Has anyone been able to get accelerated math for their advanced kid?

[Anonymous]

MCPS will not do this. Luckily.

But second grade was the peak of boredom for us with both our kids - eureka is particularly slow that year and reading is focused on catching kids up because my third grade they don’t do as much on the mechanics of reading/decoding.

[Anonymous]

The whole school doesn’t have math at the same time so it’s not just a matter of sending your kid to another class during math.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can always ask. The math classes may not be at the same time, and so your kid will miss instruction on another second grade topic. If your kid is accelerated now, they won't know what to do with him or her later.

Here's the situation -

1. There are many precocious kids in this educated and wealthy area. There are many bored kids in public and private elementaries. The primary school curriculum is designed to cater to the lowest common denominator, because it is critical to teach reading, writing and arithmetic fluency to all children. Therefore the ones who already know all this are ignored. Both of my children were reading at a middle then high school level in elementary (vocabulary and comprehension). They just brought their own books to school.

2. MCPS has been trying to curtail gifted (and special needs) programming for years. All the special programming is expensive and logistically challenging. There can be significant pushback from central office when content coordinators in each school are asked by parents to accelerate their kid. We've experienced this at the middle school math level.

My second child has always been bored in school. Since magnets are lotteries now, she got into the CES but not the magnet middle. We asked for a placement test in Algebra 1 in 6th grade at her home middle school. They did their level best to deny us, but we managed to get her in. Despite being in the most advanced tracks of middle school, she is still not challenged. She will go to high school next year and has concocted an AP-heavy schedule for herself.

The reality is that no school exists for the gifted. Even MCPS magnets only deepen either STEM or Humanities, but not both, which is bizarre, because a lot of gifted children are interested in both, my daughter included.

You'll probably have to muddle through just like the rest of us with that type of kid. You'll need to stave off impatience, boredom, anxiety and depression in your kid, who may not see the point of going to school anymore. That's what I'm dealing with. Her hobbies and interests outside of school are what keep her from depression. Get your child into an instrument, or chess, or robotics, or whatever he has a liking for. It will distract them and make them use those brain cells.

This is not something the rest of the world can easily empathize with or understand. Even "gifted" is an incredibly loaded word people don't like to hear. It makes them insecure

OP here. Thank you for this. I am very worried about loss of school engagement. They are already coming home saying they hate school. We do RSM specifically to keep them interested and engaged — not to further advance — but it just exacerbates the issues. They have a sport and instrument outside of school but that creates problems too (frustration in music class that they’re learning to do rhythms they learned two years ago). I would be fine if the teacher let them work on their own but they have forbidden working ahead.

I'm going to be very honest with you, as the parent of older gifted kids who have gone through all levels of MCPS magnet programs - you need to nip this attitude in the bud right now. Your child is not served, academically, socially, or emotionally, by you paying any mind to this. Your child is LUCKY to have access to music outside of school, and expensive math lessons, and you risk raising an absolute brat if you listen to this nonsense for even one minute. I've seen kids like this, and they don't have long-term success because they alienate peers, teachers, and lack the resilience needed to succeed in magnet programs.

PLEASE READ THIS POST, OP.

[Anonymous]

Either homeschool or ask your kid's teacher if you can send in some additional work for them to do. You are going to be labeled and entitled parent if you keep up with this attitude, and that will not be good for you or your kid.

[Anonymous]

People are telling you correctly. Unless you are prepared to sit down with the school/teacher/counselor to come up with a reasonable workable plan for your student your asking them to spend a bunch of time (time they don’t have) on just your child. If you child is truly gifted and capable of passing 9th grade math, you could propose letting them attend a morning math class at the HS or the community college and then come into school later. You could propose them working with a private tutor online during the math block and the kid being willing to sit in the counselor’s office of main office for this time in order to do the lesson.

Yes public school has to have differentiation l, but I assure you no School is accommodating every single need of every single child particularly at the ES level.

You could try looking into one of the very few gifted private schools.

[Anonymous]

Transfer to WPES.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My child is in 2nd grade, bored out of their mind in math. They had a full eval at a private practice and are at 140 IQ and 99th percentile in math. They are already doing Russian Math outside of school to at least keep them moving and even that is nothing new for them. They are placing at at least 6th grade math. I would like to ask the school to let kid take a placement test and at least join the 3rd grade class for math time.

Has anyone successfully done this?

Elementary school is very low demand. Learn math at home, and practice handwriting and doodling at school. Same as everyone else 2+ grade levels ahead.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Transfer to WPES.

Alas, admissions there are by secret communications only.

[Anonymous]

Second grade in MCPS was the absolute worst. My kid was angry every day with how basic math was and how he left his DC public school where he was doing multiplication and division with large numbers and suddenly was only asking and subtracting numbers under 10. It was a painful year, but it got better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can always ask. The math classes may not be at the same time, and so your kid will miss instruction on another second grade topic. If your kid is accelerated now, they won't know what to do with him or her later.

Here's the situation -

1. There are many precocious kids in this educated and wealthy area. There are many bored kids in public and private elementaries. The primary school curriculum is designed to cater to the lowest common denominator, because it is critical to teach reading, writing and arithmetic fluency to all children. Therefore the ones who already know all this are ignored. Both of my children were reading at a middle then high school level in elementary (vocabulary and comprehension). They just brought their own books to school.

2. MCPS has been trying to curtail gifted (and special needs) programming for years. All the special programming is expensive and logistically challenging. There can be significant pushback from central office when content coordinators in each school are asked by parents to accelerate their kid. We've experienced this at the middle school math level.

My second child has always been bored in school. Since magnets are lotteries now, she got into the CES but not the magnet middle. We asked for a placement test in Algebra 1 in 6th grade at her home middle school. They did their level best to deny us, but we managed to get her in. Despite being in the most advanced tracks of middle school, she is still not challenged. She will go to high school next year and has concocted an AP-heavy schedule for herself.

The reality is that no school exists for the gifted. Even MCPS magnets only deepen either STEM or Humanities, but not both, which is bizarre, because a lot of gifted children are interested in both, my daughter included.

You'll probably have to muddle through just like the rest of us with that type of kid. You'll need to stave off impatience, boredom, anxiety and depression in your kid, who may not see the point of going to school anymore. That's what I'm dealing with. Her hobbies and interests outside of school are what keep her from depression. Get your child into an instrument, or chess, or robotics, or whatever he has a liking for. It will distract them and make them use those brain cells.

This is not something the rest of the world can easily empathize with or understand. Even "gifted" is an incredibly loaded word people don't like to hear. It makes them insecure

OP here. Thank you for this. I am very worried about loss of school engagement. They are already coming home saying they hate school. We do RSM specifically to keep them interested and engaged — not to further advance — but it just exacerbates the issues. They have a sport and instrument outside of school but that creates problems too (frustration in music class that they’re learning to do rhythms they learned two years ago). I would be fine if the teacher let them work on their own but they have forbidden working ahead.

I'm going to be very honest with you, as the parent of older gifted kids who have gone through all levels of MCPS magnet programs - you need to nip this attitude in the bud right now. Your child is not served, academically, socially, or emotionally, by you paying any mind to this. Your child is LUCKY to have access to music outside of school, and expensive math lessons, and you risk raising an absolute brat if you listen to this nonsense for even one minute. I've seen kids like this, and they don't have long-term success because they alienate peers, teachers, and lack the resilience needed to succeed in magnet programs.

Another parent of older gifted kid and this is excellent advice. Be careful of feeding this narrative that your kid is bored. Instead of pushing ahead further in math maybe try something like chess. Lack of challenging work might seem like a huge issue now but in high school and beyond there is limitless challenge available. Enjoy being a kid. You don’t need to make it so they need to go to HS math or college early.

[Anonymous]

Do not, not, _not_ let on to DC that they somehow deserve special treatment because X or Y subject in school is easy for them right now. The sense of entitlement and superiority will operate against any instincts they have to apply themselves, any real need to work harder as things get more difficult, and any humility required to try and fail at something totally new. Plus the stratification in the lower elementary grades is far more pronounced than it will be later. Kids who can already read are light-years away from those who aren't proficient yet, for example. It will all get closer together as kids transition past the basic skills and into actually applying them. Don't let yourself start subconsciously cultivating this disconnect as a sign of DC's intelligence. Be patient, and teach DC to be patient, too.

PP who was intentionally working on teaching her high-academic DD to "pass" socially is really on to something here. Kids who learn quickly at young ages are often socially and emotionally behind, sometimes _way_ behind, and DC's obvious frustration in extracurricular music may be a manifestation of that pattern. OP, use the lack of stimulation at school as a chance to socialize DC as widely as you can, including in activities like sports (keeping up physically becomes a kid metric during elementary school, and being able to just plain old participate in playground soccer can help isolate against bullying), scouting (where achievement isn't a factor of intelligence), community service (where helping others is what's valued), or other areas that are important to your family _and_to_other_kids_. Hold playdates. Throw yourself into making DC a good member of your community. Don't feed the intellectual superiority beast. Academic skill will self-manifest anyway, and there are plenty of chances for DC to qualify for special school opportunities later on.

And when DC complains that they are bored _anywhere_, whether at school or at home, there are two answers: 1. a chore; 2. a book.

[Anonymous]

OP, I was your kid in an era and location when public schools did much more acceleration for students more than two standard deviations above the mean than MCPS does today. As a result, I had access to: grade-advanced math and language, an earlier end to formal "reading" instruction (which was replaced in the day with an amazing multidisciplinary "enrichment" class), a special afterschool art program, etc.

Classmates of mine who were sufficiently mathematically advanced got sent from middle and hs to take differential equations at a local institution (which happened to be an Ivy League institution).

It was fantastic and of course I wish MCPS did it as well, but the reality is that you are mistaken about their legal obligation.

They are required to make it maximally possible for each child to access the prescribed curriculum for that grade level. This is why "special" resources are focused on kids who are have conditions impeding their ability to learn at grade level. Your kid does not have that problem and therefore does not have that legal right to "special" resources.

Does it suck? Yes it does. Nerds as a bloc are not politically popular. But also, for better or worse, we tend to observe earlier when a system is not going to provide what we need and move on mentally something else, even if our physical bodies stay in our schools of record. And we do just fine academically, over a lifetime, when we do this.

You encouraging your child to regard what is going on at school as boring and worthy of mental divestment, on the other hand, is a problem.

The music class is a perfect example--no musician on earth is above learning or re-learning or playing around more with a particular rhythm.

Not everything about school is about maximum possible curricular achievement. Your child also has to be prepared for an entire life ahead in which many people they work with, or for, or God forbid have to manage, will be slower to grasp the thread. That takes practice, too.

Good luck.

[Anonymous]

In other states, Gifted alone is an IEP worthy condition. Not MCPS.

In other states, students can go up a year in math as general policy as early as 1st grade. Not MCPS.

You kid is bored in 2nd grade? Imagine if you moved to MCPS from a district where your student took the same 2nd grade course the yes before in 1st grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So you are accelerating your child outside of school and want MCPS to create a bespoke curriculum to match?

No, I want the school to meet their needs as a gifted student. Which is legally required.

It is not legally required. You're not going to get more than basic enrichment in second grade in MCPS. What you're asking for is more likely in private school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In other states, Gifted alone is an IEP worthy condition. Not MCPS.

In other states, students can go up a year in math as general policy as early as 1st grade. Not MCPS.

You kid is bored in 2nd grade? Imagine if you moved to MCPS from a district where your student took the same 2nd grade course the yes before in 1st grade.

Get your facts right before you post. Very few states have gifted IEPs. The trend all over the country has moved away from skipping grades and acceleration.

OP it sounds like you might want to spend your time teaching your child some basic life skills about how to better handle being bored and not looking down on others because they have not had the same opportunities as you. You could also consider private. There is NYSmith and Feyman for parents like you.