Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Elementary School Need help from 1st and 2nd grade parents

My friend and I are dismayed by the lack of rigor in our second-graders' curriculum and are planning to go to the school board meeting on Feb 26th to complain about it. I showed my daughter's 2nd MP portfolio to friends with first graders, and they felt it was very similar to what their first graders were doing, so my friend and I decided to gather some ammunition.

This is not particularly a gifted kid question. We don't have a gifted program (although I've been promised one by the new principal. He claims that differentiation is happening in the classroom to fulfill the letter of the law in NJ for providing gifted services, but it's not.) However, this question is actually just about what a regular, somewhat rigorous, 2nd grade curriculum should look like.

This is where I need help:

Part 1: Can you tell me about your child's curriculum and what kind of work is done?

• What grade is it?
• What region of the United States are you in? (For argument's sake, I think US responses would be most helpful)
• What kind completed work comes home?
• What is your sense of the curriculum--what your child does all day--in terms of math, lang. arts, science, social studies, etc.?
• How much of the work seems to be worksheets?
• Are there differentiated reading or math groups for kids working at different levels?
• What kind of writing are they doing? (For what subjects? Sentences? Paragraphs? Fill in the blanks? Sentence starters, where the teacher provides the first part of the sentence? Essays? Reports? Creative writing?)

Part 2: Can you provide me with some samples? If you have samples you'd be willing to share, PM me, and we can figure out how you can take a picture and email them to me. I would remove your child's name, but would share your region or district.

Thank you so much for helping out!

What does rigor mean?

Stacey, my children are older so we don't have anything current to share... and fwiw I think it would be very tough to throw out samples of what other children are doing in other places and make any types of true comparisons. BUT - I'm wondering, have you compared what is being taught in your child's classroom to your school district's curriculum goals and your state's curriculum goals for each grade? That information is all available online for our school district and state. I was also wondering, are the friends you showed your child's portfolio to parents of students in your school district or another district?

polarbear

Stacey,

My kids are 8 (4th grade) and 11 (6th grade) and 2nd grade seems a long time ago. But here's the link to 2nd grade curriculum at Texas school.

https://www.roundrockisd.org/index.aspx?page=2567

I had my shares of discontent with the curriculum. But across the board, 1st and 2nd grade are close and a lot of kids cruise through it. 3rd grade is a jump from 2nd grade. Creative writing usually starts in 3rd grade.

I know it is frustrating when your kid can multiply and do fraction, the homework they have to do is double digit addition and subtraction.

When you are advocating, it is best not tell them what other school districts are doing. (they will become defensive). Look at the district policy about subject acceleration or grade skipping. And take SCAT from CTY (John Hopkins). They do take 2nd graders. When you are armed with great IQ scores and 2 grade above level tests like SCAT, the administrators are more receptive. At least it works for me. (probably easier since you are also an educator) My DD got to do Khan academy and do it at her own pace while her classmates doing 3 digits subtraction.

Good luck!

Sadly, there is no published curriculum. There are no district standards. There is no district policy on subject and grade acceleration, although the principal is philosophically opposed to it. (He also claims subject acceleration doesn't work with the schedule.)

The state does have standards, including the national core curriculum, so that's a good idea to check into that.

I never thought about them getting defensive when being compared to another district, but that's a good point. I'll definitely keep that in mind.

Would a SCAT test be more effective than a WJ-C and WJ-III? Because admin pretty much ignored that. It's a small school, so the principal and super are one and the same. I've talked to him, I've talked to the teacher (2 years in a row). The only recourse is the school board at this point, and they seem to think that all is OK because he's got "create a gifted program" on his hot to-do list.

That Texas curriculum, by the way, is pretty awesome. My daughter is getting nothing like that.

Stacey,

If you already had WJ-C and WJ-III, you get more comprehensive analysis. But it sounds like the admininstrator in your DD school is very ignorant and he may not understand FSIQ or other subsets score means.

SCAT or EXPLORE are talent search test and you get the comparison against students at least 2 grades above level. That opens a lot of doors, not to mention very cheap alternative to full IQ test. SCAT from CTY starts at 2nd grade, NUMATS (EXPLORE)from Northwestern starts at 3rd grade and TIP (EXPLORE) from Duke starts at 4th grade. EXPLORE test compare against 8th graders and more compelling for advocacy (IMO).

Generally, many northeast states (VA, MA, PA, NJ) have better curriculum than TX. But each school districts can have their curriculum.

Unfortunately some districts "GET IT" but many don't. I hate advocating constantly. We moved to a different district (last summer) that has Gifted curriculum half a day everyday in elementary school. They have TAG classes on most subjects in middle and high school. Basically, the 4th grader will be doing 5th grade in Math and Language Arts and if you are in 6th grade and you will be doing 7th and 8th grade with your peers.

I think having peer group is very important too. Believing that I made the right choice made my daily 130 miles commute easier.

You find this through the state, not the district. The curriculum standards are here: http://www.nj.gov/education/aps/cccs/

A few things you'll find directs you back to the district. A quick google search found this: http://www.state.nj.us/education/aps/cccs/g_and_t_req.htm

You would get your school's board approved gifted and talented program description from the superintendent, not the school board. Often, this is best done by asking (nicely! sweetly!) for the policy from an administrative assistant in the superintendent's office.

Edit: Scheduling *is* hard for subject accelerations. Often times the hour that a given topic is taught has to differ between grade levels because of the needs of intervention services. If there's one math IS, then that person has to do 2nd grade math intervention at a different hour as 3rd grade math intervention, fixing those two math hours for any classrooms sending students to intervention.

There are some creative solutions to this, like putting specials into the mix, having a child go to math during the 2nd grade specials hour, and then doing specials with a different grade level during the 2nd grade math hour.

This stuff is always easiest to schedule for a new school year, so if you seriously want to pursue a subject acceleration, your efforts might be best spent getting all ducks in a row now so that it can happen next year.

Thanks Geofizz. I actually already knew that--I'm a public school teacher myself. The core standards aren't a curriculum--they're standards, and there's a range of application to them. I also know about the G&T policy. I brought it up at a school board meeting a year ago and it's on the principal's "to do" list. He insists the letter of the law is being met with differentiation.

Still curious as to what you see as rigorous; like what sort of content identifies that. As in, if someone asked me if my son's education is rigorous I would give them a blank look.

My first grader is in a magnet program and is getting G&T support; would their curriculum be of use to your analysis?

Sorry, Zen Scanner! I meant to come back and answer your question when I wasn't on a smartphone and then I forgot... (I hate typing on my iphone.)

Anyway, rigorous, I suppose I would say means challenging and engaging; in higher grade levels, it's definitely short-hand for true college-preparatory. It's one of those words that we toss around in education a lot, and we kind of know what we're talking about, but then ask us to define it and we go blank.

I think that I've decided, based on conversations here and on mothering.com, as well as from conversations with my own director of curriculum (district where I work), that the curriculum is probably what can be expected in my area, and that I am looking at a bad fit for my kid, not necessarily a terrible curriculum overall.