Remember that at every school, and every large organization, there is always some level of 'the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing.'
We've found this too. When my dd12 was at the elementary my dd10 is currently attending, we took their steadfast rules as unbendable and were wrong. Dd12 (9 at the time) was a 4th grader. She came in with ITBS scores in the 99th percentile for everything except math (reading total, language total, core total, composite, science, social studies). Math on the ITBS was at the 92nd if I recall correctly. She also had composite IQ scores from the WISC that more than qualified her for a GT id and lots of other achievement scores in the same range. They told me that math placement would have to be delayed until they got MAPS scores so she was placed in the std 4th grade math class. They did, at least, put her in the GT reading class.
So, a month or more goes by and they finally take the MAPS tests. Dd comes out with a 99th percentile reading score and a 97th percentile math score. They tell me that, in order to subject accelerate, she has to be in the 98th percentile minimum on both ability (IQ or CogAT)
and achievement and that her achievement score just missed the cut. Although her scores are high enough for the in grade accelerated math class, that class is now too full at this point in the year so she's going to have to stay in the regular class. By the end of the year, she spent the whole year tutoring the other kids in math, I pulled her out once/week to work on things like suduko puzzles, and she really made no progress in math. She skipped a grade the next year and was placed in an accelerated 6th grade math class at age 9-10 and did just fine (she's had nothing lower than an A on her report cards throughout all of middle school).
Next time around, I knew that they were not giving me a complete picture. Dd10 is being subject accelerated in math as are about 16% of the other kids in her grade. I'm having a really hard time believing that this many kids are in the 98th percentile on ability and achievement despite being told that they have a lot of "really high" math kids. The school population isn't that skewed from a normal curve. Another approx 25% of the kids in her grade are in the accelerated in grade math class. My dd does have the requisite 98th percentile ability and achievement scores
sometimes but she's seriously erratic. Inconsistent performance isn't reason to do nothing for her, though, IMO.
