Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Gifted child, but no program to support them ?

I wish I did I'm just another parent trying to do the best I can for my kids. If I've learned anything from this process, it's that every kid and every school situation are different. And none of us will ever know if we made the best choices. Still, in the case of our son, it seemed clear that doing nothing was riskier than trying the gradeskip. So that's what we're doing for the time being. If things go bad, my plan B is to homeschool him.


It's a good sign that the teacher is already attempting to differentiate spelling and reading. Perhaps your daughter could do 20 mins. of EPGY at home instead of the usual math homework. That wouldn't require much effort on the part of the teacher. Or perhaps she could go to another grade for math. Is your school open to the idea of subject acceleration?

I'm not sure if they are receptive - I've been trying to figure out the best and least offensive way to approach things with the school/teacher. I think your suggestion regarding math is sound advice.

Thanks again.

Something like EPGY also gives you access to above-grade work. It's a lot easier to show the school what a child is capable of if they're given access to harder work than it is if they only ever get to see material that's at-grade level. In the latter case, I think you tend to get a lot more nit-picky nonsense like a friend of mine got: the teacher came to the meeting with a (very small) pile containing every assignment he'd had in the previous months that contained any error--very few, in this child's case, and mostly of the "misplaced comma" sort of mistakes. The teacher's argument seemed to be "See, he's not perfect! Therefore he's not GT." <eye roll> (As the mom correctly noted, "If that's all the mistakes he'd made, and they were that insignificant, I think her pile supports my case better than hers!") :p

A child who has access to and excels at work that's above-grade level can sidestep a lot of this sort of nonsense.

As a matter of fact, I do have a crystal ball of sorts, sitting on my bookshelf - Its called the 'Iowa Acceleration Scale Manual.' For about 40$ you can order on from somewhere on the Internet, and read up on how to use a system to convert feelings into probabilities.

Meanwhile - sign DD up for CTY's talent search, to get an idea of where she stands in relation to other gifted kids.

Also ask your school for a copy of your DD's raw scores in each of the subtests - then send them in a private message to Dottie for some insight. (Hi Dottie, hope you don't mind....)

I'm still confused about your school's gifted thing - they identify the top 5% of all kids, and provide services for the top 5% of the gifted group? ((confused look))

Try Aleks.com for online Math - it's fairly cheap and very fun. Or order 'Decarte's Cove' from JHU - more expensive but still fun.

Smiles,
Grinity

Grin, certain states require schools to ID GT kids--all of them!--according to specific set of rules. Say, a 130 IQ, for example. But then the school may not have enough money to serve appropriately all of those kids according to the rules. (These are good rules, BTW, since they are working to minimize "drive-by GT education," where a kid would get a handful of worksheets once a month and be deemed "served." <eye roll>)

The solution? Don't serve all the GT kids. If you can only serve 50 kids, you serve the 50 who scored highest. #51 is out of luck, even though the school agrees the kid is GT and could use the services.

It all comes down to $$$.

Is that any clearer? I'm not sure I did very well there...

Yes, exactly. Even though the kid who scored 134 is GT, they have to draw the line somewhere because of $ and not having enough of the GT teacher's time to go around. So they raise the bar.

I makes it really stink for those GT kids who don't make it over that higher bar. But hopefully the services that the kids who ARE receiving services get is better quality.

This is also why our schools raised the age of service from 3rd grade to 4th grade this year. The state mandates X-number of minutes per week that a GT child being served must receive to be counted. They couldn't make that number and serve the 3rd graders, too, so they cut services to 3rd graders entirely so as to be in compliance with the law.

It's certainly not a perfect system as it stands, but the GT advocate who spoke to our POGS group last month was 100% behind the changes in our state. Most people in the know are considering the changes a step in the right direction, albeit with many more steps to go...

Late to the party, but I agree first get all the WISC scores. Then try to get as much info as you can about state educational law concerning gifted education and district policies.

Probably best if you can find sources other than your child's teacher/school principal, etc.

Try online searches, all of our district policies are online. I've had luck with the state reps office to get information about how the district defines the state board of ed policy.

And I have heard that some policies state that all kids at such and such level get served, but in reality there are just not enough staff. I've heard that students are numerically ranked and the top certain number are admitted. I've also heard about parents whose kids met those posted "theoretical" number then contacted the district offices to inquire about why their child had not been admitted and guess what........child was then admitted.

It pays to be informed. Are there any programs for parents of kids in the gifted programs? If so, many of them have BTDT and can probably offer a lot in the way of how things work.

If it's misplaced, it's a good rant. I'll cheer you on!

Advocate by definition......PUSHY!

If you don't fight, no one else will. In the case of these kids, the squeaky wheel does get the oil!