Homeschooling & Gifted Advocacy

[purpleowl]

If you were to get involved in a local group that advocates for gifted children, what would you hope to get out of it, as a homeschooler?

I've recently become involved with such a group, and I'm the only homeschooler there. The group's current focuses are on increasing the identification of gifted kids (particularly in Title I schools), improving the services gifted kids receive in public schools, and providing social events for gifted kids and their families (these usually involve an activity for the kids and a speaker for the parents). They have been nothing but welcoming to me and happy for me to participate and contribute. Recently they asked me this question because they don't want to overlook things that would be useful and helpful for homeschooled gifted kids. I've been reflecting on it, and I'm not sure how to answer.

I figured I would toss the question out here and see what you guys think.

[Dmmetler]

Access services and extracurriculars af the school setting, I would have been happy to run a math Counts/math club for the local middle school so DD could participate, but homeschoolers have no access here, even if they come with their own faculty (who, in my case, has a teaching certificate and has taught in the district).

[purpleowl]

13 minutes ago, dmmetler said:

Access services and extracurriculars af the school setting, I would have been happy to run a math Counts/math club for the local middle school so DD could participate, but homeschoolers have no access here, even if they come with their own faculty (who, in my case, has a teaching certificate and has taught in the district).

I meant to mention that - I'm sure that would be a great aim for students in other areas, but in my area homeschoolers do already have access to those things.

[HomeAgain]

One thing on our advocacy site that I appreciate is a list of offices that administer different tests.  At our last home, I tried to find anywhere that would do testing, and I ended up contacting the local "gifted" school/their principal and head counselor, and asked "I know you don't do x test there, but I wondered if perhaps you knew of offices in the area that did."  I got back a rather curt "we don't do that test at our school." 
Really?  No way.  Ugh.  Thanks for reading the whole 5 sentences I wrote, people. Several months later I actually got a kinder response, but still a vagueness about what was actually available to serve gifted kids in the area.

It was an experience that left a bad taste in my mouth, though.  Here has been great, with a website devoted to being a single stop for parents in the state with all sorts of resources on it.

[Dmmetler]

Access to whatever testing the school offers. Again, this may be regional, but here, you cannot get testing for GT through the school system as a homeschooler. 

[Jackie]

Mentoring, access to testing, access to academic clubs at the right level.

I would love to see some advocacy with non-school entities that run summer camps and extracurriculars. We’ve given up on summer camps with an academic bent because they’re such a poor fit for my daughter when grouped by age, for example. There are some science things aimed atmiddle schoolers around here that she would find fun and would be well within her capabilities, but many are strict about their age groupings. Some advocacy for flexibilitywould be appreciated.

[purpleowl]

Thanks for the great ideas so far! Keep them coming! :D

[Cake and Pi]

Academic counseling, GT social groups outside of school, hybrid HS-PS options (like take a class at the high school while still HSed as an elementary/middle school student), maybe access to the GT curriculum used by the schools.

I wish we could access the PS extracurriculars.

[seaben]

On 4/23/2018 at 8:12 AM, Jackie said:

Mentoring, access to testing, access to academic clubs at the right level.

I would love to see some advocacy with non-school entities that run summer camps and extracurriculars. We’ve given up on summer camps with an academic bent because they’re such a poor fit for my daughter when grouped by age, for example. There are some science things aimed atmiddle schoolers around here that she would find fun and would be well within her capabilities, but many are strict about their age groupings. Some advocacy for flexibilitywould be appreciated.

 

There's a hard problem here. The social dynamics of age gaps are difficult to manage especially in Elementary and to some extent Middle School . Once too many younger kids are present the older kids tend to stop coming because of the "babies" even if they are intellectually on the same level.

[SoCal_Bear]

15 hours ago, seaben said:

 

There's a hard problem here. The social dynamics of age gaps are difficult to manage especially in Elementary and to some extent Middle School . Once too many younger kids are present the older kids tend to stop coming because of the "babies" even if they are intellectually on the same level.

This is pretty spot on. When your kiddo is an outlier, what is out there designed to meet vast majority is not going to be a good fit. It's either pay for the stuff directly targeted to the gifted or build/create it yourself. I do a lot of the latter and some of the former though mostly in the form of online classes. He gets sensory overloaded by all day programs, so those CTY summer programs would not be a good solution for us. Everything tends to be really grade/age banded, and all the public schooled kids are very conscious of that. 

We were fortunate this year to allowed to join the local Math Olympiad at our local elementary. My DH said it is a good thing our son ended up tying for first place. He didn't think it would have gone over very well as the only homeschooler. Normally, they don't let 3rd graders participate since it is 4th/5th, but this local elementary had opened it up to any of their 3rd graders.