Sounds great MofN! It's good you recognize your trap. Mine is "proving my point". I tend to get side-tracked and distracted looking for that one piece of data, or that one clause in the regulations, and lose my focus. My advocate last year would tap me on the shoulder and gently shake his head when he saw me going down the rabbit trail.

Another trap for me is accepting wishy-washy. I learned valuable lessons from the mediator there. When they say "maybe we can do something once the kids settle in..." counter immediately with "So we can plan on X, Y and Z by October 1st?" Counter their attempts at avoiding the issue with concrete goals and schedules.

Best wishes!!! I love Cathy's powerful inspiration, LOL!

Oh, one closing thought....if grade skipping or acceleration is a goal, counter the inevitable "oh the precious little one can't possibly go in with The Big Kids" with "good point....so how can we bring XXX (level of subject) down to where he is?" Suddenly moving the kid seems so much more doable! See through their "excuses" and make it about solving the problem, rather than avoiding the undoable. And yes....may that force be with you!!!!

Excellent post, Dottie! You really have heard it all!

I am also extremely envious of the fact that you get an advocate (provided by the state, I assume) to attend your meetings.

good luck MoN.

Don't DOK too much, the advocate was truly a gift from God, but not a school freebie! It was a concerned friend with a legal background to boot, who really felt for our case, and the timing all worked in our favor. The mediator was the only thing provided by The System. I learned so much though from both!

I'm late to this discussion, but am prepping for a similar meeting next fall, so I'll add a couple of thoughts.

First, this site has some very good resources. For short-term review, I would suggest reading Julia Osborn's article on advocacy (you can find it easily using the site's search function). The article library also offers a Davidson Advocacy guide, which, though it's 40 pages long, reads quickly and has good outline ideas. If acceleration is your goal, there are any number of good articles in the 'cybersource' article library. I read about one parent who brought in several such articles, with key points highlighted, and presented them in a binder to the school representative.

Second, a portfolio of your child's work/play in math, reading, whatever, showing a level of competence above what the school curriculum offers at the age-appropriate grade level, is hard to debate against.

Knowing your blind spots is key, too, if you can manage it. Mine is that I'm apt to rely on personal intensity rather than dispassionate data - this always backfires! But it's a terrific effort to be detached where my child is concerned.

Best of luck.

That's very helpful. The purpose of our meeting is for us as parents to find out about the curriculum. Perhaps everything will be perfect. (doubt it- hence the meeting). What we are asking for is not outright acceleration. For Ds, it's finding out if he needs an LD diagnosis and if that would help move him to what we think is a more appropriate placement.
For DD (already skipped once) we are not looking for accleration as much as we are wondering what they will do with her. We want to communicate her needs - emotions and academics are heavily entwined- and make sure that when they start teaching to the test (writing perfect sentences and paragraphs) that she will have some sort of creative outlet so she doesn't feel beaten down.
We have been gathering samples of Ds work that got worse over the school year and better since school let out, and DDs work that shows her skill level as higher than expected for her grade, but we have been talking ourselves out of taking it with us. We were using it mostly to help us believe in our perspective and thinking that we'd be considered obsessive nuts and open ourselves up to getting picked apart (see this gramatical error- your child is not so smart- type of thing).

What about samples for an informal meeting like ours. Is it a good idea or not?

Well it's over. How frustrating! How exhausting! Good heavens how many ways do they have for saying no and each way just gets lengthier! And then they turn the tables and they start the emotional stuff, the gushing about what a wonderful parent you are, blah blah blah.

Anyway, we got what we wanted with dd. But we didn't ask for anything really except a decent teacher.
However, with ds, the bottom line is that they will be aware that handwriting is hard and will look at the problems. But that's what happened last year! They did acknowledge on the writing samples that he actually did get worse, but the answer seemed to be that he was lazy and not putting forth his best effort. No, they won't let him type - then everybody would want to.
Looks like in my mind we have several choices. 1. Wait til the beginning of the year and see how he does. 2. Meet with the teacher and say exactly what we think needs to be done (even though we'd rather they use their expertise), 3. get outside testing to find out what he needs and then tell school. Or 4. Insist on a SPED eval and push until we get an IEP with a computer on it.
He doesn't talk and can't write legibly. Yet, he must do both before he can succeed in school. At home he talks. At home he types. With a little support at school, he'd talk and type and work on handwriting, but it's just not going to happen. His low placement will stand until he talks and writes.
For now, we'll meet with the teacher at the beginning of the year. If things aren't improving, we'll pursue outside testing to help us figure out the problem. There are so many good things about the school that keep us there, but this bad thing is getting to be BAAAD.
I hate meetings.

oh no hugs. much luck to you.

MON, I hear you on the handwriting issues... DD has no official accommodations either. Last year, I had her type her homework (without asking the teacher's permission). The teacher was fine with it, and homework was MUCH quicker As for in class work, I haven't tried to address that. I am very interested to hear what you and the school work out for your DS.

Dear Master:

So sorry to hear your meeting was discouraging. For what it's worth, I've found the best summarized blow-by-blow account of a mother's ongoing negotiations with schools over her child's whole educational career in the beginning of DEVELOPING MATH TALENT. You might find some comfort (or not!) and ideas there. In essence, she concludes that advocacy with the public system is a time-consuming, effort intensive job that continues through all twelve years of the conventional curriculum. For this reason, we are trying to have a home-school system set up as a fall-back.

I'd like to mention again the rich resource base the Davidson institute offers in its cybersource pages - I know there are specialized articles there on dealing with handwriting and suchlike, if you haven't read them already.

When I think this process through, and try to see the public school administration's side, I assume about 80% of their parents believe their children to be gifted and deserving of 'special' attention. For this reason, I've concluded it's essential to have third party data (test scores) and analysis (articles and research) to make the case I want to present. With this approach I'm hopeful we can maintain the dialog on the plane of what is best for the child and consistent with the school's mission, rather than the plane of what we think versus what they think.
I have my fingers crossed that this approach will get us where we want to be.

Hang in there!

Agreed. Try to collect as much tangible data as you can to support your situation. I really feel you should go with the full eval at this point to see what you are dealing with. Find out what's behind the handwriting and expression issues from a specialist. They can get you the special education plan if you need it.

I look at how stressed I was last year. The thought of repeating the process and starting over with each teacher for 11 more years makes me realize it may not be a good idea for me!
I'm not sure I have the temperment to deal with it!

I'm currently attempting to take advantage of a partial homeschool availability that our state has. This way the girls can attend school with their friends(they get a long with different age groups and we are lucky that they both like being with their same age group as well), yet spend part of their day, working at their appropriate learning level. And I don't have to put the burden on the teacher. I think it works for everyone. The girls are happy, parents feel learning needs are adressed to some point, teacher doesn't have to deal with me!