Met with her teacher again today. I must say it didn't go any better than the last meeting. First we talked a lot about math curriculum. The teacher said the children were offered enrichment worksheets to accompany their math. When I asked to see the math enrichment worksheets. The problems were draw a diagram so you can explain how 9 x 30 = 270. The only difference between this and the real math book was having to draw the diagram which just sounded like a lot of busy work to me. The lady from our district advised that all gifted classes should be following the PEP calendar for math. The teacher was not familiar with what this was and neither were we so that didn't go anywhere either.
While she seemed to imply that she did do some small simple assessments, no mention of having kids move ahead to the point in the curriculum where they are at was available either.
Many times the teacher emphasized her having 22 kids in the class and not being able to do anymore than she is doing. She talked about this being a public school and that is all that is possible to be done for a child. It would be different it was a smaller private school. Even when she mentioned the little enriching she would provide, which would not be differentiated for each child, but rather the whole class would be enriched in the same way at the same time, that would not take place until after the standardized testing was completed in the spring.
The director from the district gifted department offered to come with us to the school and help set up an EP for DD. However, I wonder if the teacher is not really on board to implement it, what it will accomplish. I'm feeling really discouraged with the school being able to keep her challenged and learning. Sometimes I wonder if I should just cave in and let her only learn whatever it is they want to teach her at the time they want to teach her.
