Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Should SSA mean DS no longer gets G/T pullouts?

I just have a question about how things are in your schools, or if you have any input or ideas?

So DS 9yo 4th gr. has qualified for both G/T in both Language Arts and Math this year. He was also SSA'd to 5th for Math. During his SSA trial period the district policy states there are no G/T services during the trial period. That means that he won't be pulled out of class for Math G/T services 2x per week. He will still go for Language Arts.

This is really a bummer because DS especially loves this time.

My question is, after the trial period (assuming things go well) would you expect those G/T pullouts to resume? (this is not explicitly addressed in the written acceleration policy apart from saying "not during trial period") If so, would DS be pulled with his G/T 5th grade peers (as he is working on same Math) or with his age appropriate 4th grade G/Tmath peers (working a year behind)?

My understanding is that during the pullout time they typically work on enrichment of the current curriculum they do not necessarily move ahead...

SSA would not effectively replace his G/T Math services, would it??
I just don't know what the norms are??

Another question, How long would you say is a typical SSA trial period?
Currently, the school has Dec 1st as end date!!

Thanks

It makes sense that they should do this in stages. After all, we're talking about four tiers:

4th grade math
4th grade G/T math
5th grade math
5th grade G/T math

And it might be overwhelming to jump two levels all at once.

However, I think they're missing something important here, which is that if the third tier still is insufficient, keeping your boy out of the last one until December 1 is going to put him pretty far behind the rest of the class. If I were in your shoes, I'd monitor for a bit, and be ready to call a meeting in the next couple weeks if it's apparent that the work is still well beneath him.

Thanks, we certainly intend on seeing how DS is adjusting and addressing it much sooner than Dec 1 if necessary.

The school knows that we want him going to those G/T pullouts.

What level of proficiency or percentile in class would justify the school resuming pullouts? They do not specify... If we knew what other schools would do or what any norms in this area were that would be helpful.

DS will also be taking further end of year tests to determine ceiling, so that may illuminate matters more as well.

Fair point about nebulous goals. To be honest, I don't the school has thought it out beyond, "Let's see how it goes."

And in re-reading the OP, I think I've made a mistake, because my DD's math pull-out was a daily experience, and that was her math class. If your DS is only being pulled out twice a week, that's not a different math class, and therefore deserving of its own tier. That sounds like enrichment.

I don't know of any good reason why a qualified child couldn't have both. In most schools the enrichment class is multi-grade anyway - is this the case?

This is my concern and why I want to be prepared with info about what norms are in other schools



Correct, the school told me that the pullout 2x/week is only enrichment of the current curriculum. Which is why I wondered where he would go since his current curriculum is 5th grade. So he would go with 5th gr G/T kids right?


My feeling is that if DS has been ID'd as G/T that is more about his ability and pace of learning not about prior knowledge, so to stick him in a NT higher math class and expect that to take care of everything somewhat short-sighted.

In this case, the enrichment is done by grade.

Then your solution seems to be the obvious one - if he's GT and he's in an accelerated math class, then it makes perfect sense that he should receive enrichment at that grade level.

I often find that the play-dumb email helps here. "I don't get it. DS is in 5th grade math, and he's identified as gifted. Can you please explain to me why he shouldn't receive enrichment at the 5th grade level?"

With that said, kids often enjoy enrichment activities, and it makes the school week more bearable, but I don't often find that they're learning critical skills in there (I'd love to hear examples of the opposite). Given that they're already open to fixing this in a couple of months, I wouldn't necessarily make this my hill to die on. It might be worth saving some of your political capital to spend on other things later.

He should go with the 5th grade kids. I have seen a number of other posts over the years though where an acceleraration was taken by the school to mean that no further services were required.

Puffin Thanks,

Although I am not so happy to hear that! We will try to avoid that avenue

Here's the argument for why you need both:

Acceleration and enrichment take care of two different needs. Acceleration gets the kid to a level that is a better match. BUT: it doesn't fix depth, complexity, or pacing. Enrichment allows teaching to those needs, ideally with peers who can engage in discussion and analysis at the right level of complexity.

In our district, GT is not a pull-out so when DS SSA in 2nd grade, he went into the 3rd grade GT math, which compacted 3rd and 4th grade math. In fact, among the extensive paperwork generated, it was clearly stated that a student may not SSA unless it was into the next level GT class. This makes sense since GT is one grade level above (4th grade covers 5th grade plus some challenges, 5th grade covers 6th grade plus some challenges, etc.) and if that was all the student needed then the standard GT class would work. Since your school separates acceleration from enrichment, there is no reason why your DS should not have access to both after a reasonable trial period of say a few weeks, to give the school confidence that he can go into the higher level pull-out.

Well, so far so good. From what I have been able to pull out of DS and teachers, he is adjusting seamlessly to his 5th-grade math. With some tweaking, his schedule works out... okay. (he does miss the last 15 minutes (1.5 hr. math class) every day to make it to his lunch. He has been grouped with two other GT kids in the class and appears to continue to outperform (as was expected).

We have our pt conf. next week and I think I will push for him to resume pullout enrichment (w/5th gr kids). I can see no reason why we would wait until Dec to figure this out.

School finally figured out how they will test him above grade to find his ceiling. First step will be enVision 6th grade end of year test to see how he does. Incremental progress I guess...

I thought this initially, but apparently, my DS, who grade accelerated in late elementary and did enrichment or extension pull-out 2-3x weekly in the new grade level, ended up accelerating an additional year in math, then still found pre-algebra wasn't much new, so his GT teacher was evidently giving the kids exposure to advanced material. Whether and how much it sticks is up to the kid, I'm sure.

This is kind of what I am hoping can happen. I know DS is above a 5th-grade level and hopefully, during enrichment, he will have an opportunity to show that and be appropriately challenged.

I am happy to say that DS has been able to go with the 5th-grade students for enrichment since about mid-October. We requested to end the trial period and resume enrichment after parent-teacher conferences left no doubt the SSA was the right move. DS was very excited. He has also been put in a smaller group of high performing kids (3 or 4) in his math class, which helps. I am starting to sense though, that the class is moving too slowly for him and we will need to go through this all over again... ugh!