At the recommendation of his teacher, we had Sebastian screened for the 'talented and gifted' program through Portland Public Schools. The tests were in February and were, in Sebastian's estimation, pretty long and intense - and a little boring. We weren't sure how to take that - were they actually easy, or did he just not like sitting in a room answering questions on a Scantron form for multiple hours over two days. (Understandable! It sounded boring to us too.)
We got the results back this week and he tested at a pretty high level in reading, math, and logic. The designation won't change much about his experience in the classroom at school, since FPE already does a lot to differentiate instruction within each grade. Rumor has it that it might make a difference to Sebastian in later grades, especially if there is competition for spaces in advanced classes. But who knows if that is actually true at the high school we are currently zoned for, or will be true in a decade.
Last Friday was report card day, and Seb's report was once again full of good news - good in the sense that he is meeting or exceeding expectations in all subjects. Not good in the sense that I loathe his report cards - there are 50 categories of miniscule detail regarding his achievement in reading, writing, math, science, social science; the idea that his teachers have to go through and fill out these horrendous forms for every single student, and test each of them on every last thing, instead of actually teaching the students!! It drives me bonkers. As I remember, my elementary school report cards had four categories: reading, math, and two others that I don't recall. The possible ranking designations were Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor. And that was it, until 7th grade. These report cards are insane.
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