Mad in Florida

Beth, I can understand your anger. I live in VA and we have SOLs. Our school system has SOL remediation programs. My ADD daughter has been selected for this after school help for the past several years. She is a good student, but doesn’t do well on long test. Last year her teacher told me they generally only recommend those kids that are questionable on passing. In other words if your child has no reasonable chance of passing they would not be selected for the extra help. They want to make sure they get those kids that are borderline to pass to help the numbers, and not waste resouces on the kids that aren’t going to pass anyway. Sounds pretty messed up to me

Oh, I see that I may be wrong about this. My son may simply be performing too poorly to be worth bothering with. Can’t say that makes me less angry though.

I’ll let you know by what criteria he is being excluded.

Beth

just some thoughts— if he has learning disabilities the “remedial” help being offered might not be appropriate for him. Our after school program pays regular teachers who are willing to work a few extra hours after school, they don’t necessarily have the training to teach kids who learn differently, nor is there much time for individual instruction. Ours is also a grant funded program— grants sometimes have strict criteria for inclusion in the program. With limited funds, we have to put our $$ where they are most likely to make a difference. Not to say that every child is not worth our $$! We screen out kids who have behavior and attendance issues. Some programs are based on teacher recommendations. Definitely ask questions!

I have been struggling with this exact issue. I too am mad. They would rather keep my kid in sped and put him in a resource room rather than give him specific help for is writing.

I just checked the school roster and realized that the number of sped inclusion classes goes up every year.

Now if they were doing there job wouldn’t the number of sped kids go down every year. Is this some kind of strategy to keep our schools testing scores high? The numbers really increase as we get into 4th and 5th where the real high stakes testing takes place.
Like I said before. If you kid is labeled sped it is his problem Unlabeled kids are the school’s problem because those kids are not exempt from the school’s state testing based report card.

I think this is a civil rights issue. You can not exclude a person based on their disability.

Stacy,

I think the difference between your situation and Beths is that in your situation the classified kids are included in the school’s report card but in Fl they are not.
It seems that in your district at least they offer help to any child who has a chance to pass without regard for disability.
It seems that perhaps they would not discriminate in a district where every child’s score counted. There seems to be an incentive to exclude children from specific help if their scores don’t count as is the case in FL for classified kids. This varies throughout the country.

Your child probably would not have qualified for the extra help in FL.

if you go to www schwablearning.org i seen a very good discussion about the same subject just click on the buletin board one several very knowledgable parents really did a good job of explaining in deatil about fcat

dl

Well, the FCAT camps were just like Stacey said—for kids who almost are making it. Those are those scoring 3 when the beloved number is 4. She said that they are going to start pulling those who scored 1 during the day. She said that would include my son—I told her I thought he scored 2. Well, I looked after I got off the phone and I was right. He scored 30% on which was a 2 on the state standards.

So does he fall between the cracks—not good enough for the after school program and not bad enough for the pull out during the day? I called her back to ask her but have not heard.

Beth

Yes, Socks had posted about the law suit that has been filed because ESE students are now required to pass the FCAT to graduate but there is no accountability on the part of schools since the scores are included in the schools grade. My son is in fourth grade so we are quite a ways away from that issue. The newest law though requires that even ESE students pass these exams to not be retained. An option is a portfolio which would help my son in math where he does solid B work in the regular classroom. His reading comprehension isn’t at grade level though so by these criteria he would likely be retained. I will move him to a private school if that is the case.

Beth

This from the Florida DOE website on how schools are graded:

f) One (1) point for each percent of students in the lowest twenty-five (25) percent in reading in the school as defined in paragraph (5)(c) of this rule who make learning gains as defined in paragraph (5)(b) of this rule…In the event that a school does not have at least thirty (30) students in the lowest twenty-five (25) percent in reading as defined in paragraph (5)(c) of this rule, the grade point element defined in paragraph (6)(d) of this rule shall be substituted for the grade point element defined in paragraph (6)(f) of this rule.

Pretty boring, huh? As I read it, schools get points for improvements in students’ scores, not just how well the students do achievement-wise. If ESE students scored better than they did on the previous year’s FCAT, the school gets points towards its end of the year grade. This jibes with what I remember. My son generally scored in the same range as your son, but improved his scores every year and I’m pretty sure his school counted him. He surprised us in 4th grade by passing the writing test, and then in fifth grade he scored in the middle third rather than the lowest in Reading (by about 2 points). What I’m trying to say is that ought to be in the school’s best interest to include your guy in the extra study sessions.

I am so glad we switched to a private school and don’t have to put up with the crap anymore. Just the memories make me angry.

You need to define your goal(s)…do you want high-stakes school sponsored tutoring, do you care if he passes, and /or do you want the school held responsible for his scores such as they are? We have high-stakes testing in Mass. and it only matters in 10th grade for a diploma…we demanded that our son take the tests in 4th grade without accomodations and his scores were counted with everyone else. He squeaked by and the school congratulated themselves and we laughed! We refused the worksheet style school tutoring for the MCAS and tutored him on our own. I don’t really care if he passes or not until 10th grade but I do think the school should be held accountable for all the students’ scores, excluding students’ scores is asking for a class action suit.

Maybe they are planning a breakfast club for the 2’s? I’d be burning mad too. If they aren’t offering anything for the 2’s - sounds like blatant discrimination to me.

Our state testing starts next week. I have not heard of any kind of preparation except for what they do during normal classtime - and whole class does it(wish they did offer some kind of ‘camp’). Our resource teacher called us and said dd qualifies for accomodations -extra time, quiet room etc. But she said that both she and the classroom teacher felt she was doing so well that she didn’t need it. I would like to know how she does without accomodations - so I’m ok with it. In 3rd grade, there are no penalties if you don’t pass - it’s just a grade on the school and I figure they get what they deserve if she does do poorly.

I think(hope) she will score proficient on it. (In 3rd grade you almost have to be illiterate to get anything lower - the standards are so low!) But what I fear is her self-esteem. Her brother scores in advanced (99%) every year and of course we have made a big deal of it. I’m worried how she will perceive herself vs. him. So not really sure what to do - do we just stick it into drawer and not say anything or make same kind of big deal of?

What do I want? I want the tutoring. My son has comprehension issues, as well as decoding ones. The test is high level comprehension. I don’t think he will pass regardless but the skills you need to pass are ones he needs to acquire. We are working on visualization privately and I have hired a reading tutor to work on comprehension as well. But basically I think he needs lots of work and I want the school to do some of it too. After all, he is being held responsible for passing–kids who do not the test, even ESE kids, will have to repeat a grade. (Or at least that is how things stand now—we’ll see how it actually plays out.)

The counting in the school only matters to me in as far as it biases the school towards who it is willing to expend resources on. My son needs the help as much as any other low performing student, regardless of classification. I don’t know how much the accomodations actually help him—he said he finished the writing portion last week in 40 minutes which was the allocated time. He had been quite stressed though about the fact that he was always the last one finished on writing assignments in class. He relaxed considerably when I told him he’d take the test in another room and have as much time as he needed. So if the accomodations reduce his anxiety, they are worth having for that reason.
Beth

You made me laugh—with the breakfast club.

We too have a high performing older sibling. We did just stick ds test in the drawer last year. He did not “pass” any of the levels and there didn’t seem to be any point in discussing it with him. I could do this though because older sibling wasn’t get any report at the same time because she is in a different school. If your daughter gets proficient on any part of it, I would celebrate—emphasize how far she has come in the past few years. Afterall, we really can only compete with ourselves. If she scores lower on everything , well I’d probably try to stick it in the drawer honestly.

Beth

Soccer Camp. Yes
Tennis Camp. Yes
Space Camp. Yes
Science Camp. Yes
Writing Camp. Yes
Ecology Camp. Yes
Science Camp. Yes

FCAT Camp. I’d sooner send my kid to hell. The state has gone nuts.

#

You’re preachin’ to the choir!

Beth I have to say you rock. What you’re going through is exactly the opposite (but with the same results) as I went through this year with my 10 year old son. My son has Central Auditory Processing Disorder and was tutored 3 times per week last year in the area of English SO…when he passed his high stakes but BS testing they pulled the tutoring from him this year. I asked them if they were insane and mentioned how cruel this is to a APD child who now has zero chance of passing the testing at the end of the year. I mean he scored in the 21 percent range in 2nd grade and I’m sure he will again fall back to that range this year.
So, I fought and they offered (out of the goodness of their heart) one hour of tutoring this year while half the school year is done. SO the way I see it a disabled child here in the state of SC must fail the test by a large margin to get the tutoring because if the tutoring is successful then they will pull it and hang him out to dry the following year. I guess they want to believe his CAPD is just going to go away one day and how I wish this was the case. He’s now in an LD class for reading and english but hes 2 to 3 grade behind.
I’m sorry that Florida, like so many states, have so much riding on these test and the people who make the decisions on camps/tutoring have their own reasoning for what they do. I actually called the man who decided who got tutoring into my IEP meeting and have him on tape saying what they are doing to my child’s education experience is “cruel”.
Get a name my dear. Call them in and make them responsible. You know the more we think we know the more they play these silly games with us.

It is all a numbers game. The school scores are averaged to please the state and now the feds with NCLB. Obviously the school has to use a strategy to get the scores up, the most gain for the least investment. We do the same thing in CA. Teachers were asked to target kids they can move from “below basic” to “basic” and “basic” to “proficient.” “Very below basic” kids are not a good bet in the numbers game. Or if the “below basic” score ranged from 300-340 and and one child just got in with a 305 and another was at 335, who do you think will be targeted for the extra boost to get to “basic” at 341?

Also, if they get resource, they get a pricey program. Other kids need something, too.

It is all a numbers game.

Write letters to your Senators, Representatives and state congress persons. There is more wrong than right with this picture.

We’re in the same boat with one who has an easy time achieving high scores, and one who works very hard to obtain low ones. I never show my son his report cards or other tests, but I always acknowlege his hard work and “brag” to family members about the areas he’s strongest in (as if he got an “A”).

I’m extremely proud of his effort.

Linda,
I think it’s because kids need to be 2 years behind (?) before they can qualify for certain services (or at least in our district).

My son took the prelim sol’s in 3rd and didn’t pass (wide margin), he was included in all their after school study sessions during 4th grade to prepare for the 5th. (‘97-2000)

The report given in all his study classes was that he did not improve at all except in soc.studies. Most importantly he didn’t improve in his reading and math scores via their pre and post tests.

This was the year he qualified for sp.ed, even with accommodations in 5th grade he didn’t pass the sol’s. Tiny margin though, in one case it was by one point, others about 20 pts.

I let my son go to the classes but it was fairly obvious that he needed one on one tutoring (which he was receiving after school) rather than group tutoring. I still don’t agree with the high stakes testing but no matter where we live it is something we will have to deal with. We moved to Germany for the middle school years so we missed the 8th grade sol. Not sure where we will be for next year, 9th grade.

Amy

There are some advocacy groups filing complaints on “Behalf of all FLorida Students” as we speak re: discrimination and the FCAT.

Where do you find a decent private school that will accom. his needs? That’s my dilemma.

My guidance counselor said FCAT scores alone will not cause the child to fail. They will also take “teacher recommendation” into the pix. Of course, that means that your child (and mine) could pass all the way to HS and then not get a reg. diploma b/c of HS FCATs. At least, that’s my understanding.

The whole country is nuts where education is concerned. The issue of Califronia Educator (whatever the association magazine is called) came yesterday. It was devoted to the ESEA Act. It has everyone in a tizzy.

For starters, every teacher must be highly qualified. There is a teacher shortage in many situations. They can’t FIND teachers who are highly qualified. Now secondary teachers have to have a major in what they teach. State used to let teachers with credentials go back to school and take 20 more units to add another subject to their credential. Now they need majors in any area to teach it. There is no aide to teachers to get all this education, no aide to districts. Districts must send letters to parents telling them when their child has a teacher who is not “highly qualified.”

Aides must have A.A. degrees, to earn wages that are little better than minimum wage. This is costing districts aide jobs, many of these aides w/high school diplomas do a very good job working with elementary special needs kiddoes under the guidance of a credentialed teacher.

Districts, every year, must certify that they don’t have any policies that infringe on the constitutional right to pray or whatever. Now, what in the world does this have to do with scores?

There is a great deal of suspicion that this whole thing is a prelude to ridding the nation of those nasty public schools. You know, I suspect this may be the case.

Let’s bring in privatized education, all over the U.S.A. Then, let’s watch and see where the average disabled youngster ends up. You can kiss most of hte IDEA stuff good-bye if you destroy the public school system. Most private schools, I said most, not all, won’t put up with some of the jazz the public schools put up with. I seriously doubt most private schools will compete for the LD or MR population. Who needs kids who don’t make the school test scores look great? Who needs kids who cost more $$ because they need special education?

On another note, our 6th grade teachers announced that they must cover 26 more math concepts between now and May 1 to have all the state math standards covered to get kids ready for state tests. Gee, what is that 1.5 days per concept? So, how many kids are mastering all 75 concepts in the standards each year?

Folks, we really do need to write letters. This stuff is just plain nutty.

It is tutoring an hour after school—sugar coated as camp.

Beth

Interesting. That is not what is being said here. The principal was telling me yesterday that the new policy is going to be for ESE kids that they have to fail once K-3 and once 4-6 before they will be pushed along. (Regular ed kids have to fail twice K-3). Now there is supposedly an alternative assessment—which might be what they are calling teacher recommendation in your part of the state. This is a portfolio of work that has to be submitted. I am not sure who makes the judgment of whether it is adequate then.

My son does very solid B work in math so I would think the portfolio would get him through the math portion. Ironically, he scored much lower in math than in reading last year. But his reading really isn’t at grade level so I don’t know how a portfolio would help him there. Now he is within the range of a regular class—he is in the lowest reading group in class. His independent reading is third grade and instructional is beginning fourth grade. Who knows—perhaps all the other kids in his reading group will be retained too.

Beth

In our middle school they do this during school. My friends son loves it and is doing really well.

He gets writing help from a teacher who is the writing expert. Because he is not classified he is not put in a resource room to get generalized help with kids of mixed abilities. It isn’t quite camp but real help that is having incredible results. He is getting this help because he did poorly on the state testing.

I think for many kids this is a better option. I think resource room should be reserved for kids who have severe disabilities.

My two other kids are in our church’s parochial school. Nathan has been to summer camp there and they know him. The school is very forward thinking and see themselves as there for all kids, although they will say there are kids they just can’t serve. They have a resource room. There is tutoring after school. The principal coordinated with Interactive Metronome folks to have it offerred at the school on a group basis (one of the local Catholic high schools had done this and had really nice academic gains). I have spoken at length with the vice principal whose own grown daughter is LD.

Still, there are issues. First, right now there isn’t any room, although with siblings there he would have priority. Second, I am not sure how this will play down to the classroom, in terms of needed accomodations. The administration is supportive but what about individual teachers. I was very clear with the vice principal that he would need accomodations and she told me she would speak to the principal and get back to me, after reviewing his records. They decided that they would admit him to fourth grade—repeat a year. This is actually what I proposed. The school is ahead of the public school so it would be like 4.5 and some breathing room would be good for all of us. And certainly, I would rather have him repeat at a different school than the one he has been at since first grade.

I also have some concerns about homework load. It is more demanding than the public school. But I have greater concerns about middle school for him. He would be tracked with lower performing kids and I am concerned about social pressures ect. He is Mr. follower, if there ever was one. The parochial school has only two classes of 30 and they keep pretty tight tabs on the kids. My older daughter is in 7th grade there and I really feel like we have skipped the middle school stuff with her. It is a much more nurturing supportive environment.

But it is not perfect for Nathan. But then, nothing is.

Beth

I agree Anitya. As frustrated as we get with school personnel, they are frustrated too. Teachers are expected to do the impossble. Make learning hands-on and fun? Who’s got the time? Our 2nd graders are taking 10 page multiple choice tests at the end of each unit. It is developmentally inappropriate and probably harmful. Teachers know it but have no choice. Our 5th graders get recess 2X per week if they’re lucky. The rest of the time is spent cramming information into their heads so they can hopefully pass the SOL’s. No Child Left Behind sounds great to those who know nothing about education.

I still think that kids can be remediated and put into regular classes if identified early.

There are 2 problems. They are identifying too late. A kid who only finally qualifies for sped in 6th will probably graduate sped.
A child who is identified in the early grades should be put back into the regular class.

Identify early, remediate and put them back in regular ed. That is how the program should work for most kids.

It can be done but it just isn’t being done.

I think that standardized testing can be done correctly such that it reflects basic competency. I actually think the Florida Writes, the essay writing test, does that. And my son got a lot more and better writing instruction because of this test.

On the other hand, I think the math and reading exams are not basic comepetency exams. The reading exam has very few factual questions that can be answered just by reading the story. They are mostly higher level thinking, inference questions—which my son does poorly on. It also has short answer questions on it. When I saw what they expected the kids to write for full credit, I was amazed (at parent night). I don’t think most adults would answer that way.

The math is even worse. All are applied questions. The kid who knows his multiplication tables but isn’t good at word problems and graphs will do no better than the kid who doesn’t know his math facts. This I think is wrong and does not accurately reflect differences in knowledge.

I think that if the tests are designed to reflect what an average child of a certain age really does or can know, they are useful. If they lead to cramming of concepts, they are doing harm.

I called up my son’s resource teacher because she was sending home a different grammar sheet each day. A regular child couldn’t learn at that rate. To make a long story short, she admitted she had been driven by panic by the upcoming testing rather than logic. Fortunately, she stopped it and went back to her normal much more useful approach.

Beth

Whatever decision you make about changing schools do so with information…have someone give him the Key Math and Gray Oral Reading and you’ll have better info. about where he is academically than performance on high-stakes testing(which tests his knowledge of the curriculum). I too think the high-stakes testing is unfair, and will prob. not hold up as a graduation standard because the states don’t have enough money to put into tutoring the kids who make up the bulk of the “no pass” group, the slow-learners. The tutoring in our upper middle class Mass. suburb is worksheet drill to pass the test, lots of repetition, which may work for some kids.

Thanks for the specific test names. I have been thinking that I really need such information before moving him out of the public school.

I too don’t think the testing for graduation will hold up long enough to affect my son.

Beth

Been there, doing that.

My son’s current school ( the one we are taking him out of next year!) means well, but can’t execute at the classroom level because not all the teachers “get it”. Some do, but you are at the mercy of the teacher each year, and there is not legal requirement that they do anything. There’s no such thing as an IEP in a private school.

I am considering parochial school for my son at the middle school level.

The middle school in my district is huge, 16 classes per grade. They also have a format where children have a schedule and a very big school to navigate. They stress organization and will fail a kid who passes the test but does not keep an organized notebook. I see this as a major problem for us. Most boys I know have had trouble adjusting to this middle school whether identified LD or not.

I think it has been positive that we are in such a big district for now. My son has been able to reinvent himself every year. He rarely has more than 2 or 3 of the same kids in his class from year to year. He is not stuck in any roles. I know how this can happen in smaller schools.
I think that if I can get him further remediated by middle school he would do well at the parochial school. He won’t have to navigate that jungle of a middle school.

Sometimes it is just the right school at the right time.

I know—that is exactly my concern. There are no really good alternatives here though. Next year would be fine, but middle school here is exactly like Linda describes. It is a trade off.

Beth

We have the same sort of middle school setting and that is my concern too. My son’s elementary school has 7 classes for each grade and there are probably 8 elementary schools in our town and only two middle schools. So there likely are upward of 20 classes per grade.

Beth

As a child I was on the opposite end of this one. I got high scores in school “easily” (nobody recognized all the reading and math problems I did as work, because I did them of my own motivation without being dragged, so it mustn’t have been hard, right?). My brother had other issues, a long story going back to his premature birth and the school’s memorization based reading and my family’s strong personalities (pig-headed is far too mild a word), and he tended to the D- range, largely out of choice. So I came home with honours but, no joke, was criticized because I got a 92 A instead of a 96 A, and a real talking-to for every B. He was praised to the skies every time he didn’t fail anything. I didn’t mind my parents making a lot of him, but the negativity directed towards me rankled and still does.
One time in Grade 9 there was a prize day where I got a badge for honours, another badge as the top math student, and another badge as top science student, as well as the report card and a certificate or two. I went home thinking about the usual reception (Why didn’t you get the English prize?) and fumed over the top; I scotch-taped the awards to the front door so my parents would notice. Even this did not get more than a crooked smile at how funny I was.
Not that you shouldn’t praise the lower achievers, but please keep positive with the others too!

Well, I’m a qualified teacher, with three majors and an MA in education, and whenever I apply they drop me like a hot potato and hire the least qualified (ie cheapest) person they can get. The last school board I attempted to teach for pressured out two qualified math teachers and hired two people on temporary (unqualified) certificates — not only cheaper but they didn’t rock the boat by doing something stupidly radical like actually trying to teach math. After the first provisional sub was in but I was still hanging in there, the guidance teachers transferred 20% of the kids in my classes to the unqualified guy’s groups. He told me honestly that he couldn’t teach all the trigonometry in the textbook because he didn’t understand it himself. But hey, he was a nice guy who (illegally but the community accepted it) preached fundamentalist religion in class, and he didn’t demand impossible things, like doing trigonometry in a Grade 12 math class. I was obviously out of step. The school board was happy with an unqualified preacher who kept the kids happy, the parents were happy, the students were happy to not have to do any of that dumb math stuff and to get high marks, and the test scores just keep dropping, but that must be because we’re prejudiced against them.
Big secret: the law says teachers have to be qualified. The school board rules say teachers have to be qualified. But the loophole you can drive a truck through says that in an emergency you can teach out of subject, and in an emergency you can give almost anyone a temporary or provisional certificate. School boards can manufacture emergencies quite easily. Nice guys who are friends of the board and who play the game can always stay, and nasty mean people who believe in abstract ideas like academic standards and rules of behaviour can be forced out.

Well, I’m a qualified teacher, with three majors and an MA in education, and whenever I apply they drop me like a hot potato and hire the least qualified (ie cheapest) person they can get. The last school board I attempted to teach for pressured out two qualified math teachers and hired two people on temporary (unqualified) certificates — not only cheaper but they didn’t rock the boat by doing something stupidly radical like actually trying to teach math. After the first provisional sub was in but I was still hanging in there, the guidance teachers transferred 20% of the kids in my classes to the unqualified guy’s groups. He told me honestly that he couldn’t teach all the trigonometry in the textbook because he didn’t understand it himself. But hey, he was a nice guy who (illegally but the community accepted it) preached fundamentalist religion in class, and he didn’t demand impossible things, like doing trigonometry in a Grade 12 math class. I was obviously out of step. The school board was happy with an unqualified preacher who kept the kids happy, the parents were happy, the students were happy to not have to do any of that dumb math stuff and to get high marks, and the test scores just keep dropping, but that must be because we’re prejudiced against them.
Big secret: the law says teachers have to be qualified. The school board rules say teachers have to be qualified. But the loophole you can drive a truck through says that in an emergency you can teach out of subject, and in an emergency you can give almost anyone a temporary or provisional certificate. School boards can manufacture emergencies quite easily. Nice guys who are friends of the board and who play the game can always stay, and nasty mean people who believe in abstract ideas like academic standards and rules of behaviour can be forced out.

If I did not think it was important for children to have qualified teachers. I would attempt to teach my child myself.

I am qualified for my position and it does involve additional training each year. At least twice a year, I believe that people should be qualified for their positons.

In our area teachers are paid to go to training sessions. If you aren’t paid take it off your taxes just like other professionals do.

There is so many differences state to state as well? I’m sure our CSAP is completely different that your FCAT.

And are the folks who make up the test questions competant in the first place?

Our school has never shown us any samples on any of the tests - so I have no clue what kind of performance is needed to be successful in Reading, Writing or Math on our tests.

I discussed with dd last night the fact that she could have accomodations for the test if she felt she needed them. (I was curious what her thoughts would be). Told her she could have extra time and be in a room by herself.

She got excited and said ‘so if I don’t finish, I can take them home and you can help me with them?’ I explained - no - you have to complete at school. She then proclaimed that she would like to take the test in a room by herself with an adult, parent or teacher present - who could then help her with it.

Nope - that won’t happen either. So we decided that taking the test with the other kids, no accomodations is fine with her.

She is a sneaky little child - she does trick me into helping her too much. I’ve got to watch that more!

I have to say that my son will take the test without accomodations as well. The last time he took a test with accomodations he did very poorly. The teacher was reading the test out loud to the group. He found this distracting. He was trying to read and also follow what she was saying. He lost his place and couldn’t concentrate at all.

Make sure folks that when you ask for accomodations you are getting what you asked for. If your child is put in a room with other kids getting different accomodations it might not be what you think it is.

I think you have a smart kid!

My son is getting before help starting tomorrow using a computerized learning system that they use in the regular classroom. And he is being pulled out during nonessential (science, health ect) time during school for extra help with the reading specialist (small group).

Now would have all of this happened if I hadn’t called the principal…don’t know, of course. But it doesn’t hurt to have a long record as an action oriented parent.

Beth

He, of course, can’t have the reading test read to him. I will have to ask about how it is set up for math. You raise a good point.

Beth

Beth,

have you thought about extended school year option in form of private tutoring?

We had this last summer and I think it was really helpful.

We could only fit 22 hours of 1:1, but I think it had made a huge difference of being tutored during summer vs. during school year.

We tutored him privately the summer before as well (more than 30 hours), but last year we got this help arranged through school and I was allowed to choose a tutor.

Now is probably a good time to request such help if you wish to get it.

Ewa

PS. My son did not pass neither reading nor writing in his 4th grade testing.

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