Need advice....

[charliegirl]

SueJ at Nethaven has a lot of links to sites for educational things. I got one from there the other day. I bet if you went to talk to her, she could point you to specific things you can do now.

She hosts the education chat on Wednesday nights.

[puzzled]

I just remembered too that when we paid the initial testing fee at sylvan, we paid a bit more to be eligible for any future testing that they do....I wonder if that test will qualify under that too. If it does, I will have him take it so we will know for sure what his abilities are.

I will have to go to the nethaven chat thingy once my last class is done on wednesdays, the last one is this week.

[jfla]

Hey puzzled,

Way to go Chase!

My son was in kind of a similar situation with math in school too. This is how we handled it:

the district we were in in Pennsylvania would accelerate kids in math according to their ability. so they hired a teacher to teach fifth grade math to his group of twelve third graders. When we moved to a different state, they had just changed their math curriculum and did not accelerate anymore. He was horribly bored and would come home crying about it.

After many phone calls, I convinced them to give him the final test for fourth grade so that he would not need to do it in class. I borrowed a sixth grade book from the middle school and taught him lessons after school. The next day at school, he would do the exercises for the lesson I had taught while the rest of the class did their math. I graded his work, gave him tests and turned in the scores and packets to his teacher.

In fifth grade the school didn't go for the same setup, so he did their math in class, I continued to tutor him at home and then we heard about an online distance learning program through Johns Hopkins Ctr for Gifted Learning. He took a special test something like an SAT. I can't remember what he scored but it was in the tenths of a percent at the top percentile. His score allowed him to take advanced courses online. JH gave him a placement test. The courses were not cheap, but he enjoyed them. (I can't remember, but it may have been $200-$300 for three months, it may be less expensive than Sylvan) Then when he started sixth grade they actually bumped him up another grade in math so he started Algebra that year. He was very happy that he finally had a math class at his level. Altho the students were a couple grades older, he was well accepted and respected.

In eighth grade, the district provided bus service for his class at the high school down the road. Every year the district has between two to four kids that are three years ahead in math.

Math is my son's passion. I've found him doing Linear Algebra "to relax" he says. Sometimes teachers have tried to discourage him from taking challenging coursework, saying that he will run out of classes to take...but I said we'll worry about that when the time comes...I figure if he's hungry now, feed him. He is insatiable about math. By the time he graduates high school in a few weeks, he will have maxed out the upper limits of course offerings at the high school and junior college. Recently he was honored by being given the highest departmental math award at school. Its a medal with his name and all engraved.

Re: Sylvan
Around 4/5th grade I used a free coupon for testing at Huntington Learning Ctr. I specifically said I was interested to find the upper limit of his math ability. Instead they gave the standard tests at his grade level, found nothing noteworthy about math and found lots of other areas to tutor him in... looking for me to sign on the dotted line. we did end up using them for study skills a few years later.

Relevant sites:
cty.jhu.edu/gifted/dcc/giftedld.html
cty.jhu.edu/gifted/links-resources/linkg.htm

[puzzled]

jfla, I PMd you on adhdnews....you can disregard that now! I thought I remembered that you had a math whiz on your hands too!

I will keep all of these ideas in my mind if the pre algebra does not work out. And sylvan was, if I remember right, like $35 an hour and he took 2 hours a week for several months. All he got out of it was some toys he 'bought' with the 'money' he earned by doing the work. That fell apart as fast as happy meal toys.. So $2-300 every 3 months would be cheaper, I think.... I did pay for all future testing though, so maybe something good may come out of it yet.

Jonna tells me that there have been in the past, 6th graders in pre algebra, this principal has only been in the position for 3 years, maybe there hasn't been in his tenure, but it has been done, so that should be brought to his attention by the gifted ccordinator when he talks to her.

Our schools are all on one site, connected by hallways, so he would not even need to go outside to go to the high school when the need occurs, and post secondary classes are offered at a college that is about 25 miles away when the kids are in junior/senior year.

The spec ed coordinator told me, when I was inquiring, that this is 'discouraged' until second semester senior year, but that if my child (I was inquiring about my older son at the time) was capable earlier, I should know that there is no 'rule' about not doing them earlier, I should just insist.....but I didn't hear it from him.....LOL!!! These classes are free to the student except for travel, and they gain both high school and college credit.

I have had nothing but cooperation from the school and both this principal and the middle school principal, so I am sure that we can work something out for next year.

It helps that he has some exposure to Chase as both his elementary principal for a time,and he runs the geography bee that Jake and Chase always do well in....they are the first siblings to compete in it at the same time and the year Chase was in 4th grade, Jake took 2nd and Chase took 3rd. Jake won it last year, and maintains As and Bs in all his subjects, so it probably is not too much of a stretch for the principal to believe that Chase could be bumped up to 7th grade math.

I am going to go and check out those websites now!

Thanks!

[jfla]

I'm glad that I saw your post, since I haven't checked my mail at News for a while...should probably do that.

Your school site setup sounds like a great place to easily provide for varying levels of ability without cost to the district...especially since you've had the principal's support. In our district, they give a math placement test before entering middle school. After they recieved his score, I sent the grade/pre-algebra course completion paperwork from JH-CTY. The next step were two additional tests he took at the middle school to see where he was at. I think they were pre-algebra and computation tests. The counseling office was so slow in response, that I needed to call although they had gotten the paperwork long before. Evidently they had filed the papers without ever looking at them.

Our high school offers Running Start at the community college too, starting in the junior year. They can take as many or as few courses as they want. There are quite a few students who opt for all their classes at the community college thus getting credit toward theeir high school diploma and end up with two years of college credit transferable to public colleges in the state. The community college is just ten minutes from our house, so he takes his math class there twice a week 5:30 - 7:30pm. He fills his empty time slot at the hs getting credit as a calculus tutor. It has been a great place to help him transition to the college environment.

There is an exceptional math whiz at the school where I work. He is a second grader taking Calculus!

[puzzled]

I finally remembered to call Sylvan this morning. They remembered Chase from over 2 years ago! The woman there said, "Well, we all knew that Chase was an exceptionally smart boy, even then!" I filled her in on the ADHD dx and treatment and how Chase's grades have escalated since then.

I told her about the STAR math test, and she was familiar with it, and asked her about further testing to guage where Chase stands in his math abilities. She is all set to give him the California Acheivment test, and a few other math tests on June 11th.

My paying for lifetime testing is paying off! All of this testing will be free for me.....finally, I did something right!

Chase was tickled that they remembered him fondly....

[charliegirl]

Its great he is going to get the testing he needs for free and Its wonderful that he had such a positive affect on them that they not only remember him but have such good things to say about him! ;D