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Thank you! Anything's possible. Today went very well. We met with the school psychologist about the MAP, and the kindergarten teacher as a pre-meeting for Friday's TAT meeting. I really continue to like both of them, and today almost wanted to hug them. The school psychologist was very kind, and volunteered up-front that the MAP was simply to make it easier to make proper recommendations for acceleration of some type, which was likely to be her recommendation, as our son was obviously more highly gifted than they'd realized before. She also made it sound like even if our son bombed the MAP for some reason, it wouldn't be a deal-killer at all.

The kindergarten teacher was incredibly nice. She started out unable to speak for a moment, with tears in her eyes, and said that after reading our tester's report she finally understood our son. She seemed quite upset at the possibility that she had contributed to any unhappiness for him this year. I told her I thought that given all of the difficulties of teaching our son, and the information she had to work with, I couldn't fault anything she'd said or done; that in retrospect I thought this first year in the school system had gone pretty well, keeping in mind that the kindergarten year is not all about academics anyway; and that I am very thankful for all the extra time she'd spent on him.

I feel a lot better.

Thanks very much for this. I was able to read it on my phone before the meeting with the school psychologist today, and got a promise that our son would be apart from the herd with special instructions not to rush him at all, and that he's to have all the time in the world. I have also prepared him to resist if someone tries to cut his time short.

I have a giddy feeling that this might be happening right now. Thank you very much.


Thank you! I think there's definitely that aspect to it, along with the need to place him in the school's curriculum. My wife thinks that the special ed. director is put out that the school did not identify him the first time, which might be part of it I guess. I can't fault the school for it.

ETA: Thanks, La Texican, flower, Grinity. Unfortunately it does not look like BIQ is in the cards this year for money reasons. The testing was reasonably priced but still a burden to us, especially figuring in hotel and travel expenses (we are on a reduced income lately). Plus, the puppy I promised will cost us extra in the short term, even if the wife's plan, to convince him to convert to two kittens, works. We plan to attend next year for sure.

Good. I really hope so. May reason prevail! Here here!

Just wanted to say congratulations on the scores!

Wow - I had tears in my eyes just reading this post. Those are the moments to savor in life, aren't they?
Hopefully the school psychologist was watching and storing the impressions as well so that your son can benefit in the future at this school.
It is true that once the school 'takes ownership' of the information, you can expect things to start really happening.

I feel better too!
See you and the family at BIQ week after next, yes?
Grinity

(Thanks very much, La Texican, flower, Grinity. We are barely scraping by right now and can't afford to go to BIQ, but definitely are planning on it next year. The puppy option has been converted to two kittens. Hopefully we can find free ones.)

Today's TAT meeting went pretty well. This time, there were nine or ten people in the room besides the wife and me, including (off the top of my head) the principal, vice principal, school psychologist, reading specialist, special ed. director, both school guidance counselors (the second one was new to the proceedings, but used to do GT coordination in the next town over), first-grade teacher, and K teacher.

The MAP results came back pretty decently, though based on the time taken he seems to have sped through both days of testing. I guess he satisfactorily finished the end of the second grade reading/writing curriculum and near the end of their third-grade math curriculum, according to their tests. Not a barn-burner, but good enough to nullify arguments that he's not ready for any acceleration, I suppose.

The plan they had come up with was:

1. For the next three weeks, do a trial period of afternoon first grade after his morning kindergarten class ends. This period will just be to make sure that he can adapt socially and emotionally to the skip, and let him start making new friends. The school will start by having him with a cluster group of what sounded like what they suspect may possibly be MG first graders (which is why they picked that particular classroom, to make that possible). This same cluster of first graders will eat lunches with him outside the cafeteria for the first week, then sit with him in the cafeteria after the first week. This same group will also do first-grade work with him, I guess.

2. Inside the first-grade classroom, they will work on lining up enrichment activities for him.

3. There will be a follow-up meeting at the end of the trial period to discuss how it went and make further recommendations.

4. If everything goes well, the principal will (I guess, since it's required by local school district rules) get permission from the superintendent for a skip to second grade at the end of this year.

5. There will be another meeting at the end of the school year to address any further issues or concerns, and finalize plans.

6. Next year, they will work to add in-class enrichment for him so he's not bored by the reading, math, science etc. available normally. His team of other gifties/high achievers will do projects with him, etc. to delve deeper into subjects; he may do book reports and the like; etc. They also mentioned more problem-solving for math.

We have some obvious questions (e.g. about whether he will be allowed to learn new math topics past the second-grade curriculum, how his need for a faster pace will be addressed, etc.). It was just so nice to hear the school acknowledge finally that he has special needs, especially keeping in mind that this is just the first step, that we didn't want to argue against their ideas, and actually went in with the idea of just being receptive if they offered a beginning along these lines (Grin, sorry, I know it's not so Machiavellian). They are doing their best, this is just the first rough draft, and they seem very open to change and discussion. We are also sending in our DYS application in the morning, and hopefully will be accepted before the next meeting after the trial period, thus might have extra expertise available to help.

One thing the principal said was startling. He said that he had the feeling that, similarly to their policy in the district against double retention, there would be no further possible skip until our son leaves the school (which goes up to 5th). He also said he had concerns about the school's ability to provide advanced enough materials in the last year or so (I didn't mention that that might be a good time to leave for the middle school, which seems like it might get around the no-double-skip rule). I'm unconcerned about such things right now; I just want to improve his school experience next year as much as possible, we can push for further changes as necessary, and we have established a beachhead.

I think that a lot of the school teachers and administrators here are coming from an egalitarian mode of thought about education, which I can appreciate for its basic good-heartedness while not agreeing totally on every point. I do cringe at the idea of other kids' lives being rearranged to help my kid, although I understand the reason for it and am highly grateful that the school cares enough to make such recommendations. I am hoping that out of all of this comes a greater awareness of the differences of gifted kids in my school, and I also hope that this may be the start of gifted services in my town. All of the people at the meeting, especially the person with GT experience who seems really on the ball and very passionate, seem to be focused on doing the right thing.

We're feeling really grateful to the school and everyone here (thank you!). We don't expect everything to go perfectly right away, but we finally feel like there's real hope.

That's great news! Yep, I think a skip brings in all kinds of staff to your meetings.

That is wonderful that they are planning to do something right away. I think the trial is a pretty good idea. It will give an idea if your DS will fit in with next year's group. One thing to remember, though, that even if your child gets paired with a kid who has similar MAP scores and even similar LOG, that's no guarantee that they'll get along. It's possible, of course! Hopefully, though, that will be an improvement to be in a group of kids working at a similar level. When my DS skipped into second, he was grouped for math with another kid with similar MAP scores, and it worked well for the academic piece, even though they were unlikely to ever be friends.

For now, since they're offering something that sounds pretty good and they're starting to see that your DS has special needs, I'd try to overlook some of the stuff about what you'll do in the future. Principals tend to want to do long-term planning, and with some of the HG+ kids, it really makes no sense to do anything than plan for what works in the short-term.

As for math, we had difficulties getting appropriate math for our kiddo after the skip. They seemed to think that skipping to 2nd would be enough. Some ideas: pretests, and if your kiddo tests out, then he can either join the 3rd grade class or do Aleks or EPGY online in the classroom.

Very good news that there's someone with GT experience. While you're waiting on your DYS application, you can let the school staff know that there is a free site for educators, with e-lists and lots of other information about teaching GT kids: http://www.davidsongifted.org/edguild/

I think all in all this is great news. Congratulations on your advocacy!

Thanks a lot! Yep, you're right. DS5 seems to fit in really well wherever he goes, but he's never been in a situation like this. A lot will depend on the other kids.


Thank you for the validation. I am feeling relieved that we will at least get some improvement. I have a feeling that he will still be doing work a bit below his level at first, but he hopefully won't feel so sad and insulted by it.


That's one of my main worries. I really don't think they are going to easily go for a pull-out, but of course I will bring it up as an option. Computer work in the classroom is more likely to be a go. They seem to consistently worry about putting him in a situation with noticeably much older kids.


Thank you. I will forward that one. Our wonderful tester put a lot of links in her report, including to ditd.org, but not that specific one.


Thanks a lot. We feel like we haven't done much advocacy yet. Before, we couldn't fault them for their position, and think the kindergarten teacher did her best according to the information she had; follow-up testing was the only thing we could think of to do. After those results came back, we didn't want to be disrespectful or come off even more as pushy parents, and wanted to see what they proposed, which has turned out to be pretty reasonable so far. We certainly can't take credit for anything. But thank you very much for all of your support.

I have clearly delineated my customary blather, so you can skip right past it to the questions. That box isn't around a quote, but was used to make the text hang together as a tight blathery unit.

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1. How do you think it's best to address level and pace problems for a kid who's completed grade requirements in math, where the school seems to prefer not to pull children out of the classroom? We may suggest computer work like EPGY in-classroom, which we will offer to pay for. We also want to bring up the idea of curriculum compacting-- but are afraid this will derail plans to have him work with other kids in the room.

2. We expect the level problems to only intensify over the summer, and his MAP scores to increase, especially if he feels better about taking the test next time. He really enjoys learning math, especially, our biggest area of concern over level. As a fall-back position, should we sink hooks in now that we expect the plan to be re-evaluated if he really blows the doors off next fall's MAP? (Is it realistic to expect them to really address options like subject pull-outs for the first time mid-fall?)

3. My wife has had the idea of asking him to work with a math specialist outside the classroom. I don't like the idea because they pretty obviously want to keep him in a classroom with kids, preferably his classroom (and so do we if possible), and because I don't see it as logistically workable. They have no math specialist here, though they have a reading one. My wife thinks we should ask for a teacher to do it in her spare time. Is that as strange as it sounds to me?

4. He spells at roughly a 4th-5th grade level right now. I can't think of anything to ask for on this except for him to be let out of spelling in-class. If that's done, what is the best option? Let him read quietly on something he chooses, work on his homework, or what? I really don't think he needs to learn spelling at all. He just picks it up, and if necessary he's shown that he can learn a year's worth of normal spelling lists in an hour or so (partly because he gets many of them right without practice, so that pace might slow down as he got to higher-level words where he might need to learn vocabulary). Would you ask for him to be let out of it, or for higher-level spelling, in-class or out? I view it as just so much do-work for him, and there's only so much time in the day for us to spend together, so I'd rather not have him loaded down with spelling homework.

5. How can we make a genuine offer of help, that will be seen as such? Obviously we would offer to pay for extra computer services, though we're already stretched a little thin. What else can we do? This school has no gifted program for us to help out on. We will offer to take part in normal volunteer opportunities for parents. Is there anything else?

6. Should we hold back on letting him learn math over the summer? Or would it be better to teach him wrong math, so that he has something to (un)learn next year? I'm trying to think outside of the box here, having recently watched "Kung Pow: Enter the Fist". My idea is that he could be the Wimp Lo of second-grade math, except it would be for his own emotional well-being and to help him integrate with his peers, not for a joke.