Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Need help with advocacy

Partial homeschooling doesn't mean the school will administer work for you. What's happened up here in Seattle at the elementary level that I'm aware of, is that the parent came in during math and worked with their child in the library. I'm not even sure if the school is obligated to let you use their facilities and they may require pickup and drop off as well during that time. If the class has variable math periods you have to adjust. As I said its kind of a pain in the neck and only really doable if you're home during the day.

It's all somewhat better in M.S. where there's a fixed period schedule but still somewhat logistically challenging.

I want to get this taken care of now, because he will move to intermediate school next year. I believe that is a huge opportunity as that school is adjacent to the middle school (7/8) and the HS (9-12).

I would never dare to send those words, as they are extremely confrontational.

I'll edit and see if I can still be firm with different word choice.

My children go to school approximately an hour from you, and we are running into the exact same thing. I am trying to walk the line of advocating for them while not ticking off the teachers who provide care for them all day. However I am finding more and more that the non-confrontational approach has never worked with teachers who have the same response you received. Best of luck! If you find something that works, I'd love to hear it!

You've received great advice above. I especially endorse spaghetti's advice to analyze the teacher's statement phrase by phrase. BTW, you may wish to remove the teacher's statement from your OP, as reading the statement could lead to identifying your child... followed by a host of teacher and school retaliation and ongoing future unpleasantness toward your child and family.

I agree that advocacy has become more difficult recently, with the enforcement of Common Core Standards... the core of which is equal outcomes for all students... necessitating the capping of growth of children at the top. Public school teachers are now evaluated based on equal outcomes in their classrooms, and schools are rated/ranked based upon how well they achieve equal outcomes.

Yet the basic approach to advocacy and meeting prep can still yield positive when adhered to. Caution: it is time-consuming. A few highlights from posts linked within the advocacy roundup:

1) If this is a public school, have you checked your State Laws?
The link here may be a good place to start your research. Look for anything which supports each child learning, gifted education, individualized placement and pacing, acceleration, etc. There is often something in the law which a parent can use to support their position. Document - document - document. Print relevant and applicable pages and place them in an advocacy ring binder under a tab called "State Laws". This will help you locate the information in the future and also help you notice if the laws have changed over time.

2) Have you checked your school policies?
The school policies are often posted online by your local school board. Look for similar phrases that you checked for in your State laws. Also check vision and mission statements. Print relevant and applicable pages and place them in an advocacy ring binder under a tab called "School Policies".

3) Have you cited research and articles by experts?
These may be a start:
- kids need appropriate challenge, academic/intellectual peers
- What kids don't learn
Print relevant and applicable research and expert articles, highlighting pertinent passages, and place them in an advocacy ring binder under a tab called "Research and Articles by Experts". Also print and keep the related posts if they help you to summarize and draw out the needed information.

4) Have you gathered and organized your child's assessment results, test scores, and interpretations? These may often directly influence placement and pacing.

5) SOME teachers may be interested to join the free Davidson Educator's Guild to learn more about education for gifted students.

When you have gathered all of the above, prepare for your meeting, remain calm/positive/logical/unemotional, repeat yourself as needed, take notes, ask clarifying questions, get commitment to a timeframe, followup afterwards.

Only you can gauge what you're comfortable expressing and how. But my read on Dude's comment and your original phrasing is that it's evidence based and output oriented. What you provide is a statement of your child's capabilities (as tested on the school's tools), his interim progress and the expected implications for testing level, his future needs, and your dissatisfaction with the status quo.

You will have to express discontent to get the ball rolling. Advocacy is required precisely because the existing solution is a poor fit. That can be done courteously, but be reassured that the words, "this is not an acceptable solution" are not rude or inflammatory.

Courage!

Update:

There was a district-level meeting last week, with an educational consultant doing the presentation. Ed consultant stated pretest - show mastery (maybe do last 3-4 problems in unit - move on, as the ideal way to keep these kids challenged.

This is contrary to the current application in-district for how to deal with HiCap kids, as evidenced by the email from the teacher. Teacher wants kids to do regular work first.

We have our regular parent-teacher conferences on Friday afternoon this week for both kids. Late last week we (DH and I together) authored an email to the district HiCap coordinator which has not been responded to, voicing our frustration with the status quo.

Specifically mentioned and emphasized:

- Implementation method with small group clusters isn't going to work if the teachers can opt out. Our grade opted-out of traveling students to other classrooms daily for small group work. If the district thinks this is the golden ticket, they should mandate it. It would be wise to survey the teachers on their application of the small group clusters, and do in-class observations.
- The district is providing teacher training - great. They offered 2 days in summer, 1 2-hr class on an in-service day, 1 2-hr class in the evening after school. The teachers can get "hours" for these classes, but the time is unpaid (except the in-service day). The training is not compulsory. We suggested some of the discomfort parents had with the current program is that we don't know if our teacher has been trained. If they want parents to feel more comfortable with a spread offense (kids in small clusters throughout the grades rather than a focused single-classroom), they need to pay the teachers for training, or make completion compulsory for teachers choosing to be "HiCap" teachers.
- Pace. The pace is all wrong if you want these kids to first complete the regular grade curriculum which they've shown mastery of before moving to the next thing.

At the end of the email, we did request a meeting. This was sent last Wednesday PM, so they would have received Thursday. As we've gotten no reply, my inclination is to email again to ensure they are not going to show up at our parent-teacher conference on Friday. We'd really like those conferences to include DS9 and DS7 (only attending their own session), and not have a high-stakes meeting about HiCap as the sole focus. We want to use that time to talk about the other parts of school - behavior, citizenship, specifics about chosen science curriculum, book clubs, etc. We want the kids there for these conferences so they hear what we hear.

Would you write another email this week? Should I wait until Wednesday as that gives them a week to respond?