After waiting two weeks, I finally heard back from the school psychologist about C’s achievement testing. I found out that they gave him portions of the WIAT-II and the WJIII. I’m not sure why they mix the two or why they just chose a handful of the subtests. He scored in the gifted range on each section, with his lowest score being the WJ writing sample and his highest score being the WJ passage comprehension. None of this is surprising, since reading is his strongest area and writing is his relative weakest.
The achievement testing didn’t really help me gain any insight into anything, but at least should satisfy the district once and for all that C qualifies for a GIEP. They refused to accept our testing or the GIEP from the cyber charter school. I was hoping their achievement testing would give me an idea of where C really is academically, but it ended up being more like another IQ test than anything else. I had envisioned something more like the Stanford Achievement Test he had in kindergarten.
Now we are in waiting mode yet again. C has one more test coming up in early October and then we can finally move forward towards getting a GIEP in place. I am extremely curious as to what they will put in the GIEP and exactly how much support they’ll give him while he’s attending a private school. I tend to believe they will just offer to bus him to one of their schools for some lame pull-out program. They refused to tell me what sorts of things they could offer until C was tested. I even asked them to tell me what they offer other kids in general and leave my son out of the conversation, but they still refused. I asked point blank if they only offered a pull-out, but they danced around that and just about every other question. It was so frustrating that I was practically in tears by the end of the conversation that day.
Needless to say, if after all of this they just offer a pull-out, I will have to try my darnedest to not go totally ballistic. I think I will have to practice some meditation techniques ahead of time, because the psychologist pretty much admitted now that’s about all they do for kids before 3rd grade. Of course I heard this from lots of other parents, but couldn’t believe it was true because it seems totally in violation of chapter 16.
Chapter 16 lays out the rules that public schools in Pennsylvania must follow. It says under its purpose that districts must provide:
(1) Services and programs planned, developed and operated for the identification and evaluation of each gifted student.
(2) Gifted education for each gifted student which is based on the unique needs of the student, not solely on the student’s classification.
(3) Gifted education for gifted students which enables them to participate in acceleration or enrichment programs, or both, as appropriate, and to receive services according to their intellectual and academic abilities and needs.
So, if they have to meet C’s needs and that obviously can’t be done with a simple pull-out program, how would they get away with not doing more? I have a feeling that I will be asking them that exact question. Meanwhile, I still need to contact the county to see if they can possibly intervene and offer C services at his private school rather than having him bussed to the public school. The county already goes to his private school to work with students at risk, but I’m unsure of their obligations, if any, to gifted children.
