webster elementary

last year hayden's kindergarten teacher recommended that we have him tested to see if he could get in to livonia's gifted school, webster elementary. they ended up doing testing over spring break for the out of district kids. a little later we received the results telling us that hayden did not get in, he missed the reading portion by about 4 points. but he did pass the math portion of the test. they told us that he could try again next year.
so a bit before spring break i started looking into it again. things were a little different this year and they didn't start testing the out of district kids until the week of may 24th. they told me everything that we would need from hayden's school...report card, benchmark testing scores, etc. and told me the applications would be up on their website starting on may 21st.
i contacted hayden's teacher and let her know what i needed from them. they were SO great and very excited for hayden. they gave hayden as much time as they could to practice his reading and retelling before they gave him the test that i would bring to webster with his scores on it. webster informed me he would need to be reading at the beginning of 3rd grade level.
in all of the tests they said the scores came out and showed he was doing math and reading at just about the beginning of 3rd grade. so we were hoping it was enough that they would give him the opportunity to test for a chance to get in to the school for 2nd grade.
on may 21st i printed off all of the forms and got all of the paperwork together. then on may 24th and went and dropped them all off at the school. they told me they would probably be calling us soon to set up a testing date, as his scores seemed to look good enough.
the paperwork they gave me said that there were only a total of 11 seats for 1st and 2nd graders from out of district. even if he passed the testing he may not get in if more than 11 qualified. at that point, they would do a lottery for the 11 open seats.
i got a call that evening i think and asked if we could bring hayden in for testing on thursday, may 27th at 8:30am. the testing would last between 2 1/2-3 hours and other kids would be there testing as well.
dave dropped him off that morning on his way into work and i went to pick him up around 11:15. there were about 6 kids there but others could have been testing on other days as well. when the kids came out, they told us that if they passed that round of testing they would call us to set up the second round of testing. hayden told me he thought that a lot of it was easy and that he didn't guess at very many of the questions.
i got a call on tuesday, june 1st asking me if there was any way i could bring hayden in for the 2nd round of testing on wednesday morning. this time, the testing was in reading and math and would only be about 1/2 hour. so on june 2nd i took him in for more testing. this time i just stayed there and he was the only one that was tested.
they came out and the lady told me that he worked really hard. she mentioned that he was "always moving" but that he was always paying attention. she also mentioned that he really needs to be challenged in school. she seemed to give a pretty positive vibe. she told me that around june 22nd we would get something in the mail showing us his scores with the percentages and telling us if he was accepted or not. i then asked about the lottery and she said...."well, i know that they put that in the paperwork, but i think there is going to be enough room." so either they didn't have as many kids apply as they thought, or some of the kids that did apply didn't pass the first round of testing.
when we got in the car hayden said that a lot of it was easy once again. he said that he sounded out some of the words and that he got one really hard word right. he said that the teacher told him he was the only kid to get that word right. i asked what the word was and he replied..."i forget."
he also said that the math testing was the exact same math test that the teacher at his current school gave him in order to get the benchmark scores for this testing. so hopefully that's a good thing as it seems like he scored well on it the first time.
dave and i will probably go to an information meeting about the school and their curriculum on june 9th and then we should hopefully hear some good news around june 22nd about him getting in.
the thing i was not looking forward to was the driving. because he doesn't live in livonia, i will have to drive him to and from school every day. but as 2nd grade gets closer, i have realized that his new elementary school in redford is close enough to us that he wouldn't have a bus. so i would have to walk, or drive him every day there as well. and once your in the car, who cares if it's a few extra miles down the road?!
it will be a pain, but it would be a pain to get him to school here in redford too. plus, it's redford. a place we swore we'd be out of by the time "our first gets into kindergarten." haha. so i'm happy to do anything i have to do in order to give hayden the best that he can have. hopefully, for 2nd grade, that will mean the gifted program at webster in livonia.
i just don't want him to get bored in school having to learn things with the rest of the kids that he already knows and has know for awhile. this year his teacher has done a GREAT job working with him so that he is being challenged and not just learning with the rest of the kids. but you just don't know that every teacher will be as great as this one is.
we'll keep you posted as to any news we get.