Hallie and Travis

After a snow delay, I finally got in to meet with Conn’s AG teacher last week. With Travis reading and writing so much now, I’ve been worried that he’ll be bored in kindergarten. I’d made an appointment to talk with Ms. Hanley about how best to keep Travis challenged once he gets to Conn. I like Ms. Hanley very much and we had a very good chat.

Mark and I had been wondering whether Travis wouldn’t do best going straight to first grade. He’d likely do fine there academically but we had some concerns over maturity issues and having him be the youngest and maybe being behind some kids vs. being the oldest and ahead. Ms. Hanley explained the school system’s policy on “whole grade promotion.” Basically nothing happens until Travis is begins there as a kindergartener. From there we or his teachers can “nominate” him for extra services, which gets the ball rolling.

There are several pieces and stages to the evaluation process. If he were to be promoted to first grade, it wouldn’t happen until at least a few months into the year. There are also several stages in between basic classroom instruction and being bumped up a grade. The full grade promotion seems to be quite the exception, and requires students to be performing at 2-3 grades ahead. But Ms. Hanley walked me through several different levels of enrichment options and ways to keep him challenged and engaged while in a class with his age peers.

She explained that standard AG identification happens at the end of third grade. She said it certainly sounded like Travis (and Hallie) would be identified at that time. But testing can also be done earlier. Apparently having an “AG” label helps secure additional services. She also said that if needed Travis could be sent to a different grade for certain subjects. This is a different story from what I got when pursuing additional challenges for Hallie. I’m glad to know it is a possibility after all.

If they can truly succeed at giving Travis a stimulating kindergarten year, I’m happiest with this solution. With Travis being a few months older than Hallie when she started, and with all he’s been exposed to as the second child, I think he’ll definitely need some extra challenges beyond even what Hallie got. But with the adjusted birthday cut-off, there will be other kids his age in kindergarten. And I do know there are lots of advantages to being the oldest.

This is certainly a work in progress. But I’m hoping that I’ve laid the ground work for Travis to be placed with the best teacher to meet his needs. Travis is so, so excited about learning and experimenting and reading and expressing himself. I just want to make sure that gets fostered and not dampened!