Sweatin' Bullets

Well, we did it.  After months of bureaucratic red tape, testing, writing recommendations, gathering information, and lots of meetings, we successfully skipped Elisabeth into 2nd grade.  And now I'm sweating bullets.  Robert and I just got out of an hour and a half meeting with a committee meant to determine whether advancing her to the next grade was in her best interest.  It was really quite unbelievable the amount of testing we had to do and that the district was supposedly the "last word" in deciding what was to be done when they haven't even met Elisabeth.  We kept stressing that we don't think our child is a genius, we just think she has mastered the 1st grade curriculum and would socially do better in second grade because of her age.   Let me give you a quick synopsis of the background of this situation and why we felt it was in Elisabeth's best interest to skip a grade.

First of all, she barely misses the cut-off date of entering school with a birthdate of September 12.  Secondly, she is very tall for her age, she participated in all-day Kindergarten at a private school, and all of her peers in our neighborhood are in the second grade.  She also scored in the 94th percentile on her national testing after Kindergarten.  Sounds like a slam dunk, doesn't it?  Well, a couple of weeks ago, they administered a cognitive ability test which she scored just average on and they basically said that that was reason enough to deny our request.  WHAT?!  When looking at her writing samples and math from last year compared with now, she has seriously regressed.  Our point of view is that she has regressed because she is bored and not being challenged.  Their point of view is that if she really knew the material, she would have tested well.  I'm not a big fan of "standardized" tests to begin with, especially when it is given to a 7 year old by a stranger alone in a room for several hours.  They kept saying she was "wiggly" and wouldn't sit still.  Are you kidding me?!  So we presented her Kindergarten work, which was way more impressive than her recent work and made the point that this was a crying shame and that she needed to be challenged.  Their point of view was that the tests don't necessarily show that she will do well if advanced.  Picture this: an enormous, grouchy woman with tacky long acrylic nails and a huge space between her two front teeth, named Sheri telling me that she wanted a note from her put in Elisabeth's permanent record that she adamantly disagrees with our decision to advance Elisabeth.  Robert was jabbing me under the table to keep a lid on it and not get irate--which I am proud to say I only did once.  Hahaha!  After we told the committee that in spite of their thoughts, we wanted to promote her and that we took full responsibility for making sure she is successful, I turned to pert Sheri, and sarcastically said, "And if she doesn't do well, we'll just blame it on Sheri!"  HAHAHA!!  And then I had to go out to the car and call her a B****, not because I'm crass, but simply because that was the only word that correctly described her.  SEE YA SHERI!

But now I'm sweating bullets.  I sure hope she does well!!!  Yikes!  Talk about pressure.  Sometimes I think I'm in waaaaaay over my head with this parenting thing!  But in the end, we followed our gut feelings about Elisabeth and made the decision we felt was best and that's all we can do, right?