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The parents whose children are 3V IG might not appear to believe they have the next generation of Einsteins, but they have children who believe it -- sadly many will not associate with their former non IG friends.
Would you have gone so far as to prevent your children from associating with children who weren't IG?
It is sad that schools have inclusion to help the students on the lower end of the academic ladder, but will allow segregation at the top end.
My kids had friends throughout the district including kids in the regents level classes from junior high on up. And kids from our neighborhood who weren't in their AP and honors classes and in other grades. Can't say about other peoples' kids. And I don't know about 2012 students either. That being said, everyone - not just students - ends up choosing their friends who they're comfortable with - whether they're in special programs or not, or people who are in corporation hierarchys.
Segregation at the top is actually special ed. for the high IQ kids. I explained ad nauseum in many posts the problems the high end kids have in regular classes - the terrible, constant boredom; feelings of not belonging academically and socially in the classroom due to their more mature outlook; teacher's ignoring them, etc., etc.
I think inclusion isn't a good thing. Didn't like the sound of it when it first came out. Like-minded students and similar IQ's ought to be together in a classroom - average IQ students ought to have classes together without the lower end special ed. kids. And without the Albert Einsteins there either. Teachers would have a more streamlined task educating all of them. The teacher aids and the special ed. kids are too much of a distraction for the regular kids and can waste many precious minutes of the classroom day accommodating the special ed. student. I'm sure special ed. parents will go ballistic over my point of view, but that's okay, let them.
Going back to regular special ed. classes is probably best in the long run. In 20 years or so there will be separate special ed. classes again - most things in education are very cyclical, albeit they take forever to come back around. Special ed. parents have some sort of notion that the regular kids will rub off on the special ed. student, and somehow through osmosis the special ed. student will become more "normal" or better socialized. But should this take place in a classroom designed to teach regular students who don't have time to waste anymore than anyone else?
The inclusion classes we've experienced varied greatly. Some years the child in need of services was disruptive and as much as the aide tried to assist, the child was disruptive to the class and the teacher had difficulty getting the class back to the lesson. This could be very bad for an easily bored, extremely intelligent child. That was our worst case. AndreaII might know the teacher who was placed in that situation. The parents of that student fought to have their son in the inclusion setting. I hate to sound cruel, but this child required more than a public school could offer and as a result of their strong-arming the school, cost many students hundreds of hours of valuable instruction time through his public school career.
Yes, I personally know the teacher - she retired after that class with the severely autistic student whose mother was over-the-top with her demands upon the school district. Mom wanted her son to be placed in a regular classroom on the off chance some of the normalcy would rub off onto her severely autistic son. Which sounded ridiculous to me at the time. Still does. This was back in the early days of inclusion. And the whole mess made the teacher sick for a few years afterwards. The teacher used to go to the doctor all the time due to severe symptoms of stress completely due to the special ed. student's constant, out-of-control behavior. The boy (I believe it was third grade, or possibly fourth) would stand up and flap in circles every day besides other disruptive behaviors, the students would go nuts from the display, it would take the teacher something like at least 10 minutes to get the class settled down after one of the many disruptions which took place several times a day - teacher aide and all.
So, does inclusion really benefit the regular kids? You'll hear the educational mavens extoll on and on about the regular kids developing tolerance and acceptance for handicapped students - that's nothing more than a sales pitch to the parents so a board vote can carry it through and not be blocked by parents trying to persuade the board to vote it down. Assuming their argument has any merit whatsoever, do they have to use a teaching classroom for "tolerance and acceptance" and waste the students' time playing the waiting game for the slow and special ed. students to catch up? Or waste time waiting for them to never catch up? Let them do their inclusion in after school acitivities - clubs, sports teams, etc. Much better there than the academic classroom.
Those educational "experts" - the superintendent, asst. superintendent, etc. - will drone on and on about how inclusion is such a wonderful educational model. They're trying to sell the parents on what will cost less - in this case, eliminating special ed. classes saves plenty of money. Who's it good for? Certainly not the classroom students who are there to learn and are forced to have time wasted. And it's far from wonderful for the special ed. kids either. Bottom line: inclusion classrooms are monetarily cheaper overall. It's all about budget. Period. Less teachers for more students. Fewer salaries. And the administration will try any tactic they can access to sell the parents. I'll never forget when asst. superintendent, Joyce Flynn said at a board meeting I was at "we have to sell the parents." That's all I had to hear regarding their second attempt to pass those damn heterogeneous classes again back around 2003. I was on the phone the next day getting the next wave of parents ready to go. Of course the board and administration lost. Again.
I fought for what I wanted, and what I wanted was to keep those IG classes, AP classes, and honors classes going. Yes, I was trying to keep what I felt my kids needed. And everyone knows what big mouths those IG parents have - wow, they're really over the top. But over the top is what it takes to save classes - that and pressure - that's what the board caves in to. So I cashed in on knowing how off the charts the IG parents can be. Personally, I kept in the background but pushed the buttons of the parents and organized the attacks. Kind of like a puppeteer. The board never figured out who instigated these fights. Worked like a charm. And that's how it's done. So, parents in any school district can use the same tactics (mostly pressure) to fight and win what they want. Takes time and dedication and perseverence.
Parents have to fight for what they want. If they want to save a program or begin a new one, it takes work - research, getting many parents on board, willing to attend boring school board meetings, etc. It takes lots of pressure and persistence on that board. Lots of personal time, phone calls, meetings, etc. It's a regular campaign. (As an example, back in 1997 in Three Village, Mary Barter, the then superintendent, was pushing for heterogeneous classes for the entire school district. Long story short, I got wind of it and launched what turned out to be about a 2.5 month-long fight with the school board over it. Initially the pilot program for Three Village was passed in mid-May to my horror (it was passed due to my finding out about the board vote 3 days ahead - not enough time to get our act together), and we grouped and fought until July 24, 1997 when it was rescinded.)
(Next fight was to keep the IG program running: The year was I think 2001 - Sonedecker had just come on board unfortunately - and he was a huge threat to the program. All the IG parents rallied and we launched another attack on the school board and the administration. It lasted about 3 months until the administration and the school board finally threw in the towel. Lorna Lewis managed to eliminate the third grade self-contained classroom anyway, but she wasn't able to demolish the entire program. Snap.)
Have to say, those were hard won battles. Lots of energy, time, commitment, running to board meetings until midnight and later. It takes lots of effort and energy by a committed few to rally parents to get off their butts and actually do something. By the time the inclusion classrooms came along, my kids were older, and it didn't affect them. And I was spent from the above 2 educational wars above (plus a third skirmish that was over in about 3 weeks time - yet another administrative launch to install heterogeneous classes again).
The point is, if parents want to keep something in place, they have to fight for it. Letting inclusion into the Three Village system was, IMO, a huge mistake. Parents knew it was coming. Once something takes root, it's very difficult to get back to what really worked. Parents should have taken action. But that didn't happen.
Interestingly, after the two educational battles, I received a phone call from a parent asking me to fight to save the theater arts program at the Setauket school. She herself who had students in it was asking me to do this for her. This mother should have led the front on this one - not me. I had no students in the program, my kids never went to Setauket school and I explained to her I had nothing to gain from the battle except for a lot of lost sleep and expended energy for a program I had no interest in. It was up to this person to fight to save the program and gather parents for support. I encouraged her to try and save the program. Well, the program is gone. Just another case of lazy parents letting a program of importance get cut.
One of my most frustrating situations was in my 7th grade Italian class, when I asked a question, and the teacher yelled at me, and in an extremely nasty voice, said "I am not going to teach 8th grade work to my 7th grade class!" First of all, how was I supposed to know that the question I asked was about 8th grade material? Secondly, why should I be yelled at for being curious and wanting to learn more? I always felt that a more appropriate response would have been a polite response like "That is something you will learn next year. There are other things that you have to learn first". This teacher did teach 8th grade too, to it's not as if I asked her a question that she didn't know the answer to.
More often than not, the child requiring special services and an aide was in a classroom where the teacher recognized each child's strengths and weaknesses and tailored in classroom teaching to each level with the aide focusing her energy reinforcing the lesson with the special student. This has been our experience close to 95% of the time over the 14 years I've had children in elementary school.
A group of parents in the elementary school
s have created a local SAGE group which is an off shoot of the National Association for Gifted Children. If your school doesn't offer a SAGE I would suggest contacting our local group for more options or the NAGC.
What does acronym SAGE stand for and where are they? If they are around here I would like to get in touch with them and learn about what they do. I would also like a non-biased, reputable resource that rates and discusses all the private and parochial and catholic schools. I've come across the facebook page that shoots down Stony Brook School due to headmaster issues and teachers leaving. Found another rant site about Harbor Country Day School. Then I find GreatSchools parent reviews, but that's not good enough. Where is the objective information?
@MinuteM - I have a child who is now in Gelinas Jr. High in the 3V school district. I was you a few years back. My child tested very high on the measures used to determine what qualifies a child as "gifted'. After going to the meeting for the IG program, I decided to keep my child in our home school (Minnesauke) where there was a pull out enrichment program called "Pi". My child is a well rounded kid and thrived in the school his friends and siblings went to. He is now in all honors at Gelinas. Just beacuse the your child is "gifted" does not mean he/she should be isolated with other gifted kids only. Look around to see if there are programs, such as Pi in other schools where he/she can stay as part of his/her community and social circle and still benefit from gifted services.
BTW - I have good friends who had a horrific experience at Harbor Country. Forget about your needs for "gifted" services. From what I heard the teachers were not qualified to teach even the most basic curriculum. They came back to 3V and realized the grass is not always greener.
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Yes, one of the most difficult things about the TV G&T program when my son was in it was the moving around all the time. The kids never really had a home school so they never really felt that connection . Of course, now my son complains and says that I should have left him in his classes at The Setauket School ( which had been my school ) instead of putting him into that nerdy "elitist " progam.
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Last edited by nancy thereader; 09-06-2012 at 12:01 AM..
What does acronym SAGE stand for and where are they? If they are around here I would like to get in touch with them and learn about what they do. I would also like a non-biased, reputable resource that rates and discusses all the private and parochial and catholic schools. I've come across the facebook page that shoots down Stony Brook School due to headmaster issues and teachers leaving. Found another rant site about Harbor Country Day School. Then I find GreatSchools parent reviews, but that's not good enough. Where is the objective information?
I was in a self-contained gifted class at my elementary school in Brooklyn. It was called the Astral program -- not sure if it still exists. I was in a class with other kids who got above a certain score on an IQ test and had the same kids in my class every year from K to 5th grade. Wanna move to Canarsie?
When my family moved to LI at the start of 6th grade, I was in a gifted program that involved me getting on a school bus every Tuesday or something and going to another building where I played board games with other gifted kids. I hated going because I didn't like the other kids and the friends that I made weren't "gifted" (but were good students). I didn't want to go and my regular classroom teacher told my parents that they should force me to hang out with the "gifted" kids more. I was very shy and made friends with who I made friends with -- all quiet kids with good grades that kept out of trouble.
I don't know what the point of this rambling was about. Just decided to put it out there.
If you live in Suffolk, Three Village has the only self-contained IG program on Long Island. From what I've heard it's for 4 - 6th grades. It used to be 3 - 6. But your own test results won't count if you went to a private psychologist for the test; plenty of parents with outside test results have tried to push their kids into the program only to be told that their kids have to be tested by Three Village. A score of 130 or higher makes the grade for the program. Oh, and in the third grade now, they have some sort of "enrichment" program - whatever that means. We did fight hard to keep the self-contained classroom also for the third grade, but the superintendents wouldn't have any of it. Luckily we saved the program from being destroyed entirely - quite a battle I can assure you.
Of course, you would have to move to Three Village SD, or pay the system the cost for another student.
I think what Nancythereader was getting at is lots of people are envious of "gifted" kids. In reality, those kids who are super smart incur plenty of problems with regular kids who have been taught by their parents to hate them for their intellect. All boils down to envy. You may have encountered some of it yourself - if you haven't by now, don't worry, you will in the future. I still have problems with relatives and neighbors over it. They're jealous of my daughter going to an Ivy. It really never stops.
My kids were in the IG program (IG stands for intellectually gifted vs. a regular gifted and talented program where any kind of talent is admitted, such as dancing or painting or kicking a football 100 yards). What happens in the district is towards the end of second grade, the school system goes through all the test scores of all of the students, and culls out the scores that make the score cutoff. A letter is sent to the parents telling them their student is eligible for the IQ test if they would like to have their student tested.
It's well worth your looking into. Also, Half Hollow Hills has some kind of enrichment program for the higher IQ's. My cousin's son was in it, but it amounted to a one day pullout program with more thinking things for him to do. In reality he needed it the entire week. Not for just one day.
And also, pick up the phone for the Huntington school on Pigeon Hill Road and do as much investigating as you can. At least attempt to email or talk with someone there.
So far, you are the only one who gave a helpful information. 95% of the replies are so dumb! its pathetic. Thank you!
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