Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion New and curious

I've been looking through the forums and really appreciate all the great information that is out here.
I do have a couple questions that I didn't find - although if I looked long enough, I probably would have!

My DS11 is in 6th grade and our school is actually trying very hard to work with the high achieving kids which from what I've seen is not the norm, so I feel very fortunate . We discussed partial and/or full acceleration last year, but his school came up with other acceleration options because he did not want to leave his friends at this age. His principal (also the GT director) called me after they got his ACT results this year to let me know he qualified for a county wide program where he would take a bus 1 day a week(with HS kids) and finish all his HS english/literature in the next 2 years. If we didn't want to go that route, she would get him into high school classes in 7th grade for his english/literature. His math was lower, but he'll continue to be accelerated in that, just not to the same extent.

I am curious about the DYS and what advantages it might provide. He took the explore last year (5th) and it looks like his score would have qualified. He took the ACT this year, but I don't see a qualifing score for 6th grade there under ACT and I believe he missed the composite for 7th by 1 point but has 2 qualifiying scores.

My other issue that I'm not sure if anyone else has experienced is we have friends whose high schoolers (and not dumb by any means) also took the ACT this year and scored lower than my son. He tries not to tell people what his actual scores were, just that he did well because he doesn't like to brag, but sometimes they just keep asking until he finally tells them. They all know he is very smart and we try to explain that you just can't compare against his scores, but we also don't want him to feel he needs to hide it.

It's unfortunate that it isn't polite to talk about intelligence. If it were then perhaps there would be normal, calm, acceptable ways of explaining why your son has higher ACT scores than high schoolers. Notice how you have to say: We have this stunted vocabulary with just a few words: 'dumb' 'not-dumb' 'smart' 'wicked smart.' That just isn't enough shades of meaning for families with kids like ours. The closest we come to striking that balance between overly appologetic and bragging is 'DS is an unusal boy.' Since there is almost no way to not be seen as bragging, I think we tend to err on the overly appoligetic side.

Which brings me around to the benifits of DYS - basically social for both child and parents. It's hard to talk over some of these important (to us) questions with local parents. It's nice to hear: "Wow your school has done a great job meeting your kid's social and academic needs! Wow! It's great that What a cool program - sounds like it would solve the famous 'rate' problem!

It's nice for your son to meet real, breathing kids who are his age and have similar interests.

BTW - that is probably the same argument I'd use to encourage the once a week program - how nice that there are other kids with similar scores to your DS and that he could hang out with them, and compete with them, every week! And if he doesn't like it, then he can always try something else. It takes trial and error sometimes.

Glad you found us!
Grinity