educators; please help me with my son... - Page 2 - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

MTUpower · #16 10-19-2011, 11:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pj67coll

Good idea to have him hang out with the counsellor while "negotiations" are in progress. You are right that school is heavily political so you need to tread carefully there. Is there not a department at "district" level that deals with special ed, both in terms or deficiencies and advanced placement that you can appeal to?

- Peter.

Once I go over the Principals head and she hears about it I risk the label of "problem parent" and that mud will also smear my wife is my thinking. There may indeed be a department, but with the money woes all districts have upper level classes (ie advanced/gifted) are being cut, not enhanced.

elchivito · #17 10-19-2011, 11:49 AM

As things are now, your son has the ball. Explain the situation to him. He's bright and old enough to understand the situation, including your wife's precarious position. Then get him counseling, very soon. Tell him that he needs to agree to attend counseling sessions AND must promise to go to school without fussing and try his best to adjust while you promise to work to resolve the situation. He needs to know that you may not be successful and he may have to suck it up, but you'll do your best to rectify this. He needs to see this from all sides and know that you're advocating for him, not just forcing him to do something he doesn't want to do. He also needs to take responsibility for his actions.

elchivito · #18 10-19-2011, 11:53 AM

When my kids were attending my school, I found it best to have a rule in place that I wasn't notified of any issues during the school day. My wife was called instead.

crs82 · #19 10-19-2011, 12:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kuan

BTW notice being socially mature is hardly a problem with girls at this age?

At the school where my wife directs, it seems that this is the age and grade where girls learn to be emotionally manipulative, both with boys and with other girls (bullying, clique-ish) Half the time, one or more girls are in tears over the others making snide comments or making one feel "left out" in retaliation for a perceived slight.
I'm not so sure about the maturity gap any more.

MTUpower · #20 10-19-2011, 02:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by elchivito

When my kids were attending my school, I found it best to have a rule in place that I wasn't notified of any issues during the school day. My wife was called instead.

completely agree.

MTUpower · #21 10-19-2011, 02:25 PM

Here's the first draft of the letter to the principal; feel free to edit or given advice

Dear Principal XXXX; 10/19/11
Thank you for your time involved dealing with my forth grade son ZZZZ TTTT(HIS NAME) with regards to challenging him in his math studies and studies in general. I know you are extremely busy and taking time out to deal with one student means quite a bit to me. ZZZZ as you may know achieved a perfect score on the math section of the FCAT and is co-captain of the both the chess team and academic/scholastic team. He has already taken the fifth grade math final exam and scored close to 94% if I recall correctly. He has attended SSS (school initials) since kindergarten and his teachers and your staff has done an outstanding job in educating him to achieve the level of success he has recorded so far. For this I am truly grateful. However he felt unchallenged in the forth grade advance math class and was at risk of becoming inattentive- and indeed his teachers have relayed to me he was reading in class, but was still able to “multi-task” and respond correctly to the questions and lessons at hand. Since I was much the same in school when I was young- I graduated early from high school and at age 17 was a sophomore in college- I worried about him. I know that the devil makes use of inattentive minds so to speak. I asked his fourth grade team what we could do about challenging him a bit more and during our conference was came to the conclusion that Florida “virtual school” while still attending fourth grade advanced class was the solution.
Enrolling in the virtual school has not taken place and instead he was switched to fifth grade regular math class, and his schedule had to be re-arranged and he was taken out of his home room and put into more fifth grade classes. Now he has all fifth grade classes and this upsets him emotionally. ZZZZ is advanced intellectually but not socially or emotionally. He is quite upset about being removed from his friends and being placed into fifth grade where he has no friends and is not really equal socially to the fifth graders. In addition the fifth grade math class progress is actually behind the fourth grade advanced so he is reviewing subjects which he already understands and covered previously. I do not believe he is ready to be mixed in with fifth graders and his crying, worrying and nearly refusing to go to school on numerous occasions’ supports this conclusion. I do not know if this is a passing emotion or something which could have delayed consequences later in his academic life. Frankly I do not know what to do about this reaction from him other than to ask that he be returned to his fourth grade schedule and enrolled in virtual school. I would like this to happen. If this cannot happen I believe he will need some type of counseling to assist him in the transition and reduce the negative consequences of the move. As the SSS chess program parent president, registered school volunteer and multiple career day speaker I know I’ve given ZZZZ a good attitude about school and I don’t want to see his attitude towards school deteriorate. Please help me and him so that we can continue to see a star student shine. Again, thank you for your attention to this matter and for your role in assembling such an excellent staff which has molded ZZZZ to be able to achieve academic success.
Sincerely,

MY NAME

elchivito · #22 10-19-2011, 03:13 PM

You've got everything you need here in your original. I fiddled with it a bit, added pgph's, reworded for clarity and added a bit in a couple of places. Principal needs to know that you've looked into this business of moving kids up.
Hope it helps.

Thank you for your time involved dealing with my forth grade son ZZZZ TTTT(HIS NAME) with regards to challenging him in his math studies and classes in general. I know you are extremely busy and taking time out to deal with one student means quite a bit to me and to my son.
ZZZZ as you may know achieved a perfect score on the math section of the FCAT and is co-captain of the both the chess team and academic/scholastic team. He has already taken the fifth grade math final exam and scored close to 94% if I recall correctly.
He has attended SSS (school initials) since kindergarten and his teachers and your staff have done an outstanding job in educating him to achieve the level of success he has recorded so far. For this I am truly grateful. However, he felt unchallenged in the forth grade advance math class and was at risk of becoming inattentive. Indeed his teachers have reported to me that he was reading for pleasure in class, but was still able to “multi-task” and respond correctly to the questions and lessons at hand. Since I was much the same in school when I was young, I graduated early from high school and at age 17 was a sophomore in college, I worried about him. I know that the devil makes use of inattentive minds so to speak.
I asked his fourth grade team what we could do about challenging him a bit more and during our conference was came to the conclusion that enrolling him in the Florida “virtual school”, while still attending fourth grade advanced class was the solution.
Enrollment in the virtual school has not taken place at this writing and instead he has been moved up to fifth grade regular math class. To accomplish this, his schedule had to be re-arranged and he was taken out of his home room and put into more fifth grade classes. Now he has all fifth grade classes and this upsets him emotionally.
ZZZZ is advanced intellectually but not socially or emotionally. I do not believe he possesses the emotional maturity to handle classes where everyone is older than he is and already established in their social groups. He is quite upset about being removed from his friends and being placed into fifth grade where he has no friends and is not really equal socially to the fifth graders.
In addition the fifth grade math class progress is actually behind the fourth grade advanced class. He is in fact reviewing subjects which he already understands and covered previously. If the purpose of moving him up was to further challenge him, it will surely backfire.
I do not believe he is ready to be mixed in with fifth graders and his crying, worrying and nearly refusing to go to school on numerous occasions’ supports this conclusion. I do not know if this is a passing emotion or something which could have delayed consequences later in his academic life. I am aware that there is considerable academic research on the advisability of moving advanced students up in grade level against their wishes, and the outcomes are mixed at best.
Frankly I do not know what to do about this reaction from him other than to ask that he be returned to his fourth grade schedule and enrolled in virtual school. I would like this to happen soon. If this cannot happen I believe he will need counseling to assist him in the transition and reduce the negative consequences of the move. It's my understanding that in many schools the counselor is one of the first consulted when such a move is considered.
As the SSS chess program parent president, registered school volunteer and multiple career day speaker I know I’ve given ZZZZ a good attitude about school and I don’t want to see his attitude towards school deteriorate. Please help me and him so that we can continue to see a star student shine. Again, thank you for your attention to this matter and for your role in assembling such an excellent staff which has enabled ZZZZ's academic success.
Sincerely,

elchivito · #23 10-19-2011, 03:17 PM

By the way, what's an interim teacher? Is she taking over someone else's position or is that what your district calls probationary? Does she have a contract?

MTUpower · #24 10-19-2011, 04:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by elchivito

By the way, what's an interim teacher? Is she taking over someone else's position or is that what your district calls probationary? Does she have a contract?

She's been a substitute for teachers on child birth leave for the last three years, taking over the whole class full time, but paid as a substitute. She was told she would be taking over a class as a teacher resigned and moved to full time (regular teacher status). Now that was amended to so that she is full time "probationary" which is called interim here IIUC.

Now the good news- I picked up my sons from school just a few minutes ago and the son in question had a conference with the Principal and he was told he would be moved back to fourth grade (note my spelling was wrong on several occasions in the letter, lol) very soon with one fifth grade class: science, which is his favorite class intellectually. I nearly dropped the letter off at the office when I was to pick up the boys but decided to wait a day to see what you and others here had to say, and to hear my wife's concerns.

thank you everyone for your help and responses.
William

elchivito · #25 10-19-2011, 05:02 PM

ain't happy ending great! good news...

kerry · #26 10-19-2011, 05:22 PM

Very good news. I think 4th and 5th grades are very important.

tbomachines · #27 10-19-2011, 05:24 PM

Great news! I'm sure your son is even happier