Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion High school wants to crush son's hopes and dreams

Well, maybe a bit of hyperbole there, but he's a rising sophomore, and wants to take 4 AP classes. He attends a public high school, and they're saying that's too many for a sophomore.

He's eminently qualified. We overcame resistance to his taking one AP course as a freshman, AP Calculus, and he got an A+. We won't get the official exam result before July, but he gets 5s on the mock exams. He's working with a tutor and moving beyond calculus. He excels at math competitions, and was one of 200 students out of 18,000 to receive a perfect score on an international Latin exam. I.e., he's exceptional all around.

This is a struggle we have had all along with the public schools, which we have supplemented for years with a tutor--partly out of the belief that private schools would be no better, and that targeted tutoring was more appropriate for his needs.

We thought that when he reached high school--with all its AP classes and the opportunity to take college courses locally--he'd be set. But they've already closed the door on college courses until he is a junior.

we want him to remain with his development peer group, and so does he. He gets along well with his classmates, starts for the lacrosse team, and plays in the band and jazz ensemble.

We have had experience with this kind of resistance from the school,and know how to advocate for him, but why don't they want to support the exceptional? What's the problem?

The bell curve goes both ways, and if he was at the other extreme of exceptionality, they'd be throwing services at him.

In our state, gifted children, by statute, have the right to an assessment, but no right to services and programs. That's a tease.

Fortunately, we have the savvy and resources to fight this battle--but I think about the fact that not everybody does.

It's not ideal, but can your son can take AP exams without being enrolled in his high school's AP courses, either taking an online AP course or studying independently?

Is there an early middle college school that is worth looking into? What about a part time homeschool charter?

At least they're not trying to crush his 'nads, too.

Following on from Bostonian's comment, EPGY and CTY offer AP courses in a formal online setting. They have instructors who help. Here's a listing of CTY courses.

If the school digs its heels in, can your son take a very light load at school and do the AP courses online?

We're not ready for high school yet, but I'll be very interested in how you ultimately work around this roadblock as it's something I expect we'll be facing when ds is older. Just curious - have you considered homeschool? In our area, home schooled kids can choose a public school where they are allowed to participate in extracurricular activities such as sports teams etc - that might be one way of giving your ds peer group interaction but let him fly academically. (I'm guessing that if you homeschool you could enroll him in community college or online courses).

Do you think you have any private school options that might work? Although our ds is younger, we've found that private school has worked much better than public school in many ways - most importantly for us the teachers and school staff are truly excited about seeing each individual child stretch to their full potential. It's possible you might be able to find a school that was eager to have your ds attend, and might offer flexibility as well as scholarship $.

I hope you'll let us know how everything works out -

polarbear

I understand and share your frustration over lack of services for gifted children, but I also know quite a few people who work with the children in our school district who have developmental challenges at the other end of the intellectual spectrum. FWIW, they don't have services just thrown at them (at least they don't in our district). Teaching resources and $ for support are limited all around, and most of the parents of students on *either* end of the spectrum here have to advocate (and fight) tremendously to get the needs of their children met. To be honest, at least here, it's tough to meet the needs even of the vast majority of kids who are right smack-dab in the middle of the bell curve.

polarbear

Clearly, you have no experience with lacrosse.

Are you asking why a bureaucracy is being bureaucratic?

Just keep pounding on them with a sledgehammer until they do what you want them to do.

The problem we found with light load classes is that for a kid like this it is like torture. I'm not talking about some of the art classes (which aren't necessarily 'light' in terms of time commitment), my older son had to take basic geometry his first year of high school. Sigh.

Advanced geometry wasn't any more challenging and the teacher was a dragon who gave him a D for doing things like having the wrong sized margin, failed him on a test because he couldn't remember the date but got the answers correct, writing the answers before the working (seriously, he got a zero on that paper) because he was working out the answers in his head and wrote it down then went back and explained it. The work was easy but incredibly time consuming -- at least an hour and a half every evening spent writing out the questions.

So the only other option was basic geometry. California apparently requires that you do it even if you are capable of higher math. He used to text me in class saying "I am getting stupider sitting here, my brain is dribbling out of my ears". It was a complete and utter waste of time. He got 107% (with EC) for the year and wasted more than an hour every evening doing homework. This year, rinse, lather and repeat. He had to do algebra II for the same reason this year.

His school didn't want him to do two sciences in one year this year or last year. They finally agreed to let him do basic chem as a second science but his counsellor said that there would be many of the same kids in the chem class as last year's math class so he opted to do AP Euro instead which they were happy for him to take....??? He couldn't do a second science, but was allowed to do AP euro which has a ton of material to get through.