Come over sometime.
The rhodes may be up on the block soon, if I don’t find a job. I’ll let you know. Already selling my Waldorf Microwave
Good for you. When I taught 4th grade, I had a kid who would sometimes get done while I was making sure everyone else understood the directions. This was a very poor neighborhood, so maybe by some standards he was only “high”, not “gifted”, but he was outpacing the rest of the class without trying.
I got him tested for the gifted program, but he didn’t make it. It’s not possible to really test for intelligence, so they test for current ability. They also use a state-wide standard, so he was stuck. I was stuck with his finding trouble to get into when he was bored.
bdgr, congratulations on finding out just how cool your kid is! And I would strongly suggest a meeting with the Superintendent of Schools. Don’t bother with the principal. Go directly to the Supt. with your story and what you would like the school system to do for you. Bone up on the educational laws (both federal and state) and see what your child is entitled to as far as services and have that info ready with your request for specific action. If the school can’t meet your child’s educational needs, they more than likely (depending on state’s interpretation of laws) will have to pay for him to go somewhere where his needs will be met. Best of luck!
Good for you bdgr. You must be very proud of your son.
Speaking as the parent of a gifted child, the best (unsolicited) advice I can give is to help your child learn to “learn”. Even in a Gifted Program, when my son reached 11th grade, he discovered that school wasn’t so easy anymore. Unfortunately for him, he never had to study before. Suddenly, he had to take notes, highlight text, and study for exams and frankly didn’t know how.
My school system also had a support group for parents of gifted/talented children that I would recommend. They had meetings of other parents of gifted/talented children and occasional speakers.
Best wishes for you and your family.
Being a gifted kid was pretty difficult. Feel free to push, but be careful not to shove, if you will. My parents had me in piano lessons for years before they realized I hated it and had no talent; they put me in singing, which worked much better.
I am just so glad there is at least something to fight for. When I was a kid, there was no such thing as gifted as far as the schools were concerned. They knew that I had a high IQ(139…my boy has me beat), and they knew I scored at the top of all the achievment tests. They also knew that I had ADD(although it wasn’t called that). And they wouldnt do shit about it. I was stuck in non-challenging classes, with no accomadation for my ADD(I wasnt on meds). At some point I totally gave up, and just did the bare minumum I needed to do to get through school. I graduated at the bottom of my class.
I swore when my kid started school, and when he was first diagnosed with ADD, that he would not go through the hell that I did, and would actually get a worthwile education if it killed me.
I really feel like I have let my kid down this year, but the staff at the school had me convinced that they doing what was best. I didn’t know about the nonsense that was going on behind the scenes.
My parents are educators. I was brought up to not question teachers unless it was really neccesary. From now on I don’t trust any of them. If I get that bad feeling that I have all year, that something is up, I am going to listen to it, and make damn sure I know what is going on. Sorry for the rant, I really do have the greatest respect for teachers. Now I just don’t have the trust I used to have…especially for administrators.
I’m one state over, but here in New Mexico gifted children are considered “special education,” and they have the right to an education that’s appropriate to their level, just as the children who need remediation do. I don’t know how Texas views the issue, but I found a link that implies they’re at least officially concerned with making sure the educational needs of gifted children are met: TEXAS STATE PLAN FOR THE EDUCATION OF GIFTED/TALENTED STUDENTS. There was also this site, which has a list of resources for parents of gifted/talented students.
Don’t feel bad about not knowing what’s gone on in the past. You can more than make up for it in the future by being a strong advocate for your child. Now that you have some official evidence that he needs enriched education, you have the ammunition you need for insisting that he get it.
Good luck (and have fun)!
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Thanks for the links. I am reading up on all of this this weekend, and plan on printing out some amunition to take with me on monday. The biggest challenge is going to be keeping my cool.
Unfortunately, it is not in my nature to forgive and forget when it comes to myself. I still beat myself up over stuff I did 20 years ago. But Im working on it.
well, I checked, and I am past the deadline for all the private school scholorship stuff. Maybe next year.
Ok, so I get to the meeting today. It’s me, the diagnostician, the principle, the speech teacher, his teacher, the counselor and the special ed lady. THe diagnostician starts reading off his test scores. 142 IQ, high in everything else, including one score that he tested on level equal to 18 years of edjucation. I asked the diagnostician for the OHI form back(Other Health Impaired, a form them blackmailed me into having my doctor sign), the diagnostician ripped it up and handed it to me, and I pocketed it. The principle nearly lost her shit. She spent the next 10 minutes trying to convince me that my child would never function in class and next year she was not going to have the teacher send work home blah blah blah. She brought up the psychologist report that read that to me. I had already it, and if I hadnt seen my kids name at the top of it, I would have thought the kid it was about needed to be in a rubber room. The psychologist went entirely off of the teachers overly emotion description, and the report bore no resemblance to my kid at all. In fact, the report said that since my kid was completely non verbal, a unit test would be the only way he could be tested. Me and the diagnostician both laughed at that part…shy does not equal completely non-verbal…in fact, you cant hardly shut the kid up when he’s comfortable around you.
After things settled down a bit, I got my turn to talk. I explained that first of all, I had some insight into what was going on, that my IQ was just a few points lower, and that I had many of the same problems that he had in school. I told them that the kind of behavior he was exhibiting, not doing his work, social skills problems etc. Were very typical of children with his level of IQ. I explained to them that putting him into a special ed class would be disastorous, and that it is not going to happen. They changed their tone a bit after that. The diagnostician started listing off the things that they had done over the year that were illegal. They got nicer to me, and more hostile with the diagnostician. I then ask that he be removed from speech(which gets him out of the special ed loop completely). The speech teacher is fuming by this point, so she doesnt say a word.
The principle asks what we should do, and I say that he needs all gifted classes next year. SHe flat out refuses. Then, we bring up the subject of the Applied learning centers. Everybodys face lights up, and the principle says that she will call the principle of the applied learning school, and the montesorri school imediately. She just found a way to pawn off her problem on someone else, which is fine with me if it gets my kid in one of those schools. The meeting ends, and me and the diagnostician walk out to her car and discuss the test scores. She says she will make copys of the tests for me(and send one in to mensa for me), and then we get back to the conferance room and she says “look at that, they stole my notes”, and then goes on to tell me how they are always doing that sort of thing. I’m starting to wonder about her. She leaves, then returns with her notes, and a couple of photocopys that they were making of her personal notes when she caught them. She showed me the photocopys and they were of the private conversations that I had with the diagnostician. What a bunch of dweebs.
Anyway, if he doesnt get the applied learning or montessori schools, then I will start up the battle to get the gifted classes. Until then, its jsut grit my teeth and wait.
Now we’re getting somewhere.
Principle was a bust she just gave me the phone numbers to the schools and said call them.
So I did, got the same old thing from them, Registration was months ago…Finally, I got a lady, who seemed rather stressed, said “If you really wanna get somewhere call this number:”
I googled the number and got this
Ft Worth Independent School District, Administrative Offices, Standards & Applied Learning
I called the number and it was answered “Advanced Accademic Services”…
I explained my perdicament, and got a really nice lady on the phone. She said I should come down there tomorrow and get the application forms, and then go to the school and get his test scores, his report cards, an evaluation form from his teacher, and a form from his councilor. I explained that his grades wouldnt be to good this year, she said that was fine, they take everything into consideration in these cases, and I was free to submit anything I thought would help. I can submit his IQ and academic evaluation scores, and a letter from the diagnostician explaining why he had such a bad year. She said she couldnt promise anything as all the spots are usually filled, but she would see what she could do.
Unless Texas is very different than Oklahoma, there’s not going to be much utility in “gifted” classes. They’re fine as far as they go, but for the rest of his time in school, he’ll be bored bored bored, and thus prone to be what would be a “discipline problem” Get him to a private school, or homeschool. I teach in the public schools, and they’re no place for a genius 
Private school is right out of my pricerange. Home school might be an option, if the economy recovers sufficiently for me to get a job an my wife to quit hers. Homeschooling brings about other problems…even further lack of social skills etc.
The applied learning or montessori seem to be my best hope. Well see what happens.
I’m a big fan of Montessori schooling. I don’t know that Homeschooling necessarily means retardation of social skills; just need to make sure he’s active in non school activities like sports, scouts or something similar.
Exactly, Thats why kids who are active in churches do better in home school…It is something you have to keep on top of, and make sure they get to socialize a lot.
Ok, things just took a turn for the fantastic. I got a call from the head of the advanced academic department, the lady who is over all the montessori, applied learning etc. She said that there is no way I can get him in one of those because they have all been filled for months. I ask her about the science school that he had seen on the borchure the school gave us. She says that would be great for him, and she can probably get him in, but needed to warn me that it was a high minority population. I gather that some parents have a problem with that. I don’t. here is the description fron the schools website
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Well, I just got back from this place. Its a dream come true. The lady in charge is an expert in educating gifted children and finding ways to educate children like my son who don’t respond to traditional methods. She talked with him for half an hour or so about what they could do to get things interesting for him. She’s been a teacher for 50 years or so, now only works half days. I saw a picture on the wall of a school building that is named after her, so apparently she is pretty well known.
We toured the place and I was so jealous. Why couldnt we have a cool place like this when I was a kid. They had a green house, and they were setting up hydroponics tanks for kids to work with. There were gardens and ponds and waterfalls…all built by the students. Agriculture is a big part of their program. And they had a dinosaur dig. A big sand pit, with concrete walls around it and a ceder tiki style roof over it. They had cool murals of dinos on all the walls and the kids get to go out there and dig for fossils and identify them.
All the kids work is input into computer…and all the classrooms have internet access. They have a computer lab, and a science lab, and a mathmatics lab. Not sure what one does in a mathmatics lab, but it sounded cool.
They all get to go to NASA at the end of the year too. I wish I had found out about this thing from the begininng. Hell, I wish I could go with him.
Aparently some parents won’t send their kids there because the high minority population…my kid is only going to be one of two or three “white” kids there. I told my son that some people thought that mattered for some reason and he just sorta snorted and looked at me like youve got to be kidding.
This is what a public school should be. WOOHOO!
WOW!
I’m not only happy for you, I’m jealous that I don’t teach there!!!
There was a time when our district used what I consider the best science curriculum in the country (SCIS III from Delta). It was totally hands on, they’d send you lizards and bugs and seeds and dirt to make terrariums (terraria?) and all sorts of cool stuff.
Then two years ago, the district voted to go back to textbook based science instruction.:smack:
I’m still bitter.
Anyway, congratulations and good luck to your son!
Thanks. He’s pretty excited about the whole thing, I think he is actually looking forward to school starting.
Oh fantastic! It sounds like a wonderful program! I’m seriously jealous over here – there’s nothing in the entire fecking country like that.
As time’s gone on, I’ve become less concerned with academics and more concerned with my kids being happy and that sounds like a school where a kid could flourish for a long time. I’m astounded that the minority component of the school populations would even be an issue for a parent.
And NASA – damn, that would be sooooo cool.
I only wish I got him in it sooner. Given the redneck nature of some of the citizens around here, its not suprising that some of them would take issue. People are like that here sometimes.