Carter and School

Whew! Did you guys survive that crazy last week of school? I have about a million pictures from all the activities these last couple of weeks and I'm trying to decide how (and when) to blog it all. But I really wanted to recap our educational journey with Carter and the twists and turns it has taken these last couple of weeks.

At the beginning of the school year we requested to have Carter tested for the gifted program. NM is one of the few states in the nation that offers gifted services to kids under third grade. We began the process in October and it took us months to get the school and his teacher on board with us. Imagine many phone calls, emails and conferences with the powers that be to get him tested. In the meantime we worked closely with his teacher to keep him challenged in school. At the beginning of the year Carter was tested for reading group placement and his placement came back as first semester 2nd grade. We immediately knew the testing was way off since he tested at 2nd semester 4th grade at the end of Kindergarten. I talked to his teacher and found out that she did not have the resources to test him beyond 1st semester 2nd grade. Talk about frustrating!! She had no idea how high he was even capable of reading. We went the rounds with her and in turn she went the rounds with the school to try and get the materials she needed to keep Carter challenged. The school does not allow for materials to be shared between grades so we were at a standstill until we offered to purchase all of the appropriate materials for him to use in class. Finally by November he was being challenged in reading. Math has been a whole other challenge as they would not let us advance him a grade level because they strictly follow the Everyday Math program. After going the rounds with the school (again) we decided to work with him at home and tried to keep him challenged here.

By this spring we were getting frustrated with the gifted testing process. We were required to fill out numerous questionnaires about Carter, his personality/strengths/weaknesses and our home life. Some of the random questions were things like "What are the dominant colors used in your home? How many hours of daylight do you get in your home?" It was truly bizarre. We also endured several rounds of educational meetings with his teacher and the district gifted team, etc. Seriously, it was the biggest run around I've ever been through. The bureaucracy in the process was truly astounding.

FINALLY a few weeks ago he was given all the gifted testing. The catalyst for having him tested was always his advanced reading capabilities. Imagine our HUGE surprise when the results came back that he falls in the highly gifted range for his IQ (top 1%) and that he tested off the charts in math and analytical thinking. He tested in the gifted range for reading, writing, creativity and verbal expression. After the test administrator gave me the test results she told me she was really glad that we had pushed the school to test him.

Last week we had a 2 hour IEP meeting with the district gifted team. They gave us some further results of the testing and helped us to lay out a plan for his future in the program. He qualifies for the maximum number of hours of gifted every week. Additionally, the school is going to work closely with us to have him tested out of math next year. He tested at the 5th grade level for math so he will be given the end of year tests until he can't pass the grade level tests and will go to the appropriate grade for math and reading.

It is truly such a relief to finally have some answers about his abilities and how he will be helped. When Carter was in Pre-K his teacher recognized that he was bright and told me that we would have to fight every step of the way to get him resources for his abilities. I am so grateful for that advice and grateful that we pushed and pursued enough that I'm sure the school was so tired of us! We are also well aware that gifted kids have their own set of issues and challenges so I don't think we are home free just with this testing done. But we are finally on the right track and it is a huge relief.

Another crazy development is that we have been accepted into a charter school for the fall. We still need to figure out the services available at the school but we feel really good about having our kids there as we have heard excellent things about the school.

I know this is long and boring but I wanted to keep a record of what is happening around here. I'll be back soon with lots of end of year excitement!