Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy The ball is in my hands, time to get it rolling.

I'm really sorry you had this experience. I too had about the same meeting for my son,with a veteran teacher who basically is clueless about what doing nothing can mean to a young child. It's really sad on so many levels.
I wish I had advice for you,but have nothing more to offer than to say I understand how you feel and hope something changes soon.

In class differentiation for DD8 in K-2 was a frustrating path for me too. That's why, before starting K, her younger sister did outside testing and I asked for subject acceleration backed up with the test results. It's worked much better!

I am glad and sad I am not alone. I had to give myself a good talking to last night, I was feeling terrible about approaching the teacher and dh chided me for not giving the teacher an outline of what we wanted to discuss before we got there. I had to tell him that we should be able to discuss our daughters school progress with her at any time without a list of specific topics and I had to tell myself that we are doing the best we can for our child. That I should not feel bad or embarrassed by this teachers response to our concerns. I was feeling like an overbearing mother but honestly I don't think I was, I think this teacher would have just been happier if we were to just leave her (the teacher) alone to do any kind of job she wants to do while teaching our daughter.
Thankfully we still have dd enrolled in Montessori for kindergarten in the mornings, so we know that she is still actively learning for the first half of the day. We'll have to give public school a little more time and then have another meeting to see what else can be done. We wanted dd in public school kindergarten so that she would start school with the rest of her graduating class, so the school could see her and get to know her before sending her to 1st grade, and so that she would be actively engaged in learning all day long. (Last year with half day preschool she was dissatisfied, she wanted more.)
I promised myself that I am not going to let this teacher make me feel bad, make me feel overbearing, or be condescending to our family again.

Re-posting some good advice I read on this board:

"The trick is to partition the whole past relationship with any school folk who are giving you a hard time and focus-focus-focus on the needs of the child and possible solutions. It's an odd trick, but I know you'll get the hang of it. You may not get the accommodations you are looking for, but at least your entire mind won't go crazy. Just that little walled off part that you can vent about here for the next 20 years. Hopefully somethings will have changed by then."
-Grinity

It's true. We won't be sitting across the table from these teachers in 20 years eating Thanksgiving dinner together and we won't be trying to answer to the teachers about how much effort we put into making sure their needs were met.

Aw DayT,
I'm sorry you got that sort of response, but at least you know what you are dealing with.
Please visit the Gifted school soon and figure out if you think it's going to actually be a good fit....because why wait for something that isn't a good fit.

Good for you for not allowing the teacher to rent space in your head. It's a big world and there is room for all kinds of opinions - there is no need to share!

I was looking back at Inky's quote of me, and it brought back so many memories - bad ones! I had forgotten quite how bad it was at times. It used to take me 2 weeks to post after one of 'those' sorts of meetings - so you are ahead of me!!!!

And things do (often) get better! My DS is really really happy and doing really well at his current school and is enjoying friends and extracurriculars. Heaven!

Love and More Love,
Grinity

I decided to take a look into the teachers credentials. She got her permanent certificate on 9/24/1969. She's almost 70! No wonder she's set in her ways!
What to do...what to do...

We had the official parent/teacher conference last night. I am glad to report that the teacher has now officially drank the same Kool Aid we have and completely agrees with us. Such a change from last month!
I guess she has had more time to assess dd and to think about what to do for her to make sure she is receiving her FAFE. DD will now have enrichment with the reading specialist and will be paired up with an upper elementary buddy a few times a week for other types of enrichment.
It was a great meeting and it is nice to know that the teacher is in our corner. The accommodations might not be perfect but they are trying and dd seems happy and says she's happy so we'll go with that.

Thanks for sharing the good news! Glad to hear things have changed for the better with the teacher and they're trying to better meet your daughter's needs.

So glad this happened. Sometimes I think the teachers need time to process too. Cat