Interestingly, I've just been skimming a book that has the premise that although there certainly are kids with special educational needs for higher challenge, that they are different enough from each other that what is needed so that the label, "Gifted Child" makes no sense in a school setting. The writer proposes that instead of 'gifted programs' what should be offered is a set of ways to analyze the individual needs and the flexibility to arrange resource to meet those needs. It sounds like your principal is doing that and it is a wonderful example.
I still think that pull out pull out gifted programs have their place in the 'set of ways to analyze and accommodate' but I do believe that their are usually going to be more than one way to get the job of accommodation done workably.
Yippee for the School!
Grinity
Yippee for the school and the principal, indeed! I have to say that his 5th grade teacher is wonderful, too!
Grinity, I'm wondering what book it is that you're skimming. What you said about the book seems to be what our principal is trying to do.
I pass along a book about school-wide cluster grouping to our principal yesterday. We'll see what comes out of it...
In any case, we had PT conference yesterday, and his teacher thought that if the needed accommodation can be made, our son's current friends would be a better match for him academically and socially. So we're crossing our fingers!
