Ask Me Help Desk

Ask Me Help Desk (https://www.askmehelpdesk.com/forum.php)
-   Academic Advising (https://www.askmehelpdesk.com/forumdisplay.php?f=17)
-   -   Skip a Grade (https://www.askmehelpdesk.com/showthread.php?t=809245)

  • Mar 12, 2015, 09:41 AM
    shylahm
    Skip a Grade
    Where can I find a test in Breaux Bridge LA for my 13 year old daughter to skip 8th grade. My daughter currently makes A's and on occasion B's and I think and so does she that she should skip 8th grade next year and go straight to 9th does anyone know where I can find a place like that. She is talented and smart and she should be able to move onto bigger and better things, she now works on an 10th grade level and she is only in 7th. Can someone help?
  • Mar 12, 2015, 09:53 AM
    Wondergirl
    Contact area high school principals. They would know which tests she would need to take.
  • Mar 12, 2015, 10:05 AM
    ScottGem
    Why haven't you spoken the guidance counselor at her school? As far as I know there are no standardized tests that a student can take that would autocratically allow then to skip a grade. Requirements for doing so would be at the school district level, maybe even down to the school. So have you talked to her counselor at school yet?
  • Mar 12, 2015, 04:24 PM
    dontknownuthin
    You would go through her school for this but I would look at factors additional to academics. Where I live, advanced high school students can finish their requirements for graduation early but defer graduating until their class graduates. In the last year or two, they take advance placement courses and can even take classes for free as part of their high school accommodations at the local community college. Then they graduate with their friends and start college a year ahead academically, sometimes even as a sophomore or junior. Many of these kids soar through college faster too but move on to graduate classes. The benefit to this is that first, they get a lot of free college courses. Second, they stay with peers socially. Your eight grader may be ready for high school classes, but will your 16 or 17 year old be ready socially to handle college social situations? Many highly gifted kids can be a little behind socially, and may not be able to handle situations like college parties, dating, drinking, managing money or home sickness, and may not fit in with roommates as well as they will when they are older. My son is a sophomore, also academically gifted. The challenges have not been academic - he has had the most challenged with dating (first big breakup was brutal) and money and other social transitions. Also, by junior year, they are 21 and your daughter will be left out. You may not want her in a bar anyway, but that is college and fitting in is important. So I would not push her to skip a grade.
  • Mar 12, 2015, 05:29 PM
    ballengerb1
    Do you know is your school is a unit district which covere grades K-12 or is it a k-8
  • Mar 12, 2015, 07:20 PM
    Fr_Chuck
    There is no one "test" to allow a student to skip a grade.
    The issue will be, not how good she does not, but does she know the material, she will learn during 8th grade, to make good grades in 9th grade.

    Also the issue of leaving all of their friends, being a year younger than other classmates for the social side of high school.

    Also not all schools will even allow it, so you start with the school counselor and will normally have to discuss it with the principal also.

    For my son ( he skipped two grades over the past 8 years) it involved taking the CAT (what our school program used) and he had to make above average grade on not his current school year, but for the year he wanted to skip. Then he had to take end of the year testing (standardized testing) for the Math and English and Science that would be taken during the year he wished to skip.

    As a parent of a child who has skipped, I personally do not advise it, Let them be kids for as long as they can, this just moves them closer to graduation, moving out to college and more.

    The one year may not sound like a lot,but the social and emotional growth is issues that needs to be addressed.

    At this point, I have a 14 year old, that can not associate well with children his own age, he finds them too immature and wants all the freedom of 16 and 17 year olds.
  • Mar 13, 2015, 04:24 AM
    ScottGem
    The others make an important point. Your daughter is at a very pivotal age now. While she may be perfectly capable of doing advanced academic work, there is the social aspect to consider also. Also academics get exponentially harder at this point. I breezed through school until 10th grade. Because of that I failed to develop good study habits so when I hit the advanced studies of High school I started to have problems, not because I couldn't learn the work, but because everything had come so easy up to that point, that I expected that to continue.

    I really like dontknwnuthin's idea. Rather than have her skip grades, she can start taking more advanced classes and do college level work while staying with her age peers. As she gets into high school, the grade she is in matters less and less. She will get a schedule of classes to take. Rather than stay with the rest of her grade, she can take advanced classes that will give her college credits.

    But this is why you BOTH should be sitting down with her guidance counselor who can help her find the best course.

  • All times are GMT -7. The time now is 03:34 PM.