The school called...

[NiteTiger]

A phone call from the school is not, generally, a good sign for a parent. Things rapidly go down hill when the person on the other end of the line introduces themselves as the school psychologist. Visions from 'The Butterfly Effect' begin dancing in your head when you hear those words. When the aformentioned psychologist proceeds to insist on an 'urgent meeting as soon as possible', the visions get exponentially worse.

This happened to me and my wife about a week ago. The meeting was set, with my wife to be present, but I was unable to attend. I was there, however, to meet her at the door when she arrived home with a thick sheaf of papers, and a rather stunned expression on her face.

She said nothing as she handed me the papers. The top sheet had big, bold letters. I've been in schooland nothing good comes from 32 point boldface is what I learned. But there it was, and, true to my instincts, it wasn't good.

'Your Rights as the Parent of a Special Education Student' was the headline, and my heart plummeted.

"Remember the testing Quark* went through over the summer? These are the results" she said, sliding out some papers from midway through the stack.

I grabbed them from her hand, and began reading with a heavy heart. It was a psychological profile of my son. Zipping through the report, I turned to my wife with a confused expression.

She grinned at me and said 'Gotcha'.

The report detailed how my son had scored 'greater than or equal to 130' in all aspects of an IQ test administered during the summer.

Yep, that's right, my son is gifted. Or, as the State of Tennessee now considers him, a disabled student.

*Sigh*

I turned to my wife, and summed it up as best I could-

"So the State considers him disabled because he's highly intelligent? That says so much about our society."

Needless to say, I take all the credit

*name changed, duh

 

[Nikijad4210]

You're fucking kidding me, right? They're considering him freakin' disabled and he's well the fuck above average????

What
The
Fuck?

Yeah, that sure the fuck does say a lot about the mentality in this damn country, doesn't it? You know whe country's going downhill when the retards run the country, and the smart ones are labeled disabled.





BTW, in referance to selecting the name "Quark", not by chance a DS9 fan, are ya?

 

[KingRalph]

special education is there for special needs students... therefore it will be the special education department's job to make sure he takes a course a grade higher or what have you... yes it is funny the same people deal with the retards as the geniuses, especially when they themselves are usually more like the former it can get difficult for a 'gifted' child... either keep them there and keep it normal (tell special ed to screw off) with just honors courses n the like... or remove them entirely an go lightspeed without regard an they will skyrocket one-tracked through private education... up to you. just don't fuck with normality. it's either crazy genius or tormented smartone... or just regular ol child with a good head on their shoulders, keep it simple eh, don't throw their life into too much of a jumble eh... it can weigh heavily no matter the gifts.

(graduated hs at age 15)

 

[Guest]

damn dude, sorry to hear your kid is smart.. Im pullin for ya man. we all are.

 

[Sleepy]

keep up the good work...

we take the short bus here, too!

 

[Laxpunker]

Just make sure that mind doesn't go to waste. Also don't push him to be special, make him enjoy learning for the sheer fact of learning NOT because mommy and daddy force him.

 

[NiteTiger]

Thanks for the show of support all, I just don't know how we'll get through this

I've got to give credit where credit is due though. The psychologist and principal, who was also at the meeting, made it very clear that although a gifted child is considered 'disabled', he would not be moved to a new class or school. The main change in his schooling is that he will attend a special session with a one on one tutor for 3 hours during the school day, incrementally. During these sessions (usually 1 hour per day, 3 days a week), he will not recieve 'advanced instruction', meaning he is not being advanced in grade level as such. In other words, he's not being put into that position I feared - he will not be moved into a higher grade level, leaving him isolated from his peer group, and singled out among his classmates.

Instead, these sessions focus on expanding his mental agility, not rote memorization. The outline given to us shows that his gifted curriculum will focus on abstract thinking and complex problem solving. Questions and problems will be more open ended, with more than one possible correct answer, and he will be encouraged to seek out the additional solutions.

All in all, I'm very pleased with the school districts approach to gifted curriculum. I poke fun at the methodology required to get him the more challenging lessons, but in practice, the education system seems to be much more adept at handling a gifted student than one would expect. His first session resulted in an excited child bounding into my backseat, gushing about how much fun he had with his Encore (the name of the gifted program) teacher.

He enthusiastically described how he was given a problem that contained a table containing the numbers 3 and 5. He was instructed to make each column equal 21. In a helper sheet, the concept of the order of operations (PEMDAS, anyone?) and negative numbers was explained. (For reference, he's in the fourth grade. My son in the 6th grade was just introduced to order of operations this year, and has just touched the fringes of negative numbers) He was then left alone to apply those concepts to the table. He was just bursting with pride to report that he had all 25 columns totaling 21 in just 15 minutes.

Needless to say, I was a mixture of joy and pride, and, I will admit, a bit confused. The joy of seeing my son leap into the car bursting with excitement over education is understandable to any parent, I'm sure. Pride, well, that's understandable as well, I hope . Confusion...Well, let's just say that math was never my favorite subject

Ok, enough bragging and rambling. Let me address each of you in turn, as I appreciate your contributions, and don't want you to feel that they went unnoticed.

Nikijad4210- You summed up my reaction perfectly. What the fuck?

I think Einstien summed it up best - "Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds."

Since I have your attention, I want to express my hope that the opposition you're encountering in FL is resolved ASAP, and I hope that your son is returned to you. I'm big enough to admit that if I had faced a similar situation, I would have resorted to violence, and made the situation much worse. I can't imagine how you and your husband must feel. Please know that I hold no more dear hope than that you and your son be reunited as soon as possible.

And yes, I've been known to watch DS9 a time or two, although I wouldn't call myself a true fan.

KingRalph- I agree 100%. I understand the reasoning behind my boy being flagged as 'special ed' - he does, given the circumstances, need a special curriculum. Still, the label is a bit disconcerting

As far as us pushing him or otherwise setting him apart, that's not going to happen. My wife asked that day - "What do you think we should do?" I responded, "Nothing, of course. Seems we've managed to raise a gifted child all this time, why screw with what works?"

If it ain't broke, don't fix it

Mohillsk8 - Yeah, a shame, huh?

Sleepy - Thank god he doesn't ride the bus. I know you meant it in jest, but that was actually mentioned in the packet from the school. If he were a bus rider, he would be taken off his normal route and assigned to the special ed bus.


Laxpunker - Nah, no pressure from home. Although, I do have a unique form of discipline that may play a part here. My children, when they have really pushed too far, are not given spankings or time out. Not to say those are never used, as they are, but I'm talking about the situation where they aren't doing anything outrageous, but have just nitpicked me and my wife to the end of our rope. In those situations, my children are required to give me a two page written book report. I choose the book, and they must read it, front to back, and write an original report on it.

That's the only forced learning you'll find here

Thanks again all, for responding

 

[naga_sadu]

Nite Tiger: Hey'ya man.

That's great news that your kid has an IQ of 130+. My only advise at this point is to try and get your kid enrolled in a school offering the IB (International Baccaulaureate) programme. Plenty of schools in the States offer the IB. Academically, it's superior to AP (advanced placement). Here's the official website for the IB prog.

http://www.ibo.org/

Good luck man. And congrats on ur kid's IQ scores!! Either ways, here are a bunch of schools in Tennessee which offer IB.

Cookeville High School
2335 North Washington Avenue, Cookeville

Franklin High School
810 Hillsboro Road, Franklin, TN, Tennessee

Hillsboro Comprehensive High School
3812 Hillsboro Road, Nashville

Hillwood High School
400 Davidson Road, Nashville

Hunters Lane Comprehensive High School
1150 Hunters Lane, Nashville, Tennessee

I highly recommend the IB programme because academically, it will be a match for your kid's IQ.

 

[Jam Master Jaco]

I was never gifted like your son seems to be but I did take a lot of honors/advanced placement classes during highschool. And let me be the first to say...do not put him into any honors/AP/IB program! Everyone gets the same diploma in the end no matter if you were in special ed, regular, or advanced classes. Let your son be the smartest person in the regular classes who gets straight A's easily then the one who has to bust his ass to get a B+ in AP classes.

The extra stress and time I had to put into those damn honors classes got me absolutely nothing but a loathing for that which could've been. I had one friend of mine who pretended to be retarded (I'm not fucking kidding) so he could get into special ed classes. He ended up with a higher GPA then me. AHHHH!! And we both got the same damn diploma!!

Now that I think about it...that's a funny ass story. I don't think irony is the right word but damn...that bastard got a higher GPA then me and I had to bust my ass. He got to have recess during high school while I had to lose sleep over projects/tests. And the funniest thing is..he isn't retarded. He would just purposely score extremely low on evaluation tests.

 

[naga_sadu]

I only recommend IB because it seems to impart a more well rounded education, I feel. As in you actually do some real life research (i.e. outside the school libraries) when doing projects etc. That's a useful skill to have. And an IB prog does help students in college, more than a reg. diploma especially if he wants to get into an ivy league school. Also, an IB cert. makes it easier to get admission in an European college, which is also an added bonus. I've noted that scholarship opportunities are easy to acquire in a Euro university w/ an IB diploma. An IB diploma, in the academic circle is worth more than a reg. HS cert.

The last thing u want is your kid to rot his brain in an education system which doesn't challenge his mental abilities. Also, in IB, he can super specialise in a field of study if that's his interest. But of course, I wasn't the academic type, so I never bothered.

 

[glock23]

IB courses are definitely good, but NiteTiger wants his son to be around his peers....

Jaco: interesting story...hehe. Never heard of anyone scoring retardedly low so they could have a higher GPA when they graduated. That's pretty funny!

 

[T-type]

Shhh....

 

[NiteTiger]

Heh, before I start enrolling him in IB courses, I think I'll let him get out of elementary school

Although, rest assured, we live where we live specifically for the schools, and one of those schools on your list is where this district feeds for high school :wink: