The Decision to Skip 5th Grade

Yep, our oldest was just not fitting in.

I laugh at this cute picture. (Really he does not carry a fanny pack and wear an army hat everyday....this was just from a vacation where we were going to be walking a lot and couldn't use a backpack.)

But anyway, he was not fitting into this whole educational plan. It was the end of 4th grade now and we didn't feel as if things were working out. Yes, the school had been wonderful to try new things and give him opportunities that I'm sure they had never allowed others before. He was able to take subjects in higher grades and work more on his own with research projects, but it was still not smooth sailing. It was awkward going from grade to grade and he was still bored with the 4th grade subjects most of the time, and we already discussed how we didn't feel comfortable with the idea of him having to walk to the junior high school and back when he reached 6th grade, so what should we do?

Back when he was in Kindergarten and bored we thought about skipping him to first, but we never acted on it. Instead he tested into the separate school gifted program which he started in 1st grade. And while it was somewhat academically challenging, he was still advanced and suffering socially. What to do?

Moving him back to the regular school did not solve this problem. While he had friends at first, again he ended up bored and alone at the end of the year. There was no match for this poor kid. The split grade thing was OK, but it was just hard to transition back and forth all the time.

So,
we decided to again ask the school about having him skip a grade.

Last year they had decided against it because of social reasons mostly, but by the year's end, it went to show that it didn't really matter. While before he was happy academically but not socially at the gifted school, here he was happy socially but not academically, but now once again he was miserable both academically and socially. There was no winning. We knew we couldn't control his happiness social wise. He was a different kid, and maybe he just wasn't going to fit in no matter what. But, we could help with the academic happiness. Why not skip a grade?

OK, now this is a big issue, and yes, a lot of people tend to freak out.

What about sports? What about maturity level? What about when they get older in high school?

Well, our oldest hates all sports and does not have any desire to try out for any sports teams, so no worries there. I don't suppose he is immature, but I don't think he is fitting in socially where he is anyway. It has been a long 5 years with still little friends if any. And, high school? Hmmm.....I don't know. All I do know is that our son was super smart, and the only time I could kind of see him happy was when he was being challenged and really learning at school.

He was plenty smart enough. Remember the school had tested him last year and basically told me he was smart enough for college classes or what not, but now when we approached the school again they were leaning against it. It raised too many "red flags" they said. It wouldn't be a good idea. But what would? Let him be challenged and let him be happy at least somewhat without all the trauma of having to change classes and split between grades to miss this or that. We just wanted him to be in a stable classroom where he could take all his subjects and not have to travel to another school in 6th grade.

So, we met with the Principal and the psychologist and discussed our proposition. They were hesitant, and the school psychologist told us she didn't think it would do what we thought it would do for my son. I'm not sure what she thought we were thinking, but it just seemed to make sense to us.

And no, maybe it wouldn't solve his boredom problem, and sure, it probably wouldn't help with things socially, but then what else would? We had tried so many things, different schools, different gifted programs, split grades, extra type work options, etc....but things were still not great. Why not at least help him to feel stable in a single classroom? He deserved it. He already had passed 5th grade math and knew most of the other subjects. Why have him repeat it?

So we waited anxiously over the last few days of school to see what the Principal would decide. I don't know what we worried about more---his decision being no or his decision being yes. Either way, it was going to be hard to take in.

The second to last day of school the Principal emailed my husband and told him they had agreed to the grade promotion. My little 10 year old would now be a 6th grader the following year!

Now came the stress and worry and wondering if we made the right decision. It seems like it would have been so much easier if they had just skipped him back in Kindergarten. This was all turning into a mess. Now it seemed so dramatic to go from 9-10 year old classmates to 11-12. We didn't want him to miss anything, so we looked up 5th grade curriculum and had him study all of 5th grade science and history over the summer just so we could know he had experienced it before going onto 6th.

Summer was long, but not long enough. 6th grade was coming, and we worried still if this was going to be good or bad. This hadn't been our decision. Our oldest had expressed his desire to be in one set class and he wanted to be more challenged. It was a joint decision, but I think he was a little nervous as well.