on about myself and our situation here are a couple of ideas that could help. First off, that is quite confusing that you are getting the run around and no one knows what is up. it sounds like the school really doesn't communicate too well and doesn't know what to do. But I have to say on a positive note, it sounds like the school feels like he has a special education need (in the sense that he needs special services because he is advanced), but the special education department is not recognizing giftedness as a special education need. That is good in the sense the school sounds more on board. Our district never even went the special education route to do testing because I am certain we would have had the same response from our special education department.
I would see if you could schedule a meeting with the teacher, school counselor, school psychologist, and principal to discuss all of this. I would just say that you are confused because you are being told different things by different people and you wanted to meet together to come up with a plan and sort things out. As a parent you are entitled to a meeting. Then if they are saying they can't provide testing and gifted services, then I would just focus on meeting his needs....and not on an actual gifted program. It's important to focus on your DS as an individual and what his needs are if you feel the school program is not meeting his needs. His teacher may be willing to make some accommodations in the classroom as teachers are supposed to be "differentiating instruction". Some states have policies such as gifted services start in 4th grade...If that is the case I would say that is fine he doesn't have to be in the program until then, but how are they going to meet his needs until then. Is there any way they could just give him some unit assessments to see his capabilities, or even end of year testing? That would be really helpful for them to know what kind of work to give him. It is unfortunate because sometimes people feel that since it is Kindergarten it is no big deal when kids are ahead because that gives them plenty of time to learn social skills. Don't get me wrong, I am a school social worker and know the value of social skills....but while all children can benefit from social skills it would be nice if gifted children could also learn some things academically. If you are unable to get any answers through the principal and school you can always go the superintendent route.There is probably a policy or something in your district that says something about students being entitled to an "appropriate education" so if you are feeling it is not appropriate to him then that needs to be brought up. However you don't want to bring up stuff like that unless they are completely unwilling to do anything, and it doesn't sound like you are there yet.
Wow, I went on and on and was all over the place. Feel free to PM me if you want any more ideas...I could go on and on. Keep us updated.
