Elementary School Advice

You may have already done this step, but if not, you need to contact the school to see what is the hold up. I used to be a teacher, and I know that before a child is placed in the gifted program, he/she needs to be tested. Since your daughter was already in the program, her former school needs to send whatever proof the new school needs to admit her--I would imagine there is something standard that they need to access. Perhaps this new school hasn't moved her into the gifted program because they are waiting for the proper paperwork from the former school before they legally can.

I hope this helps! Good luck!

HI Lilana,
I agree with Jennifer. Sometimes schools take FOREVER to send records to a new school, and if your new school has not received them yet, they cannot place her in FOCUS. The other thing may be that they have received her records from the old school, but the testing or criteria used there to place her in their gifted program is different than the testing and criteria used by your new school system. Are you in Fulton County? I am guessing you are because they call their gifted program FOCUS. My advice is to call the school and ask for either the school counselor that works with your daughter's class, or the SST (Student Support Team) coordinator, and make a face to face appointment with that person or people. Explain what is going on, and if you have copies of any paperwork from the old school, bring it so they can at least look at it until the official copies arrive.
Good luck!
N.

Hi welcome , stay on top of school otherwise she will slip through cracks. it took me 6 months to get my daughters credits situation fixed from private to public part of me wishes I had placed her in another private school you have more input. hope this helps oh call county if local doesn't get you anywhere. K.

I find the best thing is to not let a day go by without contacting the school. I would visit the school and ask to speak with the administration. Perhaps while they are waiting on paperwork the teacher could provide something different for your child. Also ask to see the Gifted curriculum because from my observation the FOCUS students are not given any 'advanced' work. My daughter is in a Fourth grade class and I am able to see a friend's chld's work who is in FOCUS and they are doing pretty much the same things. So viist the school and familiarize yourself with the curriculum. I I have found that visiting the principal or gets things moving. Just let them know that you are afraid your child's need are not being met.

Iknow exactly what you're going thru. We moved from VA to GA (Gwinnett County) and my 3 children have been negatively affected as a result. I have a 9, 13, and a 17 year old and some of my sons classes didn't even transfer over. I'm still waiting on the counselor to see if he needs to take more classes this summer. My advice would be to check the schools information on the website first to get an idea of what the school has to offer. Once you find that out it should help you determine if you want to keep your child in that school or not. I thought Gwinnett county had the best schools but it just depends on where you are within GC. I'm in snellville and I haven't been extremely satisfied with the elementary schools here. I found out that the first school that my youngest went to didn't offer everything that they did at the school that he's attending now. So you just have to be very proactive by staying in there face.
Good luck.