Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy How to deal with school . Placement issue

Hello
It is a first time a post here.
The issue is old.
My DS10 in 5th grade. Every year his tests results a pretty good. Last year his scores in ERB ( CTP) suburban were 97-99.
Nevertheless he was not accepted to school enrichment program. Explanation - his writing skills is not up to the level of the enrichment program, even the writing is nowehere to be described as a requirement for the program.
He passed CTY SCAT test in December in language ( result with honor) and in math (it is close to Honor level even I did not explained to him the time limit 22 min and he thought he had extra time). We did not do any preprartion to the test , it was very spontaneos.
This year he took a writing class in CTY where his instructor rates his writing skills very high.
This year his ERB suburban score in reading 81 ( national 95) . Do not ask me why ?? His verbal reasoning suburban 99. As a result ( low reading score) he will not have a chance to be accepteded to honor's programs for middle school , that upsets him tremendously. The issue, he knows that most kids in current enrichment program had much lower test scores than him last year and were accepted .
He does not do any additional study besides school program. And I know for years , that he was missing a lot not being at his level at school.
Is is possible to request CTY help for recomendation and bring DS SCAT tests results to school to advocate his placement.
Would it work ?
Any additional testing ?
How to deal with school?
I know where the issue is . We had a probelm with one of his teachers in the past .Also I went to Board of Education , when he was not placed in enrichment program unfairly. It did not bring any success , but more damage , I guess.
Besides, most kids in enrichment are of the parents who basically live at school . I work full time and cannot afford it .
WHAT To do ? I cannot move to a diffent town, cannot afford private school.

Hi NJgirl,

I definitely understand what you're saying about the enrichment program. Do you actually live in NJ, if so you live in a state that appears to have mandated (though not funded) gifted education.

http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/state_policy_new_jersey_10032.aspx

I guess my first idea would be to find out what the state laws are for your state, and if there is a state gifted program. It seems like at this point you might want to explore seeking some outside advice or advocacy. Is your son a DYS or would you consider that as an option?

To get into the enrichment program at the elementary school where my 3rd grader goes, you have to satisfy 3 items of a list of 6. One of the 6 is their screening test scores, but it's not a requirement. For the classroom grades item in that list of 6, you only have to be in the top 90% of your class. Same with state assessments, only 90% is required of the state testing. (And they appear to spend the majority of the time from January until the spring tests going over the material and practice testing.) And my DD's teacher keeps marking her spelling test items wrong when they are right (it's a constant back-and-forth) or when DD copies the spelling words wrong in her book the teacher marks them as correct all week, then since DD has practiced them wrong all week she gets them wrong on the test. When this started happening we have to watch everything likes hawks to keep DD on track. Spelling is the only thing that comes home regularly, no math or anything else, so we can't really watch anything else. DD said her teacher looked at her state assessments and the teacher made remarks to me about how DD did, so I'm a little worried about that...my understanding is that the tests are supposed to go right into an envelope and sent to the state.

Weird things like that.

For the school's enrichment program screening test, they only test some of the kids that are recommended. Recommendations can come from teachers, parents, peers, and community members. As you can imagine all of this leaves much room for politics. Gifted education is not mandated where I live, however all children are supposed to be screened for giftedness but they leave it up to the individual districts as to how they do this. In our district they leave it up to teachers to "screen" by observation.

In my DD's class of 21, there are 5 kids in the pull-out enrichment. The enrichment kids are basically all the same group...their parents run all the groups at school, they're all in the same scouts groups, sports teams, dancing...

I know at least one of classmates is in the lowest reading and spelling groups, and one other is not hitting basic targets for 3rd grade. I have seen the enrichment program kids and what they do when I volunteer at school and I can tell you my DD is not missing anything. HOWEVER, and it's also what you're concerned about, those kids get tracked to the higher level classes in middle school. I don't know what the heck the middle school teachers do with some of these kids when they get there. I guess the helicopter parenting has to continue up there also.

So I can definitely get your concern. I guess if I were you, and you've tried all those things before and have that background with the school, I'd try to get some outside help from people that know your state laws and who are experienced working with gifted kids.

(p.s. if anyone's curious about how I know about the other kids in class and their levels, it's because people talk about the details of their kids...alot...too much. But I guess they are very confident in their abilities to keep their child on a good track despite all this. I would not want to be a teacher with a great deal of integrity in this school, I think the parental power is quite overwhelming.)

master of none:
Thanks for your reply .
I have not presented my son's SCAT result to school . Was not sure if it will have positive or negative outcome. His language teacher is aware that my son is taking class at CTY.
My son does not have issues with his writing , as I explained , his essays are praised very high by his instructor at CTY and his language teacher likes his writing as well.
ERB test is not state test. His state tests all returned with max 300 points. The school does not take state tests into account for the placement. Is seemed mostly favoritism and politics that play role. Most kids who got into enrichment last year have test results worse than my son( kids share their grades , so we know about it). My son GPA is between 95-100.

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His scores was pretty consistent .Possibly suburban rating was more strict this year. Most kids got significantly lower grades in reading part this year. His score is 81 , but some kids from enrichment program have 60-70.
You are right about the quality of the program, I realized that it is not worth to fight, but it was too late. Besides it , my son was very upset , he felt deprived that he did not get into it last year.
It was difficult to explain , why this happened .
The program did not accept new kids , even the rules explained that it will. Now , it seemed , that the same process exists for the placement to honor's program in middle school, which is worth to get into.

He is not bilingual , even you can easily guess:) , that my native language is not english.

What other test you can suggest to try ?

Looks pretty similar , by the way, what you described about your school. Same kids in the same group . Even the weirdest thing ... Lately the teacher from the enrichment was kind of angry with the kids in the group. She said during the class that many kids in the program do not belong to it .She just did not want to deal with new kids , who are not familiar with her requirements and teaching style , so she did not accept anyone new to the program. My son's friend told him about it.
What you can do , when such people running the show...

Hi again NJgirl,
You don't have to post it here, but I'd really urge you to find out about the gifted laws in your state (to the left on this board is the "how gifted is your state?" link.

But with so much loosy-goosy stuff going on, it probably indicates the gifted ed isn't mandated. At least I'd hope that's the case, but alot of schools do whatever they want, it seems...

If gifted ed is mandated, you can match up your history and what they're doing to actual laws are and see how they come out. Sometimes the state has mandates but leave the details to the individual districts (like the screening issue).

The enrichment program at our school does cause some bad feelings in that when the kids are pulled out twice a week, they do miss the classroom instruction and for the ones that are not up to speed, it makes the classroom teacher's job harder and is it really fair to ask them to tailor to those kids? I guess they see it as going with the territory for this school (the salaries are higher than other districts, so I guess it goes with tailoring more to parents?)

The enrichment program here seems mostly a "badge of honor" and a bragging right, even the enrichment kids in my daughter's classroom have told her she's not smart because if she was, she'd be in enrichment because the smart kids are chosen for that.

Tricky trying to explain those comments to my daughter. It's so much about adult politics.

The ticket to starting out on a higher footing in middle school is more serious though.

Anyway I like to find out as much info as I can, and it might be the case that the gifted association can help you. Or maybe not.

Do you know how the placement decisions are made for middle school honors courses? For instance, in our district (not in NJ) the kids who are in the gifted program in elementary school are automatically allowed to choose honors courses but children who haven't been identified are let in based on standardized testing that is done at the end of elementary school (not state testing).

The place to start is to know exactly what the policy (in writing) for admission into the gifted program in elementary and the honors classes in middle school. Granted, what is in writing isn't necessarily what is followed in practice, but in order to advocate in a difficult situation you always need to know what is stated in the actual policy and you can *always* use that in advocating whether or not it's used by the school routinely in practice.

The next thing that would probably be helpful is if you had any kind of ability testing for your child, and I'm guessing you would need to have that done privately. That would give you another strong data point if his ability was clearly high.

I also don't know anything about NJ, but I know in our state that high scores state testing is *not* a strong measure to use in advocating simply because the state testing is actually testing a rather low ability level compared to what high achieving kids are capable of.

You've also mentioned that English is your second language - do you sometimes feel that puts you at a disadvantage in talking to the school staff when advocating? If so, (and this is true for all parents, not just in the situation of potential language challenges) - try to do as much of your advocating as you can in writing. We're in a slightly different position in that we were advocating for a ds who was 2e but we found it extremely helpful to be able to ask for advice in how to communicate with the school from a parent's advocate. If there is anyway you could get advice from a local advocate who knows your local schools it might be extremely helpful.

Last thought - I am sure it's tremendously discouraging to see children included in the enrichment program who seem to be there because their parents politicked to get them into it. The flip side to that is - those parents had a voice. They most likely squeaked and squalked loudly and perhaps made a stink, but however unfair it might be... it means that a parent who advocates does stand a chance of getting their kid into the program... and if you squeak and squalk loudly enough *and* have data to back up your request, you stand a good chance (hopefully) of getting your child into the program too.

polarbear

Thank you for your reply.
I know the policy for enrichment and honor classes. I do know that it is mandated in state, but school could define their own rules for entrance into the program.
There is always a lot of room for improvisation, for subjective desision. For example, one year , even DS all required scores in tests were very high , he was not accepted to enrichment. I contacted school. Expalnation was , his language score is a little bit lower than they "Feel!" he needs for this program. For sure , many kids with much lower language score that his were in the program. There is a lot of favoritism that plays role in the school and I feel totally lost.
Yoe are absoluteley correct since English is not my native language it is difficult express myself when I'm talking espessialy , when I'm nervous.
What tests you would recommend ?

The tests that school uses for the placement are standardized achivement tests. State tests, as I explained earlier are not taken into account for the placement.
For the honor' program additional to the tests will be a writing task.
If I'll test my son additionaly , how to convince school administation to consider the results of these tests?

UNfortunately, what I feel, my squeaks are doing opposite. I feel that I cannot help my son and he is losing his confidence and desire to learn. He is tooo little to know all ugliness of this word. He does not understand , why it happened , why kids with much lower abilities year after year in the enrichment program while his results without any additional programs are higher,.