Despite my best intentions, I missed the NAGC’s webinar tonight on the power of advocacy. I’m hoping they’ll put the recorded session online soon, since I need all the help I can get. At the moment we appear to be headed to mediation with our school district over the GIEP they hastily pieced together for C back in October. I have to admit that I avoided dealing with this issue for weeks before they sent us a letter saying we must either accept or reject the GIEP. As flawed as it is, we surely cannot accept it. So while C is going to private school this year and won’t be benefitting from the GIEP either way, we felt we had to reject it.
We think it makes sense to put in the effort now to set things right in case C does need to go to public school in the future. Still, we are not looking forward to the process. A gifted advocate in our area told me last week that mediation alone rarely works. While we have few resources these days, we’re looking into hiring him to help with our case. With all the time, effort, and now money, that we’ve put into fighting our school system, I can certainly understand why so many parents of gifted children choose to home school. I, like many parents, fantasize about starting my own school for the gifted one day that would actually meet the needs of these kids and give parents another real option.
Well, I just need to take baby steps. My GRE scores will hopefully arrive next week and my graduate school applications will be complete. Then it’ll be time to cross my fingers and wait…
