Getting Sorted

I knew going into this adventure that the first few weeks getting started would be hard, but I thought it would all be on my end. Since this is LaVCA’s first year, they too are having a good bit of growing pains.

Meme and Jojo took their assessment tests. Jojo, like anything I ask her these days, replied “I don’t know” to the question of how she did. Meme, never very forthcoming with the words, didn’t say much, but I overheared her tell her best friend that she failed the unfailable test. 

Supposedly, as soon as the child is finished taking the test, the scores are sent to the teacher, who reviews them and comes up with an ILP (Individualized Learning Plan). 

I figured that I would hear from the teachers in a couple of days post-test.  Silly me. All these teachers have pretty much been in training meetings for the last two weeks. Top that off with every child being new in LaVCA this year (since it’s year one), so every ILP has to be made from scratch.

So my anxiety doth run over my cup. I know I fret, but I had a major fret episode. Yesterday, Friday, I finally couldn’t take it anymore. I called both Meme’s and Jojo’s teachers, left a message on their voicemail (they were in another meeting) and waited.

Meme’s teacher called back a couple of hours later. Of course, I’ve been trying to convince K12 that she needs to be in seventh grade, despite her age. We have not yet done seventh grade work with her, and I don’t think she could handle eighth grade work.

Well, she actually did okay on the assessment test. Compared to other eighth grade students, Meme’s on the high end of average for reading comprehension and just below average in math. Considering that we haven’t yet gotten to sixth or seventh grade math, that’s not bad. And since she didn’t start reading until she was 9, being on the high end of average for other eighth grades is pretty good.

Her teacher and I talked for while, discussing what this means. One of my worries is that she won’t be able to handle the eighth grade work in science and history. The teacher said that since her reading comprehension is fairly high, all things considered, and since science and history are all based on reading stuff and understanding that stuff, she can do the work. That does make sense.

We agreed to keep her in the eighth grade. In a weird way this means that she’s skipping a grade simply for the fact that we haven’t done anything for seventh grade. Oh well, it’s all subjective anyway.  She still needs a bit of remediation in math, but not as much as I thought.  She may need some extra help in writing as well, but the teacher’s philosophy is that if she’s reading on that level, she can emulate what she reads and write on that level too.

 

Meme is actually pleased with herself.  So I can officially call her an eighth grader now.