Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your AART goes into the classroom and gives opportunities for kids to show critical thinking. If your child’s teacher is not demonstrating gifted behaviors for whatever reason, that is their extra chance to show them in their work.

Your child may very well be a genius at home, and you should appeal and try again next year, but your child will be ok in gen ed too. Most kids would be.

Our school does a AART special once a week. Part of my DC's work sample was something completed in AART. Another was an excerpt from one of the major writing projects. I think the others were math-focused.

Same here, and I think it helps for the AART to get to know the kids.

Anonymous wrote:Your AART goes into the classroom and gives opportunities for kids to show critical thinking. If your child’s teacher is not demonstrating gifted behaviors for whatever reason, that is their extra chance to show them in their work.

Your child may very well be a genius at home, and you should appeal and try again next year, but your child will be ok in gen ed too. Most kids would be.

Our school does a AART special once a week. Part of my DC's work sample was something completed in AART. Another was an excerpt from one of the major writing projects. I think the others were math-focused.

Your AART goes into the classroom and gives opportunities for kids to show critical thinking. If your child’s teacher is not demonstrating gifted behaviors for whatever reason, that is their extra chance to show them in their work.

Your child may very well be a genius at home, and you should appeal and try again next year, but your child will be ok in gen ed too. Most kids would be.

Anonymous wrote:How do you get access to your kid’s K and 1st grade GBRS? I thought GBRS is only completed as part of the Level IV application.

GBRS is completed every single year. GBRS with commentary is completed only for LIV applications. You can request the K and 1st GBRS, but it will only be scores. There won't be any comments with the scores.

How do you get access to your kid’s K and 1st grade GBRS? I thought GBRS is only completed as part of the Level IV application.

Since test scores arethe only objective factor, if your child’s scores are reasonably high, they should get inonappeal. Gbrs are completely subjective. I taught garde 2 and could basically give the gbrs I wanted. If your child has good scores and doesn’t get in, appeal!

Anonymous wrote:Being quiet isn’t an issue. I promise I can identify quiet kids who are super advanced/motivated/creative.

I’m sorry the process is so murky.

Teacher

That's great for your students, but it isn't true across the board. Some teachers are too busy with the many ESOL and below grade level kids that they won't notice the quiet or shy ones. Some teachers base GBRS more on executive function than on gifted behaviors. Some don't understand the gifted behaviors that are being demonstrated. Sometimes, your kid and the teacher just aren't a good fit together, so your kid tries to fly under the radar and doesn't show much in the classroom that year.

There are cases where the kid gets a lower GBRS year after year. In that case, the kid most likely isn't demonstrating advanced behaviors in the classroom.
There are also cases where the kid gets a nearly perfect GBRS in K and 1st, a low one in 2nd, and then high again in 3rd. If one teacher is an outlier, then that teacher probably doesn't understand the GBRS or doesn't like your kid.

Being quiet isn’t an issue. I promise I can identify quiet kids who are super advanced/motivated/creative.

I’m sorry the process is so murky.

Teacher

There are different ways of being noticed. DS is quiet, he needed to be encouraged to participate through second grade. He didn’t raise his hand and wasn’t the volunteer ever. But his Teachers all seemed to figure out that he was ahead and needed to be encouraged. His K, 1rst, and 2nd grade Teachers all said the same thing.

He stood out, in a class of 30 and with an AART who was part time at a school of 700 kids, by completing his work quickly and then doing the extra stuff that was listed and then reading a book quietly or writing his own story or doing math problems for fun. He knew the answers when he was called on and was able to explain the answers when asked. I strongly believe it was his K and 1rst grade Teacher that suggested he needed LII services because of the comments that they made about his work.

I don’t know why the Teachers give the GBRSs that they give but I don’t think that there is a penalty for being a quiet kid or a kid who is not demanding attention. All I can say is that the GBRSs that we received in 2nd grade matched the comments that we had been hearing since DS started at the school. That included areas where he was on grade level as well as the areas that he was ahead.

I don’t know what the Teachers have been saying at Parent Teacher conferences for the last few years but I would be surprised if what they wrote differs that much from what they have been saying.

I'm the OP. I just have to say you all are great!! I wish we could meet for coffee and talk! Appreciate the thoughtful replies.

I don't think AART likes me... I don't know what it is.. I might have rubbed her off the wrong way with my questions at the information sessions. But maybe that's my perception. I don't get any decent responses or insight into this program. I think she's extremely knowledgeable but I don't believe all kids are getting the same opportunities.

The bottom line is that my daughter is the respectful kind. She's is not the super vocal one. Big pontifcator. She listens. She doesn't interrupt others. But she enthusiastically participates and is very focused on success.

She had a school project that was a group project. She came home and spent 3 hours on a Friday optimizing the presentation flow and scripts for her 3 teammates, directed the effort. and came up with the creative concept. When the project was going the "let's just do a poster" ... she rallied the team to think bigger and put a vision of something more special and got the buy in. But that's not going to show up at school. Much of that collaboration happened outside of school. I put all kinds of examples like this in my first referral ( not this one as it happened later).

My point is that in classes with 25 kids, 700 kids in the school with one AART - I feel a kid has to push to stand out if that's NOT your natural state. It's not her. The school input and my input completely clashed. The two should tell a unified story. The school didn't support my observations. It feels like me against the school committee. It's not about her teacher simply liking her.. I meant that in that class and the conversations she brings home based on learning, I can't believe the teacher would have dinged her one the GBRS. I feel the other could have skewed it down if they gave input. the AART and principal can't get a good read in 10 minutes of interaction which was what my concern is.

Anonymous wrote:

Sorry for the double post. Really, though, if your kid gets rejected from AAP, but you think they belong, these are basically the only approaches you can take:
If test scores and GBRS are high, just continue appealing and reapplying. Eventually your kid will get in.
If the test scores are high but GBRS is low, try to figure out what's happening in the classroom. It's possible that the GBRS in 3rd will magically become strong, but it's also possible that your child isn't demonstrating much of anything in the classroom.
If the GBRS is high, but the test scores are much lower than you expected, get a WISC.

What you shouldn't do is drive yourself crazy trying to understand why a kid with a high GBRS, high test scores, and advanced in all subjects got rejected. You won't ever get an answer.

The problem with this approach is you will not know the GBRS BEFORE you apply for AAP. How will you know Is 3rd grade or 4 the grade for instance will be better?

You don't know. You just try again and hope for the best. There isn't anything else you really can do.