I have a bit of an odd situation with summer camp plans for my DD.
DD is in 1st grade, and a pretty avid and advanced reader (and a pretty amazing speller). Her teacher has said to us several times that she was recommending her for testing to qualify for the gifted program. in December we did submit an application for it. We were told that testing was going to be in February and notifications of who had "gotten in" to the GT program were going to be mailed out (snail-mail) April 11. In the meantime, for the past several months, DD (along with a few other students in her class) has been getting pulled out 1x a week to go with GT teacher in the GT classroom (which I don't know if it really "counts" as GT services, but from what I know, seems very similar. DS had done something similar in Kinder before he actually qualified for GT services).
Meanwhile...DH & I are trying to sort out summer camp plans. I work outside the home full-time, so convenience is key...to have both kids in same summer camp would be ideal, obviously.
Our school district offers 3 different summer school "tracks" for elementary students- one general enrichment (open to all students), one for remedial classes (teacher recommendation only) and one for gifted students (for kids in the GT program, receiving GT services). My DS (2nd Grade, who qualified for GT services in Kinder) did the GT summer camp last summer and he LOVED it. His BFF was also in it and they rode the bus together. My DS was happy as a clam and raved about this GT summer camp. From his folders every week it was clear it was a pretty good program and they were doing advanced stuff and not just watching TV & movies most of the day (like many other summer camps). It was a bit of a hassle though bc during that time DD had to go to a daycare across town, so DH & I had to split pickup and drop-off duties. One of us would have to pick up DS at lunch and bring him to the daycare where DD was at. Annoying, but doable.
Anyway, so DH & I have been talking about summer camp plans....kept thinking that ideally, both DS and DD would go to the same GT summer camp run by the school district. It is SO convenient. It is super cheap ($300 for 4 weeks of half-day camp) and location is super convenient (at a middle school 10 min away from my work) and it is a good quality summer camp. And, dc's BFF's/classmates are likely to be in the program so they are motivated to go for that reason too. they get to choose their classes(art, science, reading, math, Spanish, etc). Though, we were kind of limbo and hesitant to sign up DS bc we still didn't know if DD had officially gotten in to GT program.
Which brings us to last week. I went online to our parent portal for our school district to see availability of summer camps for the kids. For DS, it showed the "regular" track of summer school classes, and the GT summer school classes as well. Then I went to DD, out of curiosity...and it showed the same class options..including the GT summer school class options (for her grade)! So then I selected the GT summer classes for her and I paid for them. Bc of the timing (early April), I took this to mean that she had gotten in to the GT program and we just hadn't gotten notification yet....I mean, it showed those options for her, it took my money and let me register her for it, just like it did for my DS.
Then yesterday, we get the notification letter from the school, saying DD was NOT being recommended for GT services. Listed all her test scores, etc...which were WAY better than last year an pretty darn good but not all were in the 90%ile so I'm guessing that is why she didn't get in. Oh well..that itself is not big deal. I'm not complaining about that part.
But now I'm totally confused re: summer school. So she didn't actually qualify for GT services, but they let me sign her up for GT summer classes? my CC statement clearly shows the $300 for DD - LOL. And after seeing how we could sign her up for these classes, we had already told the kids that they were going to to the GT summer camp together, and signed them both up. Yes, maybe premature on my part, but dude- is it so far-fetched to assume that if you can sign up/pay for a class, that means you're allowed to take the class?? LOL. I mean, I found it hard to imagine that the GT summer class options were visible and available online to every student, so I assumed if GT summer class options were visible/available to her then that meant she was allowed to take them. It didn't show any remedial classes for her, so I had figured that the summer class options shown were specific to every student.
Soooo...now what. I'm kinda hesitant to try to get clarification bc I do want DD to be able to take these classes. do I just "play dumb" , do nothing and just keep assuming she can take these GT summer classes? It would make our lives so much easier this summer to have both DC in this same camp. I can't imagine they would say "ooops, sorry that was an error, DD wasn't meant to be taking these classes! here' your $$$ back"... or would they?
any advice appreciated. and appreciate anyone who read this far! lol!
