Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy the ole bait and switch

Sort of. Our situation has been with the school saying they don`t consider reports from privately hired psychologist (no matter how qualified) to be valid because they`re not "medical doctors" and yet the school district has an in-house psychologist who does assessments (which presumably they consider valid). In our case it's all about funding and a paper trail but it's equally as exasperating.

I wonder if this is because they have had experience with privately hired psychologists coming to the conclusion that they should be doing something differently. So then they have their in-house psychologist (who of course has no conflict of interest say they're doing everything they should and (fill in the blank--it's your fault for not parenting correctly; your kid has x, y, and/or z disorder and shouldn't be at that school, etc.). But it doesn't make any sense to say they accept the opinion of one and not the other psychologist without a credible reason...such as differing qualifications, for example, in which case I would suspect the private one is more likely to 'win.' Surely there is someone somewhere in this bureaucracy who realizes this is a transparent effort to avoid providing reasonable accommodations. Or there should be. I think maybe schools shouldn't be allowed to rely on in-house psychologists, since there seems to be a pattern of misuse, or at least enough individual anecdotes to make me believe that there is.

I wonder if some schools don't take outside testing because they believe that paying for testing gets the parents the results they want.

OK, we've had a lot of progress in the past few days. I once read on this website somewhere, that the teachers who "get it" the most are not necessarily the ones trained in gifted education (of which there are zero at my son's school). It's the ones with gifted children themselves. So, I recalled a conversation that I had a few months ago with someone on staff, who has a HG child. I sought her help (she carries a lot of weight at the school) and she is on it! She has helped me a great deal and she has become my advocate! We have another meeting scheduled and she will be with me. So, we are still pressing forward.

Awesome!! Good luck!

Maybe a little off-topic, but here is an interesting criticism of the newly-released DSM-5, including (about half-way through) a discussion of how for at least some disorders there appears to be significant chance of getting different diagnoses from different psych people:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323716304578481222760113886.html

So I don't know what the answer is to which psych to believe, except the one that is best for your kid. But it does seem to be an area of great uncertainty, even among experts.

I think it can go both ways--some schools use their psych as a rubber stamp for just what they want to do, but some parents find psychs who will say whatever (all those high schoolers suddenly diagnosed with whatever gets them extended testing time, etc). Mostly I figure just try to help the kids as much as possible, without the politics! Sigh.

Eastcoast, that is GREAT!

Lame principal.

This is the whole "You're the Only One Who's Complaining, therefore It's Not a Complaint" syndrome. . . which shuts down communications between schools and parents.

Nip the first one in the bud, and you've killed having to deal with that whole rotten tree!

That's fantastic. You'll have a school employee speaking edu-speak on your child's behalf. Just make sure you two are on the same page before the meeting as to your thoughts and goals. Bring evidence (like returned work from the 4th grade class).

We've shared the same experience. The teachers who see themselves or their own children in my children have been great blessings. They have been our most effective source of advocacy.

More progress. We are now back to our original plan to accelerate to 5th grade math next year while DS is in 2nd grade. Our advocate teacher did a fantastic job. The principal and DS current teacher are still unsupportive - but they are going to do it anyway. It would be nice if they were supportive but they are not ready to be that way yet. So we will take what we can get.

I don't like being seen as the pushy parent but I guess that's who we are going to have to be to get results.