School and Black children

ni

June 24, 2011

Thanks, I remember reading about your experience with your son. You are right, frequently the girls are deemed easier. Gender and color really comes into play when the boy is a minority; to be specific Latino or Black. Wow that is crazy, the paces they put you through. He showed typical (and obvious to those who were not biased) signs of what they indicate as profoundly gifted? Still it seems as if they are also not as prepared to nurture a truly gifted child. Glad to read you are finding a program that meet meet your DS' needs. I think by the time some of those wonderful university programs trickle down through the bogged red tape in public schools.. it become more about politics, and not the child.

We have one particular university who is involved in programs, summer and such. they are 2 hours away. Now that I am garnering the private tests which the university and similar enrichment programs needs, we will see how we can incorporate such. The more I read the more I see how limited our choices are locally.

Oh btw, I recently checked with the stated company that was supposed to render the state wide study on the low % of identified gifted kid f color. I do not note a follow-up on the state wide study in the low %of minority children.

I do note that after the NAACP made the issue (state wide/local), our local school system has changed their language regarding identifying for gifted.. It has the buzz words, cultural competence in identification. One of the naacp officers aka regular parent is on the board to work of full diversity, and cultural competence etc;

mommytoEli

i read up on this topic a lot about 2 years ago when i realized there something up with my son who is Guatemalan. there weren't many articles about underachieving gifted latino youth, so I had to get creative. I do feel like we hit a wall because he was a boy, and because he was brown. When I first called the district about testing because I wanted him to be early admitted to Kindergarten they tried to talk me into not even sending him on time, but red shirting him for sports because that is what most people with boys did here. But he isn't an athlete, he is an academian....so that was stupid. When he went for testing there were about 20 kids- probably 17 little tiny white girls, 2 tiny little white boys, and my towering Guatemalan boy. I honestly think they wrote him off when he walked in the door. A few weeks later we got his rejection letter. I didn't know he was reading the letter over my shoulder until I heard my barely 4 year old son ask, "why do I not need any further evaluation?" I knew then I wasn't crazy....so I also had him privately tested. Um, he tested gifted. No kidding!

When I called the district back and told them what I did, they were mad at me. They tried several times to ignore me. I finally went to the school level to find support. After I showed the school samples of what he did at home (wrote entire properly constructed paragraphs at barely 4- spelled correctly and everything...on his own)the principal no kidding said that she was prepared to tell us she couldn't help, but after she saw what he could do she changed her mind and helped advocate. the district still did their own full eval after that because they didn't believe us so they wouldn't accept our private one. when he tested even higher on theirs, they freaking had to give him an IEP. he started kindergarten this year at 4....and was still so far ahead of children 1 year older than he is they have to pull him out of class in an attempt to meet his needs. by the end of the year he was doing 3rd grade reading and math with the gifted teacher and going to an advanced 1st grade reading class. it still wasn't enough.

i swear if he had been my little white daughter i would not have had to fight so hard. there are many identified gifted children at my son's school....as far as i know, he is the only latino child. i do not know of any african american children who are labeled gifted and receiving services....and most of the children are in fact girls.

the best thing i ever did for him was enroll him in a gifted program at a local university. he goes to classes that interest him on weekends sometimes with other kids that are like him- crazy gifted and totally quirky, lol....oddly enough, this program is VERY diverse and there are many boys. it is run by the university's gurus on gifted education and so he is actually in a place where teachers and administrators understand him. they hold parent talks while kids are in class which is helpful for me.....you may want to look into your local universities and see if they offer anything like that.