Anyone have experience with this? I'm about to send an informal query to someone (who happens to be on a listserv I frequent) who is an administrator at an alternative school program. I want to know if they would consider an "acceleration" by accepting a kid who would be 4.5 at the start of the school year. Even though I'm asking informally, I want to put my best foot forward.
Anyone been down this road? Are there buzz words or catch phrases to use? Arguments or ways of presenting the situation that are particularly effective? Or can anyone point me to a previous discussion here on this board?
Cheers,
Meg
I would probably use the term early-admittance, but I'm not sure that a precise term matters too much.
What you will want to reference is how your DD feels about learning, what types of things she is interested in, what her academic level seems to you to be, and anything that might show that she is ready to be in a K classroom. The biggest obtacle you're likely to be hit with is the argument that she might not be socailly ready for K despite her academic abilities. You know whether this rings true or not. If you've been exposed to K children (or older) or have visited a K classroom (or higher) and can refer to how your DD seems to you to compare, talk about that. They will want specific examples.
Do you have any ability or achievement testing for your DD?
Good luck!
Sounds pretty straightforward; you are first and foremost gathering information on their policy and procedures. Do they ever accept children that young for k? And if so, what process do you need to go through, what information do they need, who is the best person to get in touch with, etc.?
If the answer to the first question is no... then I guess I'd dig deeper at that point.
Good luck!
Agreed, I'd call it "early admittance" or something similar. OP, I think you should be able to find a K program that'll consider early admittance by the fall 2012 timeframe, unless you're in a quite rural area. And if your listserv acquaintance indicates that there are special requirements for early admittance at her program, like testing, asking this far in advance also gives plenty of time to line up required documentation. Please check back and let us know how it went.
We did this 2 years ago. I called the school to request "early entrance to K". Because my son was so young, he was too young for the school's early entrance policy. (You can probably read your school's policy online or request a copy.) Because of this, he fell into the "whole grade acceleration" policy.
The school was very negative (bordering on rude) in my interactions with them. Because of their policy, he needed an IQ test, achievement test, and meeting of the "acceleration team". (The school provided all testing free of charge.) He couldn't be denied the testing because of the school's own policies, but he was the youngest child to ever go through it so they were very resistant. After the testing, their tune really changed, and they were so excited about him. The whole process took some time, so I would contact the school ASAP.
We called the local public and private schools (basically anonymously) to gather information and got pretty much shut down by the public schools and one of the private schools. "No, we do not do that, goodbye."
Another parent told us that what we would need to do if we wanted to push harder on the public schools is to request a very vague meeting in person with the principal (she uses, "We're trying to decide where to move") and bring it up face-to-face after they've already invested some time in it.
We're doing private for the next year or two, but we're keeping that in the back of our mind in case we need it.
I did a bit of research and found that, in my state, policy on early admission to K is decided at the district level. The school we're interested in is a tiny alternative school that is its own district (the principle is the superintendant). So I wrote a query asking about their policy. I guess we just wait and see.
We are struggling with this now.
Mr W (3y4m) has exceeded the ability of his Montessori primary program to teach him. In February he maxed out their assessment tests and was equivalent to the kids who graduate from their K program.
We are looking for an accelerated, structured K/1st grade situation so he can work on reading and math.
We called the local public and private schools (basically anonymously) to gather information and got pretty much shut down by the public schools and one of the private schools. "No, we do not do that, goodbye."
Same here but we did not call, but took an indirect route.
We went and did the tour thing and talked to the principal and or director. Listened to them first. Then we looked carefully at the curriculum and the classes and at the kids. We did not talk about Mr W during this time.
Then, at the end, if we thought this might work, we talked objectively about where Mr W was at in terms of his knowledge in the framework of their curriculum, what our issues were with where he was at, and what we were looking for. At this point, whether they asked us questions about him told us right away if they were flexible and were willing to try.
The long and the short of it is that couple of private schools are willing to let Mr W (3y4m) start in K this fall provided he fits in with the K-bound kids this summer.
Austin-- We did the same, but only actually visited the two private schools that said yes, they sometimes allow early entrance. If no schools had said they allow early entrance then I think we would have had to visit the other places without telling them why up front. This way at least separated the places with experience with and procedures for early entrance from ones we would have to fight for it.
After observing and testing DC4, they had him come in for a second round of testing and are single subject accelerating him to first for math and reading, though he tested at 3rd. It sounded like that's an initial placement and if he needs they will be amenable with working with us for higher skips if this one works out. We're hopeful. But this is the only school in town that really seems to understand why acceleration might be necessary. The other school that allows early entrance was eager for our business after hearing about DS but the kids were bored and the teachers didn't even understand the terms we were using regarding differentiation/acceleration (the admissions director had to translate).
To be honest, I'll be more comfortable with higher level skips once he completely stops having pee accidents whenever he gets distracted with learning new stuff. In K and 1st he won't be the only one!
DC's Montessori also ran out of stuff for him on reading and asked us to bring stuff in, which I thought was bizarre... they also seem to not be aware of his math ability which is a bit disappointing since my little sister's Montessori had her entire class doing addition, subtraction, multiplication, place value, sets etc. before she got to elementary school. But they were doing a great job with science, social studies, art history, practical living etc. so we figured he could finish the year.
Are there buzz words or catch phrases to use? Meg
It's always good to have a few quick phrases to repeat when it's time to reveal the 'why' you want early enterance to let know your child's approximate academic level with regards to -
-what is the child reading?
-can child tell time on an analog clock 'to the hour, quarter-hour, or the minute'
-able to skip count by 5s and 10s
-enjoys playing with older kids, particularly checkers and legos.
Or whatever is true at your house- but try to keep it just that brief.
It might help to visit a local kindy classroom to see what the kids actually are doing this late in the year.
Another thing to consider is if you think you child would be happier attending kindy this year and skipping into 2nd from there. Especially if the kindy program is 'half-day' some kids like it better that way.
Smiles,
Grinity
One thing that really helped us was the phrase, "All of his friends (but one) are going to kindergarten next year." It is the truth, but somehow just saying that we could feel the tension and the concerns that we're horrible hot-housing parents setting our child up for a lifetime of stress completely evaporate. Although our facts about what he could do in terms of reading, math etc. mattered, they didn't seem to matter as much as the social aspect to most of the folks we talked to during this process. We're doing the right thing for him because it's the right thing socially. The academics are of secondary importance. I know that's messed up, but that's our experience here.
They also seemed concerned with, does he follow directions, can he sit still etc. Again, sighs of relief when we said he's a rules follower. YMMV on that.
Academics taught in kindergarten vary a LOT. It makes us really sad that our kid has been able to do everything they expect kids to do at the end of kindergarten since long before he was 2. That isn't true in all states.
One thing that really helped us was the phrase, "All of his friends (but one) are going to kindergarten next year." It is the truth, but somehow just saying that we could feel the tension and the concerns that we're horrible hot-housing parents setting our child up for a lifetime of stress completely evaporate.
I wish that had worked for us. Instead we got various lectures about how making new friends "their own age" was good for children's social development, only playing with older children was a sign of immaturity, etc.... Arrgh. Never mind that the friends that went up ahead of DD were 6 months older than her and the ones she is supposed to consider "her own age" are 6 months younger... What is the difference? None.
we got various lectures about how making new friends "their own age" was good for children's social development, only playing with older children was a sign of immaturity, etc....
Well, then, I'm staggeringly immature, as I married a man 8 years older than I am, and many of my friends are ten or more years my senior. Of course, many of my friends are ten or more years my junior, too, so where does that leave the maturity calculations? I have never seen a real-world setting (that wasn't school-based) where
anyone was expected to interact
only with those whose ages fell within a given twelve-month spread. This sort of "reasoning" on the part of school personnel is not rational, it is just rationalizing.
This sort of "reasoning" on the part of school personnel is not rational, it is just rationalizing.
Yep.
That's a good point. I'm guessing in places that have already made up their mind in advance, there's not much you can say or do other than being persistent enough to wear them down and talking to enough people that you find one who doesn't have a closed mind.
I really hope we don't have to go that route because I'd prefer advocacy not to be my only activity outside of work. We only talked to a couple of places that did have a history of grade skips, but still seemed worried about kids having too much pressure and so were cautious about who they allow early entrance.
We've tried so many private schools in the area (one of them even called a "school for the gifted", believing hope beyond hope that these schools have experience and resources to help educated gifted children. No luck. Really. No such thing as advanced classes, etc. We tried private for the last time this year. That's it. We're done. We're moving to public.
Our daughter finally, officially is skipping a grade this year. It took months and months of talking. The school principal was literally shaking when considering the idea. I mean, really shaking, as though it could be something dangerous or cause tremendous harm. Unbelievable. And finally we had to go to the asst. superintendent (public school, virginia). Our daughter will be 9 and going into the 5th grade (while still doing her outside CTY/JHU gifted middle and high school courses). We tried everything. She was doing her learning at home and being at school all day with other kids her age (but given so many time outs for daydreaming or just answering questions). We'll see. Her academic level is so above the 5th grade, but I'm just not ready for her to be in middle school yet. Small steps, I guess, and just see how it goes. We're hoping it works for at least a year, then we will see about what to do next. We just got into the Davidson program, so we are hoping our family counselor can help us come up with schooling options. The current plan is to meet with the middle school principal this fall, just to start to prepare for the "how are we going to make this work next year for this child?"
Sometimes this whole walk with our child seems so uncertain and tenuous. Really! Half the time, we just don't know what to do.