[Ohiogift] gifted parents as advocates

[Jane Brewster]

I have never posted before, but this topic is near and dear to my heart.  I am not an educator.  I am the parent of several gifted children (and a past school board member).  Parents absolutely MUST step in and advocate for their children, beginning with the local classroom.  My daughter entered kindergarten a year early and is currently in second grade.  During an early conference with a teacher this year, I was told my daughter was not motivated.  She was disruptive in the classroom and not progressing beyond the beginning second grade reading level the teacher had given her.  I discovered it was the teacher's habit to make each child read the same book three times.  I asked the teacher (okay, I wasn't that nice) to quit making her read the same thing three times, when she clearly already understood it, provide her with more challenging work, increase the difficulty of her spelling assignments, and, in addition to the usual test for the reading level, allow my daughter to provide a report or project for each book she had read.  Amazingly (not really), she has progressed in her reading level to about the end of the fifth grade.  She and I did some really cool projects at home, too (no help from the teacher).  Sadly, had I not intervened, I believe my daughter would have continued to disrupt the classroom and refuse to do her work, making it appear that she was actually BEHIND rather than ahead of the other kids.  I will say that the teacher later indicated to me that she had never had a child like my daughter and was thankful for the insight I had provided into differentiation in the classroom.

Jane



Katie and other gifted parents,

Margaret is absolutely right.  You must advocate for your son. Talking to your legislators is crucial.  Ann Sheldon and/or the Ohio Association for Gifted Children website at oagc.com can give you advice.  Click on advocacy on the left, and then advocacy alerts you will see that gifted is once again embroiled in a fight to have units reinstated so that districts actually have gifted teachers and gifted coordinators who understand and actually like gifted students and know how to address their needs.  The House had addressed this issue, but the Senate seems poised to revert to the initial budget which did not specify exactly how money should be spent for gifted--if at all.  Regrettably most classroom teachers have had zero coursework of any kind on gifted children.  Your representative needs to hear your story. 
Good luck to you,
Barb