If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#71
|
|||
|
|||
Bright 2nd grader & school truancy / part-time home-school?
Sounds like you have a good situation. Our school doesn't mind if it's a
once-in-a while thing , but to take a child out once a week for the whole school year is a bit much. My job is about the best I can have at this time, my boss's wife is an assistant principal at a high school so he has no problem with me leaving to go to a conference, pick up a sick child (in fact all my co-workers know the sound of the nurses voice !) "Jenrose" wrote in message s.com... "dejablues" wrote in message ... "Vicki" wrote in message news Today we received a warning letter for truancy for our 2nd grader. The principal said she was concerned about dd's absences. I am not concerned about dd's absences--she is bright, she knows the material [she's missed five days this month, but received 100 on her test for materials covered.] I don't think the teacher is concerned. But the principal said dd is only allowed 5 excused absences per semester. I'm not happy about the possibility of legal sanctions for keeping dd home (she was sick this month, but I wouldn't hesitate to take her out of school for other things we feel are important.) You are teaching your daughter that it is OK to skip out on things that she *has* to do in order to do things she (or you ) *wants* to do. sigh My daughter's school doesn't even blink if a kid misses a day for something the parent thinks is important. If kids need to leave early for a music lesson, they bend over backward to make it easy. They're being taught to balance priorities in their lives, and it just so happens that for most of the kids, they love school and school is a high priority and they don't want to miss it for anything. Some kids miss occasionally for the start of an SCA event, for example, or a major family trip, or whatnot. But you know, in real life, people GET to make special plans to rearrange their lives around the occasional special event or opportunity. If my daughter was doing such a **** poor job of educating her that it didn't feel like a missed day would even matter, I wouldn't mind pulling her now and then either. As it is, she loves school, hates missing a day, and we have to browbeat her into missing once in a while for things where it just doesn't "work" for us to send her to school that day (i.e. when we go to a special once-a-year event for the weekend and must leave Friday.) But the school and her teachers don't mind. Funny thing... I found a job myself where the day they hired me they said, "We know you're a parent and we want you to know that your family comes first." I can miss a day "just because" and not lose my job--they know I'll meet my deadlines and they know that flexibility is one of the reasons I stay there. I can show up late or leave early. I insisted on finding a job where my family COULD come first. My daughter's school succeeded in making going to school "the reward"... so that they don't HAVE to punish people outrageously for missing. Most people just don't want to miss! Jenrose |
#72
|
|||
|
|||
Bright 2nd grader & school truancy / part-time home-school?
toypup wrote:
"Ericka Kammerer" wrote in message ... I certainly won't contest your impression of your district, as I have no experience of it. We have a similar program (center based GT program), however, and it is *totally* different. The kids are delightful, very well behaved, and highly supportive of the school and school programs--not to mention that their parents are some of the most highly active in the whole school, and their efforts benefit the *whole* school, not just the center based GT part. I'll agree that the label is unfortunate, though I'm not sure what the program ought to be called. I doesn't matter what it's called, everyone will know what it means. We had a blue bird, red bird program at school where the excellerated readers started school a little later. The labels didn't mention gifted or talented, just a different colored bird, but everyone knew what it meant. I certainly agree with that. Most of the grades in our school have reading and math groups. They aren't identified as anything beyond "Mr. Alexander's reading group" or "Mrs. Grader's math group" and they don't tell the kids (or the parents, unless you torture it out of them!) which groups are which, but the kids figure it out in very short order. Still, I think there is something important about names, and calling something the "gifted and talented" program does beg the question of precisely what these kids are gifted and talented *at* and whether everyone else is *not* gifted *or* talented (which would be patently untrue). I'd be happy seeing a somewhat different label, but I haven't the foggiest idea what it would be. And really, maybe it wouldn't do any good after all. Even if you started out with more neutral words, perhaps they'd just acquire the meanings one hoped to avoid anyway, as you say. Best wishes, Ericka |
#73
|
|||
|
|||
Bright 2nd grader & school truancy / part-time home-school?
Jenrose wrote:
My daughter's school doesn't even blink if a kid misses a day for something the parent thinks is important. If kids need to leave early for a music lesson, they bend over backward to make it easy. They're being taught to balance priorities in their lives, and it just so happens that for most of the kids, they love school and school is a high priority and they don't want to miss it for anything. Some kids miss occasionally for the start of an SCA event, for example, or a major family trip, or whatnot. But you know, in real life, people GET to make special plans to rearrange their lives around the occasional special event or opportunity. I don't think it's so much the occasional special event that's a problem. Our school will also work with families in those situations, as will most of the teachers. But there's a world of difference between the occasional opportunity and a child who, for one reason or another, is barely in the classroom enough to establish a routine. In the OP's case, we're talking about a child who has missed several days due to illness, who has and will miss more for assorted special and family events, and whom the OP wants to take out even MORE frequently (up to a day a week) for enrichment activities! In that scenario, the child is missing more than 20 percent of school! At that point, I think you've presented a very difficult position for the teacher and the administration. If the education isn't adequate, by all means find a way to get the child the education she needs, but I just don't see how the proposed scenario is going to work well for *anyone*. If flexibility is the name of the game, then full time homeschooling really seems to be the best option, and then one figures out a way to achieve the social goals along with it. If that's not acceptable and the child needs to stay in the public school system, then I think it's important to do that in a way that shows some respect to the teacher and classmates as well as providing the appropriate enrichment activities. Funny thing... I found a job myself where the day they hired me they said, "We know you're a parent and we want you to know that your family comes first." I can miss a day "just because" and not lose my job--they know I'll meet my deadlines and they know that flexibility is one of the reasons I stay there. I can show up late or leave early. I insisted on finding a job where my family COULD come first. But you have a job where the nature of the job makes that possible. I have one of those too, and it's a really nice way to go. But there *are* jobs where that isn't possible. The way most classrooms are organized, the job of learning/teaching isn't one that can be done in a situation where the child is missing 20+ percent of school. Is the teacher *really* supposed to sit down each week and plan *everything* to accommodate the fact that a particular child is going to regularly miss a day that week? The teacher must not schedule anything that would affect her grades that day? And, of course, it would be a shame to schedule anything particularly interesting or special that day, since this is a child who most needs those sorts of enriching activities. And what about group work? Will this child be excused from all group work so that her group won't be at a disadvantage by her absence? Or will all group work have to be scheduled around her schedule? And what about specials (music, PE, art, computer, etc.)? If the day she's skipping has one or more of those, then she's missing *all* of that activity, so what should happen with those grades? Should she be given a way to make those up? Now, one could argue that classes should be designed differently so that they had the flexibility to deal with this sort of thing. However, that would pretty much mean that they'd have to go to a sef-paced, self-directed sort of class. This would be a huge change, would probably require a significantly lower teacher:student ratio, and would wreak havoc with all the "accountability" testing and whatnot that has been implemented by our elected officials over the last several years. My daughter's school succeeded in making going to school "the reward"... so that they don't HAVE to punish people outrageously for missing. Most people just don't want to miss! I think most schools can be accommodating to some degree. Even if it's that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to spend two weeks on safari, they'll usually work to concoct some sort of project the child can do resulting from the trip itself, and that plus a little makeup work will eliminate the problem. But handling a situation where the child is regularly missing as much school as the OP proposed is a really different situation, in my opinion at least. Best wishes, Ericka |
#74
|
|||
|
|||
Bright 2nd grader & school truancy / part-time home-school?
Jenrose wrote:
I balk at the notion that a parent should "have" to homeschool to get a gifted child what they need (although I would have yanked my kid out of school so fast if it hadn't been great for her...) or that it should take "extra" time outside of school hours. Kids are in school for what, 29-30 hours per week? That's PLENTY to learn what they need to learn. Sure, they should have programs and opportunities for gifted kids. But if they *don't*, then besides agitating for them to have appropriate programs, one has to find a solution that is workable in the current environment. And believe me, having *been* a gifted kid in a school (at various times--I was in a lot of different schools) where there were no programs, I would *NOT* have wanted a solution where my folks pulled me out of school once a week! I was already different enough, thank you very much. Doing something that made it painfully obvious that everyone else was having to accommodate me would have been much worse. We found other solutions that worked within the classroom structure. Sometimes I'd go to the library (to read, to help, or to do special projects) *after* I'd done the work for my regular class. Sometimes the teacher would give me extra projects to do when I was bored. There were always plenty of ways to keep me from being bored in class when we looked for them. Some of the ways bright kids can "get more out" of existing units. Rather than doing ordinary spelling like the other kids, the better spellers are in "dictionary" spelling where they basically pick out their own words. snip When writing assignments are given, in a 1-3 class, the first graders write a few sentences and draw a picture. The third graders write a few paragraphs. The brighter kids might write a page or two. In fifth grade, my daughter is touch-typing 1-2 page papers. Reading...is always at the kid's level. snip Math is done by grade level, but is so open-ended that kids who fly get to work on really neat logic problems and word problems while kids who are working on the basic concepts spend more time with teacher and helping/getting help from peers snip The upshot is, my "highly gifted" kid has been educated right along with all the other kids for the past 5 years and aside from insisting on some alternatives to learning the alphabet (which she knew before she was 2) in K, I've not had to play the "gifted" card since she started 1st grade. Her teachers just provide *all* the kids with a good education, no matter how slow or fast they learn. All children learn better from an enriched, interesting educational environment. ALL children can benefit from hands-on learning. But you'll notice that none of your suggestions involved taking your child out of school every week! Your child is working *within* a very nice system--and using adaptations that the OP very likely *could* get implemented for her child with a little effort! Personally, I think that's a much better approach than trying to "fix" things by bailing on the regular classroom once a week. It's far less likely to cause problems or resentment, and it's likely much easier for the teacher to accommodate. Best wishes, Ericka |
#75
|
|||
|
|||
Bright 2nd grader & school truancy / part-time home-school?
"Ericka Kammerer" wrote in message ... toypup wrote: I certainly agree with that. Most of the grades in our school have reading and math groups. They aren't identified as anything beyond "Mr. Alexander's reading group" or "Mrs. Grader's math group" and they don't tell the kids (or the parents, unless you torture it out of them!) which groups are which, but the kids figure it out in very short order. There is an advantage of leaving it to the kids to figure out. Even when they do figure it out, they don't have the heft of the school administration behind them. There's always that seed of doubt. But once the labels start.... I talked to one child in a profoundly gifted program. Her class was small, and they were bringing in another child. She has her doubts about this child, after all, she came from the "only" gifted program. "She might be pretty stupid." Made me wonder exactly what they were teaching the profoundly gifted kids. Still, I think there is something important about names, and calling something the "gifted and talented" program does beg the question of precisely what these kids are gifted and talented *at* and whether everyone else is *not* gifted *or* talented (which would be patently untrue). But I agree, the label implies they are gifted and talented at everything, which is cruel to both kids on both sides. I'd be happy seeing a somewhat different label, but I haven't the foggiest idea what it would be. And really, maybe it wouldn't do any good after all. Even if you started out with more neutral words, perhaps they'd just acquire the meanings one hoped to avoid anyway, as you say. Why not start with what exactly the program does. Is it an accelerated program in academics? Could be called the "Accelerated Academics" program. Does it not accelerate, but covers the subjects in more depth, call it the "Comprehensive Studies" program. Heck, head on down to whichever program has the kids doing creative writing and have them look through the Thesaurus for good names. Best wishes, Ericka |
#76
|
|||
|
|||
Bright 2nd grader & school truancy / part-time home-school?
In article , Ericka Kammerer says...
toypup wrote: I doesn't matter what it's called, everyone will know what it means. We had a blue bird, red bird program at school where the excellerated readers started school a little later. The labels didn't mention gifted or talented, just a different colored bird, but everyone knew what it meant. I certainly agree with that. Most of the grades in our school have reading and math groups. They aren't identified as anything beyond "Mr. Alexander's reading group" or "Mrs. Grader's math group" and they don't tell the kids (or the parents, unless you torture it out of them!) which groups are which, but the kids figure it out in very short order. Still, I think there is something important about names, and calling something the "gifted and talented" program does beg the question of precisely what these kids are gifted and talented *at* and whether everyone else is *not* gifted *or* talented (which would be patently untrue). I'd be happy seeing a somewhat different label, but I haven't the foggiest idea what it would be. And really, maybe it wouldn't do any good after all. Even if you started out with more neutral words, perhaps they'd just acquire the meanings one hoped to avoid anyway, as you say. I've often heard "accelerated" and always thought that was a pretty good non-judgemental term. Banty |
#77
|
|||
|
|||
Bright 2nd grader & school truancy / part-time home-school?
In article , Ericka Kammerer says...
Banty wrote: In article , Ericka Kammerer says... from the classroom anyway. I guess I was assuming that neighborhood friends and friends from other activities would be unaffected by this odd school division, but apparently it extended beyond school? ?? Perhaps you're thinking of a program where the kids are together in a class even for lunch and PE and recess and everything else? I hadn't realized before your last post that you were talking about jr. high. I was thinking in terms of elementary school. In my son's elementary school, they have lunch as a class. I think they sometimes mix two classes together in PE, but there's not a lot of time for socializing there. As I said in another post, there's also only limited interaction at recess. By junior high, those between-class periods and - especially - who sits with who during lunch, and PE which mixes classes (at least did for the program I was in), and in recess in earlier grades the kids see each other. And often gravitate to their neighborhood friends. It doesn't have to extend beyond school. I don't know what it will be like for my kids when they get to jr. high, but I was in the same program my older son is now in this school district when I was in jr. high (egads...can it really be 25 years ago!?). We did mingle at lunch, but there was almost no between class time (barely enough to get from class to class if you hustled). But in junior high it's a really big deal - who you sit with at lunch, who you're waiting for at the bottom of the stairs to return a sweater left behind from a slumber party. If you're 'not supposed' to be doing stuff like that with people you've known for years suddenly, it's very very impactful and apparent. After school - we were in two different communities, base vs. town. But the at-school expectations voiced by "why were you talking to *her*??" rings loud in junior high ears. I moved into the area for 7th grade and was put into this center-based program. Unlike kids not in the program, I was with the same group of kids for all my core academics and was then mainstreamed for PE and band (and maybe one or two other classes over two years--I forget which, precisely). Anyway, because I had a good four classes with the same group of people, I knew them best and gravitated toward them to find friends. Well, you moved into the area, and didn't know anyone else yet. And soon went to classes. But usually, there are other previous connections. But I'm not saying finding friends from your classroom mostly is bad or anything. But would it have been apparent to you if there was an expectation not be have much to do with kids from ordinary classes in your case? Banty |
#78
|
|||
|
|||
Bright 2nd grader & school truancy / part-time home-school?
Banty wrote:
But I'm not saying finding friends from your classroom mostly is bad or anything. But would it have been apparent to you if there was an expectation not be have much to do with kids from ordinary classes in your case? I wouldn't want to stake my life on it, and of course the old memory could be failing after 25 years ;-) But my recollection is that there wasn't any of that. While most of my friends came from my classes (because I spent the most time with them) I did know others who had friends from other classes, whether they were neighborhood friends or friends from electives, and that didn't seem to be a problem. Band and drama were common places where kids from both programs interacted, and there were some friendships formed there for kids who were heavily into music or theater. Maybe I was just clueless, but I really didn't notice any of the animosity you described in your situation. There was certainly a sense of intellectual superiority in a few kids, but I didn't notice it to be any different from the same sense in similar mainstreamed kids ;-) Best wishes, Ericka |
#79
|
|||
|
|||
Bright 2nd grader & school truancy / part-time home-school?
|
#80
|
|||
|
|||
Bright 2nd grader & school truancy / part-time home-school?
"Ericka Kammerer" wrote in message ... Jenrose wrote: But you have a job where the nature of the job makes that possible. I have one of those too, and it's a really nice way to go. But there *are* jobs where that isn't possible. The way most classrooms are organized, the job of learning/teaching isn't one that can be done in a situation where the child is missing 20+ percent of school. Is the teacher *really* supposed to sit down each week and plan *everything* to accommodate the fact that a particular child is going to regularly miss a day that week? No. However.... The teacher must not schedule anything that would affect her grades that day? And, of course, it would be a shame to schedule anything particularly interesting or special that day, since this is a child who most needs those sorts of enriching activities. And what about group work? Will this child be excused from all group work so that her group won't be at a disadvantage by her absence? Or will all group work have to be scheduled around her schedule? And what about specials (music, PE, art, computer, etc.)? If the day she's skipping has one or more of those, then she's missing *all* of that activity, so what should happen with those grades? Should she be given a way to make those up? In an environment which focuses on education (rather than grades) and provides enough group work, special activities, enrichment, etc., there will be both the flexibility for a child to miss a class (without it affecting non-existing grades) and enough learning going on that maybe the parents don't feel they *need* to pull the child out to keep her learning. Now, one could argue that classes should be designed differently so that they had the flexibility to deal with this sort of thing. However, that would pretty much mean that they'd have to go to a sef-paced, self-directed sort of class. This would be a huge change, would probably require a significantly lower teacher:student ratio, and would wreak havoc with all the "accountability" testing and whatnot that has been implemented by our elected officials over the last several years. My daughter's classes are not self-paced, per se, nor self-directed. And the teacher/student ratio varies from 24:1 to 28:1, although we have enough parent volunteers that there are usually other adults around. Honestly, when you get a bunch of kids with different ability levels together, ditch the whole "letter grade" system, encourage group learning environments and make the curriculum one which allows children to do assignments to their ability rather than to one "objective" standard, then yes, you can accomplish an education with the same basic resources any public school should have. Our kids have to take the testing just like everyone else, and they do well on it. The *only* "problem" our school had on the national testing was...attendance. That is, enough parents opted out of the generalized testing that it was a black mark...the only black mark. Funny, the kids are still learning. But the teachers give the assignments, and the general direction, but they do tailor their expectations to each kid. Removing the tyranny of graded assignments and placing instead actual *feedback* to kids and encouragement to learn and develop rather than 'get better grades' and suddenly you get a group of engaged kids who like helping each other out, like learning, and who don't have to be ability grouped, ostracized or otherwise isolated for being brighter than average OR slower than average. My daughter's school succeeded in making going to school "the reward"... so that they don't HAVE to punish people outrageously for missing. Most people just don't want to miss! I think most schools can be accommodating to some degree. Even if it's that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to spend two weeks on safari, they'll usually work to concoct some sort of project the child can do resulting from the trip itself, and that plus a little makeup work will eliminate the problem. But handling a situation where the child is regularly missing as much school as the OP proposed is a really different situation, in my opinion at least. My opinion is that a bright kid whose parents feel the kid needs to be out of school once a week to get a decent education is a symptom of a school that is failing to provide an adequate education. The irony is that getting kids engaged in learning just does not have to be all that hard. School does not have to be boring. It does not have to be "paced to the slowest learner in the class". It does not have to be demoralizing for kids who take longer to learn. It does not have to be centered on getting grades--it should be centered on learning! I got great grades all the way through high school--it taught me to cram for tests but little else. I'm great at cramming for tests, btw... but have lousy retention of what I learn. My daughter on the other hand tends to really internalize what she learns, has great study habits, etc. Just this year, in 5th grade, she gets points on her assignments for the first time. And she is so into the extra credit for it's own sake that she often comes back with a zillion extra points on her paper and it's irrelevant to her. She's so not about the numbers. To me, a bored bright child is as scary or scarier than a child who is struggling to learn. Both are fully capable of acting out in frustration and disrupting the environment for other kids. Why not use curriculums that actually keep both kids from getting too frustrated? Curriculums that keep them learning? Jenrose |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
| Teen faces expulsion and felony for loaning girlfriend medicine | Kane | General | 55 | October 22nd 03 03:04 AM |
PE/Recess time mandates | Donna Metler | General | 190 | October 2nd 03 01:26 PM |
DCF CT monitor finds kids *worsen* while in state custody | Kane | General | 8 | August 13th 03 07:43 AM |
Philly public schools go soda free! email to your school board | Maurice | General | 1 | July 14th 03 01:05 AM |
Virtual school seeks Iowa funding | [email protected] | General | 4 | June 29th 03 12:55 AM |