Has anyone been able to get accelerated math for their advanced kid?
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Anonymous
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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
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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
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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
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
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. |
Anonymous
Reading is fundamental. |
Anonymous
| Is your child already receiving math enrichment at school? If not, or if you don’t know, you can ask about that. If they are, then let them be a normie at school and do whatever enrichment you’d like after school. |
Anonymous
Your best plan of action would be to get RSM to advance your kid faster. If they won't do it, no one will. Use MCPS school as a place for social enrichment. It will serve your kid well. If that is not a priority for you (despite many on this thread who are hinting it should be), it will be less hassle if you homeschool and return and mainstream for a magnet high school or skip to college (if you think elementary school is slow, wait till you hit middle school!). |
Anonymous
| There are a couple of kids in my child's school who go to higher grade classrooms for math, and 2 5th graders who do math online (with a midddle school or high school class, I can't remember which) in the library because they are so advanced. |
Anonymous
This is what MCPS says they can do for true outliers, but it has been described as anywhere from a handful to a few dozen per grade across the system. It takes a lot for them to accept that a student needs it, and it appears that some administrators at individual schools are more amenable to identification/out-of-standard acceleration than others. How that identification occurs, whether there is a system-wide standard for that, whether it is ability-based or largely based on outside enrichment, and whether it is internally driven or reliant on family requests/private testing (for the last two, read: "$") remains unclear. YMMV. |
Anonymous
| I have a 6th grader. I guess she is gifted. But she's also small and skipped a grade so we aren't trying to get her to move forward. We just do outside enrichment. Can you look into math competitions like math counts? She might be a good candidate for that. Yes in school she was just be bored, but that's okay. Mine takes books, and she has AOPs problem sets she works on in class. |
Anonymous
I wrote something similar when OP posted and my post got deleted? Not sure why it was reported when it is a fact in my child's school too. There is a kid who takes higher level Math classes online at my kid's ES. |
Anonymous
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I think we tend to jump too quickly when our kids say they are bored with whatever it is at home/school/extracurricular. We were all bored as kids and that was ok, I'm not even sure my parents paid attention when we complained about it. Learning to deal with it is a life skill. My job is not super exciting 100% of the time.
My kids are high achievers and regularly tell me they are bored in certain classes. I tell them to get used to it, dealing with boredom is a part of life. They also don't enjoy doing running drills for their sports either. To be a productive member of society one needs to learn how to cope and combat boredom on their own. Its a good life lesson. |
Anonymous
THIS. Kids are all over the map at this age and school being easy in 2nd grade could mean anything from they're a super-genius to 2nd grade is just not that hard. School may be a breeze for your child forevermore, or they could find future grades very challenging for whatever reason. But odds are, they will encounter something that doesn't come easy at some point. And they need to know how to manage those feelings and work through them, rather than give up or shut down the first time something is tough. (Also, you can ask DC's teacher for guidance without requesting wholly differentiated instruction. E.g., "DC often finishes math after 15 minutes. Can they bring a book or a crossword? What would you recommend? How can we help cultivate good habits when they have downtime?" Etc.) |