Friday, August 1, 2014

Our Exhausting School Year, Part II

We learned in March that Noodle, who was 6 at the time, is gifted but has a processing delay. His profile makes his educational path a very interesting one. As soon as we had this information, I started reading about twice-exceptional (2e) children (a great book: http://www.amazon.com/Twice-Exceptional-Gifted-Children-Understanding-Counseling-ebook/dp/B0065KVEGS/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1406902648&sr=1-1&keywords=beverly+trail), and one major theme kept cropping up: If 2e students are supported for their learning disability/ies but their gifted abilities are ignored, they are at risk for issues with poor self-esteem, depression, and--in extreme cases--suicidal thoughts. It's scary, but it makes sense: Who among us would thrive if the focus were always placed on our shortcomings and never on our talents?

Our public elementary school has a pull-out gifted program in which students are bused to another school building for a few hours of enrichment each week. There are many types of gifted programs, and probably none is perfect, but we were eager to discover if Noodle could participate, even though our district normally doesn't screen for giftedness until the end of second grade. We hit a stumbling block pretty quickly: One of the most important criteria for entrance to the program is that a child have a full-scale IQ of at least 130. Noodle's full-scale IQ doesn't hit that mark because when you average together his scores on the individual measures, his processing delay score drags the combined score below 130. As the child psychologist had forewarned, if you combined all of Noodle's scores, rather than looking at separate scores to see where he excels and where he struggles, he would look on paper like an average kid who was not eligible for support at either end of the educational spectrum.

Mr. Engineer and I had a conference with our school principal to discuss the possibility of Noodle being accepted into the gifted program, and he was supportive but forthrightly skeptical. We put in the letter to request that Noodle be tested by the district psychologist, which was their requirement before allowing a student into the program, to see if their results would come out differently enough to get him over the magic number. Unfortunately, it was late enough in the spring that the school year was going to end before the 60-day window mandated by state law for the district to do the testing was going to end. If they didn't find the time to test him before mid-June, it would have to wait until September. That meant we had to come up with a Plan B--identifying a different educational environment that would challenge Noodle's intellect while supporting his LD.

Our child psychologist suggested that we scout out some of the local private schools to see if what they offered could strike a better balance regarding Noodle's needs. She recommended one in particular, and I visited that one and a few others, all of varying types--parochial, Montessori, Quaker Friends, independent. All of them had fantastic things to offer, but most of them did not offer learning support, which was going to be a must for Noodle if he were going to succeed. I had to take those schools off the list.

Fortunately, one of the parochial schools--the one recommended by the psychologist--has a learning support team and even has at least one other student with the same profile as Noodle but who is in a higher grade. He is succeeding there, and that gave me and Mr. Engineer great hope. It was a relief to discuss Noodle's 2e status with the administrators at the private school and get knowing nods, instead of hemming and hawing.

Now push came to shove: It became clear in early June that our public school was indeed not going to find the time to test Noodle before first grade ended. We knew that if we returned Noodle to that school for second grade, there was a high risk that he was going to struggle again, both because his success is greatly based on the expertise of his individual teacher with 2e students and because it was going to take many months to get the district to finish their testing and decide what, if any, learning support, OT, etc., they would offer him, along with deciding whether to allow him into the gifted program.

Mr. Engineer and I decided to take the leap instead and apply to the private school. Noodle was accepted, and we've started making monthly tuition payments already in preparation for his September start. They don't have a gifted program, but they are able to differentiate instruction to such a great extent that in some cases it is individualized. They should be able to challenge Noodle and stretch his skills that fall within the advanced and gifted parts of his profile, while offering learning support and accommodations for his processing delay. They also have smaller class sizes, which will keep Noodle from getting left behind and frustrated with assignments for which he requires assistance from the teacher or needs some extra time. There is more movement during the school day, such as two recesses on many days and allowing the kids to sprawl out on the floor of the classroom to get work done, and movement is a critical part of keeping Noodle engaged. We're hopeful that the coming year will provide him with a fresh start and the realization that he is able to succeed and that school can be a happy place.

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