Private school pushed us out, said to go to public if we wanted accelerated math, that they weren’t equipped to handle it.

Public isn’t either, but at least it’s free

But seriously, it’s not a race. My kid was adding and subtracting fractions with different denominators in kindergarten (I did nothing to teach it) and in second grade was converting between inches and cm in his head. We just let him be. He’s not a super genius any more than a kid who can read novels in K. As a high school math teacher, I didn’t want my kid to be 4 years ahead of his peers—that’s a lonely place to be, and there’s a lot more to life and school than racing through math.

He’s now in 7th grade algebra—still super bright, super confident, and with plenty of peers.

But if you really want to go with it and see how far he can get, RSM or BA are your options.

in the same boat. I gave my grade 1 DS some Singapore math challenge problems for grades 4-6 to do in the weekends. I teach him when I have time. He also likes to read Beast Academy but he is lazy and does not finish the workbook part. But I dont want to push him too much as I dont want to burn out his interest. So basically, I bought all the books, and whatever he likes to read, he reads them whenever he likes.

How do you negotiate differentiation?

Negotiating differentiation depends a lot on the specific needs of the child and the attitudes and options that the school can provide. Here's some thoughts on what worked for us with our two elementary-aged kids.

1. Be respectful and approach the negotiation with the school from a spirit of collaboration rather than as adversaries.
This should be obvious, but it’s so important I'm going to write it anyway. The schools are solving an enormously complex puzzle every day to manage the diverse needs of hundreds of kids who have to be scheduled across many different activities (lunch, specials, math and literacy blocks, recess, special education pullouts, etc.) while following all applicable laws and regulations. The schools have a limited resources and time to address the individual needs of all of the kids. My kids attend a Title 1 school with low test scores because the majority of the kids are learning English at school. The staff are truly trying to do their best for all of the kids in their care with the resources they have. I may not agree with all of their decisions, and I might wish they would offer more, but I have enormous respect for their dedication and their expertise. It is my responsibility as a parent to advocate for my children’s needs, but workable solutions need to fit within what the school can reasonably offer. We all want the kids to get the best possible education, so I approach them in the spirit of trying to collaboratively find the best solution together. If the schools are truly violating your child’s rights or being negligent with their education and refusing to budge, then you may eventually need to change the tone of your interaction, but I thankfully have not found that to be necessary.

2. Learn the school’s language and perspective around AAP and use that.
FCPS officially doesn't like to use the term “gifted” so I almost never use it when I’m talking to the school. Instead, FCPS's philosophy is based around some children needing access to an "advanced curriculum." So I use the word “advanced” where I might otherwise say “gifted”. FCPS has described the characteristics they use for determining eligibility to AAP, so I use their own goals and criteria for the program as much as possible. For example, FCPS has stated one justification for why a child might qualify for Level IV services is if they need “time to work with similar academic peer group to ensure peer-to-peer feedback to promote growth.” FCPS has declared that students are entitled to an academically-matched peer group, so I can use their language to request differentiation so that my children can access an appropriate peer group. For both of my children, I have pointed out where they were having to do a lot work by themselves because they had no one else in the classroom that could match them academically. Without an academic peer group, they are going to be increasingly socially isolated and they miss out on the opportunity to learn from other children. You may still have to negotiate with the school what a viable peer group is, depending on their scheduling challenges. It could be a small group within a classroom, a pullout group across multiple classrooms with the AART, or even moving to another grade for part or all of the day.

Likewise, I don’t talk about my children being “bored” in class. Instead, I try to talk with the school about the impact of my children being underchallenged. If the academic rigor is too low for them, then they are uninterested and have trouble focusing on the work. Alternatively, they may rush through too easy work because it’s just not interesting enough to them to try to do it well. When they are underchallenged, they are missing out on the crucial opportunities all of the other children have to develop the skill of learning—how do you persevere through a hard problem when you don’t know the answer right away. How do you handle making mistakes and learning from them? How do you respectfully treat others who are struggling to learn if you don’t know what that’s like? Other kids may have different problems like acting out or disrupting class. You should adapt this discussion for whatever problems are specific to your child.

Using their language can save you a lot of time. I have found that the public schools are much more responsive to “Your policy is to give children with need A access to resource B. My child has need A. Can we meet to talk about how to give them resource B?” Stating “My child is gifted and bored in class, can you give them resource B” can provoke an unhelpful lecture on why they don’t use the label gifted (I don’t care, and I rather discuss meeting the needs of my child than what label we use to categorize those needs). Worse, complaining that they are “bored in class” is unspecific and not persuasive. Lots of kids are bored in class for many different reasons, and “avoiding boredom” is not a stated goal of any FCPS program to my knowledge. If you use the wrong language, you and the school can end up talking past each other, even if you want the same things, because, from their perspective, you are asking them to solve the wrong problem (e.g., “boredom”) using the wrong reason (e.g. “gifted”).

If you don’t know the language, I recommend going through all of the materials on the FCPS website about Advanced Academics, and attend any school events where the AART provides an overview of the AAP process.

3. Collect as much supporting evidence as you can that accurately shows your child's need for differentiation.
This includes any test results, report cards, teacher feedback about your child, and work samples from home and school. The school did a comprehensive cognitive assessment of my son for his IEP, so we were able to use those test scores along with his other test scores like iReady to show that he really did need more than he was getting in his current classroom. Despite entering kindergarten with math abilities far above grade level, the school did not originally identify him as eligible for Level 2 AAP. This is admittedly a source of frustration, but… respect. Their job is complex and 2e kids are harder to identify. So we did our job to advocate for our child. Thankfully, the school was quick to make changes as soon as we had evidence to support our claim that our son needs access to a more advanced curriculum and a peer group. For my daughter the pandemic made it a lot harder to get good evidence, so it was a bigger lift to get FCPS to recognize her needs and put her in an appropriate classroom. (As I mentioned in my previous comment, she's in Level IV AAP now, though she had to pass through all the other AAP levels before she got there. Luckily her teachers and AART agreed that she needed to be in Level IV, so they helped us navigate the process to help her get eligibility.)

4. Have a conversation with the teacher before you approach to anyone else at the school.
The teacher sees your child all day every day and has a good idea of what they are capable of. Ask the teacher about their assessment of your child’s abilities, and ask how what kinds of differentiation they are providing. For some kids, the in-class differentiation may be enough. Or they may be able to help you understand what other options might be available. In my daughter’s case, the teacher is able to provide additional enough depth and differentiation in the Level IV AAP classroom that we are satisfied that we don’t need to push for more from the school this year. Teachers do miss things, so this conversation is also a chance to help them see your perspective on what your child can do. They are your best ally if you can come to an agreement that your child needs more than the teacher can provide.

5. After you talk to the teacher, have a conversation with the AART and/or assistant principal about how the current level of differentiation is not meeting your child’s needs, and then ask to talk about options.
Don’t go to them without talking to the teacher first. They will just send you back to talk to the teacher. If your child is advanced at a level similar to other advanced kids in their grade, this may be a fairly simple conversation about how to formally identify your child as eligible for AAP resources and what the school provides to kids at different levels of AAP (which may not be terribly helpful if you've already poured over all of FCPS's materials on the AAP program). If your child is 3-4 grade levels ahead, then you may need to brainstorm with the school to come up with some unique solutions for providing adequate differentiation. Even still, these solutions may still not be able to fully meet a super-advanced kid's needs, so you will likely still end up needing to supplement at home. We reached out to the assistant principal after my son's test scores came back to ask if there was any way my son could be provided with better differentiation and an appropriate peer group. She was initially hesitant to make any changes, but scheduled a meeting with us to talk through some potential options. After she had a chance to review all of his test scores (evidence!), consult with his teacher (teacher support!), and monitor him in class (she was very thorough!), she called us back and proposed to move my son to a new classroom where he would have access to better differentiation and a better matched peer group. He joined the new class the next day and loves it.

Why are you asking about APS in the AAP forum? APS doesn't have AAP or any significant math differentiation in elementary. There are some extra worksheets, but that's about it.

Anonymous wrote:Same situation: 3-4 grades ahead early on with no formal instruction or hot housing.

Though private had better resources and the topics were a bit more advanced, there was no interest (or capacity) to offer true differentiation in a way that met this specific need.

In our public school, experienced teachers have found creative ways to better meet DC's needs without increasing their own workload. We make an effort to gently advocate for the child's needs.

For these students, supplementing is a necessity not a luxury. We use the following:

- AoPS / RSM: Both programs will test children and place them at a higher level if necessary. RSM has multiple tiers to provide rigor along with same-age peers. DC chose AoPS because the problems appear to be more interesting and fun. It's important to recognize that math is not linear, especially for kids that are 2-4 levels above their grade. While AoPS has levels, its curriculum integrates standards from any grade as needed for each topic.

- Private tutor: Not for instruction, but to nurture their enthusiasm for learning and address common challenges of asynchronous development (e.g., organizing thoughts and executing tasks in a structured way). It's also a more effective way to meet DC's needs, given the challenges of a large age gap in a classroom.

- Interest-based activities that will allow DC to express and develop adjacent areas (e.g., coding, robotics, chess, science projects, etc.). We use free courses and buy a science kit once in a while, since there aren't many classroom-based courses available for K and 1st grade students.

Many public schools do not offer true acceleration or differentiation in K or 1st. Even in AAP, these kids will go unchallenged. Supplementing and/or home schooling are the best way.

AoPs seems on the expensive side. What others are affordable and yearlong?

Anonymous wrote:My first-grade son started kindergarten doing multiplication and exploring square and cube roots. He has a great intuition for how math works and he can solve interesting problems several grade levels ahead. However, his math computation, while still above average, is comparatively slower because he is still growing his fluency with basic math facts. For now, I'm fine with his school's approach of going deeper rather than faster because mastery of these foundational skills is so valuable for the higher level math that comes later. I would probably think differently if his math fluency were so advanced that he had nothing to gain from more depth.

We supplement at home with Beast Academy as a fun, optional activity during the school year and more regularly in the summer. I like that Beast Academy also provides depth, but also supports acceleration as he's ready for it. My older daughter's teacher occasionally assigns her algebra problems in iReady that are four grade levels ahead, so she gets some acceleration over and above the Level IV curriculum. I have found that acceleration opportunities vary across FCPS schools. We've been to two (due to a move) and our current school does a much better job supporting advanced students. We had little success with a private school during the pandemic -- they refused to offer any math differentiation claiming their curriculum was already advanced, and they didn't have any real policy for handling advanced students. I'm sure there are better private schools for gifted kids, but our priorities during the pandemic were a safe learning environment, and differentiation was secondary. (Plus they actually taught phonics when FCPS was still doing Balanced Literacy.) We’ve had more success negotiating differentiation within FCPS. Homeschooling wouldn’t work for my 2e kids who need the structure of a classroom to get anything done, so we have chosen to leverage the public school resources while supplementing at home as needed to keep math fun.

How do you negotiate differentiation?

Anonymous wrote:Most people enroll their kids in AoPS and accept that the kid will learn nothing in their regular school math class. Or they homeschool. You are unlikely to find any private or public school that can accommodate a child 3-4 years above grade level.

The AoPS academies in Vienna and Gaithersburg are willing to test kids and place them in above grade level classes when warranted. If you go that route, it's likely that your child will be in a class with a few other kids who were also skipped ahead.

+1 This.

Same situation: 3-4 grades ahead early on with no formal instruction or hot housing.

Though private had better resources and the topics were a bit more advanced, there was no interest (or capacity) to offer true differentiation in a way that met this specific need.

In our public school, experienced teachers have found creative ways to better meet DC's needs without increasing their own workload. We make an effort to gently advocate for the child's needs.

For these students, supplementing is a necessity not a luxury. We use the following:

- AoPS / RSM: Both programs will test children and place them at a higher level if necessary. RSM has multiple tiers to provide rigor along with same-age peers. DC chose AoPS because the problems appear to be more interesting and fun. It's important to recognize that math is not linear, especially for kids that are 2-4 levels above their grade. While AoPS has levels, its curriculum integrates standards from any grade as needed for each topic.

- Private tutor: Not for instruction, but to nurture their enthusiasm for learning and address common challenges of asynchronous development (e.g., organizing thoughts and executing tasks in a structured way). It's also a more effective way to meet DC's needs, given the challenges of a large age gap in a classroom.

- Interest-based activities that will allow DC to express and develop adjacent areas (e.g., coding, robotics, chess, science projects, etc.). We use free courses and buy a science kit once in a while, since there aren't many classroom-based courses available for K and 1st grade students.

Many public schools do not offer true acceleration or differentiation in K or 1st. Even in AAP, these kids will go unchallenged. Supplementing and/or home schooling are the best way.

You send your kid to FCPS and deal with the AAP crazy there.

Or you supplement when you can, but don't stress about it because you know it's not worth pushing it in early ES.

My first-grade son started kindergarten doing multiplication and exploring square and cube roots. He has a great intuition for how math works and he can solve interesting problems several grade levels ahead. However, his math computation, while still above average, is comparatively slower because he is still growing his fluency with basic math facts. For now, I'm fine with his school's approach of going deeper rather than faster because mastery of these foundational skills is so valuable for the higher level math that comes later. I would probably think differently if his math fluency were so advanced that he had nothing to gain from more depth.

We supplement at home with Beast Academy as a fun, optional activity during the school year and more regularly in the summer. I like that Beast Academy also provides depth, but also supports acceleration as he's ready for it. My older daughter's teacher occasionally assigns her algebra problems in iReady that are four grade levels ahead, so she gets some acceleration over and above the Level IV curriculum. I have found that acceleration opportunities vary across FCPS schools. We've been to two (due to a move) and our current school does a much better job supporting advanced students. We had little success with a private school during the pandemic -- they refused to offer any math differentiation claiming their curriculum was already advanced, and they didn't have any real policy for handling advanced students. I'm sure there are better private schools for gifted kids, but our priorities during the pandemic were a safe learning environment, and differentiation was secondary. (Plus they actually taught phonics when FCPS was still doing Balanced Literacy.) We’ve had more success negotiating differentiation within FCPS. Homeschooling wouldn’t work for my 2e kids who need the structure of a classroom to get anything done, so we have chosen to leverage the public school resources while supplementing at home as needed to keep math fun.

Most people enroll their kids in AoPS and accept that the kid will learn nothing in their regular school math class. Or they homeschool. You are unlikely to find any private or public school that can accommodate a child 3-4 years above grade level.

The AoPS academies in Vienna and Gaithersburg are willing to test kids and place them in above grade level classes when warranted. If you go that route, it's likely that your child will be in a class with a few other kids who were also skipped ahead.

For a kindergartner who has mastered 3rd or 4th grade math, some schools will accelerate or grade skip. There are lots of logistical issues involved that should be considered.

I ended up having to homeschool mine. Now DC does math through the AoPS classes and it's worked out great.

I'd love to know the answer, because I'm int he same boat with my kid. We're exploring private after giving publics a shot, and it's clear there's no plan for advanced students in elementary school.

What do people do for their kids who are performing 3-4 grades ahead in math in kindergarten & first grade? Doesn't seem like the schools will do anything. Are private school ACTUALLY better?