During three long years of grad school at USC, I learned one of my most important lessons I’ve ever been taught and one I still pass onto all of my patients: You have to be your own advocate. I originally learned this from a medical standpoint. You know yourself better than anyone else, and you know when to seek treatment for yourself. You know if you’re not getting better, and you can ask for a second opinion. Even a third or a fourth. The same confidence you feel in your medical provider, whether that’s a regular family physician, a surgeon, an acupuncturist, a Chinese medicine specialist, or a doula, is the same confidence you should feel from your child’s school, teachers, and lessons.

There are two general thoughts on education. First is that the school is doing everything possible for each child and whether that is the best education or the worst, it’s out of the parents’ hands. The second is that every parent should be fully involved in their child’s education. These two standpoints often take the sides of public school and private school education, respectively. We know more than a handful of families that aren’t happy at a public school and their kids are bored and so far ahead or struggling with no one to help them, but they can’t afford “a better education” at the local private schools. We also know more than a handful of families that have their children at these private schools, and the parents that were once so involved are now pulling their kids from the schools and sending them to public school because they don’t agree with the teachers philosophies and teaching styles and grades. Neither side is right. Neither side is wrong. You just have to do what’s best for your child.

That’s where our story comes in, and we hope this can help you navigate the school system, too. As you probably know, Henley’s working pretty far ahead of her grade level. I think we’re hesitant to place a grade level on Henley’s work because we’re sure there are some aspects we’re leaving out, but she seems to have a work-hard-but-still-have-success around the 4th-5th grade level. Things that aren’t quite there are spelling, the speed of her work, and any sort of history, but we’d venture to guess that those subjects or ideas can be learned at any time and shouldn’t hold her back. As she’s been cruising through work during the week, we’ve decided we want to expand her schooling beyond the two of us.

We were neither advocates of homeschool, nor were we against homeschool, but we’ve seen that the more we work with Henley, the more she learns. We tried preschool once, we had her interview for a class a year later, but as parents, we haven’t felt satisfied with what we’ve seen. At 4.5 and with a late July birthday, Henley is eligible to attend Kindergarten for the 2020-2021 school year, but nothing seems like the right fit. I don’t know what she’d be doing when her classmates were learning to write their names neatly on a line. We also don’t need her gone from 8-2. I think if we stop school at home, Henley will still be successful in school, but there’s no way she’d retain material that she wouldn’t see again for five years. In the same respect, online homeschool isn’t what we want either for the same reasons. We want something supplemental.

Through weeks and weeks of searching, we found what seemed like an awesome program. It’s online, it’s for kids who are excelling, and it starts as a few classes and can potentially turn into full time school later. There’s a catch though, of course. First, Henley needs to take one of a list of IQ tests AND she needs to be in 2nd grade. After much back-and-forth with the directors of the program, what we figured out is that grade level is independent of age, meaning that at age 4, Henley is capable of being admitted, but she still needs to test at at least a 2nd grade level by means of a standardized test given by a professional, a school, a teacher, a school district, or anyone involved in education.

Guess what we did - we called the local public elementary school to see if they’d administer a 2nd grade placement test. Reasonable, right? Well, it’s been a fortnight and we have yet to receive a call back from anyone in any department. Good thing there’s another elementary school in our area! Too bad after two weeks they have yet to pick up their phone. Yes, we could go in person and ask, but we wanted to exhaust all f our options before leaving our couch :) so we called the private school where we do a majority of our tutoring. What do you think they said? They said that they have a policy to never place a student ahead of their assigned grade level, and therefore wouldn’t test Henley. They did say that if she were having trouble, they could hold her back a grade. How that’s pertinent, I don’t know. This school also suggested going to the Hawaii Department of Education (DOE) website to find out about standardized testing, but she was adamant when she said it would be unsuccessful if at the very least because testing takes 6 months to a year to schedule and complete. After this call, we were feeling frustrated! Why was this placement test so hard to administer and why wouldn’t anyone do it? We kept pushing.

Next we went to the last private elementary school in the area. Here, we learned a little bit more. We learned that in Hawaii, if a student attends school Kindergarten is mandatory. What this means is that Henley can take a Kindergarten placement test, which covers pre-K material to everything they will cover by the end of Kindergarten. We also learned that at the public schools, when you start, you’re placed in your grade according to your age. At their school, they do offer a placement test for every grade, buuuuut, they can’t give it to Henley because she would have to attend Kindergarten. It felt like no one was understanding what we were asking for! Just a test that covers some reading, writing, and math at the 2nd grade level, not to be used for their school. No one was budging, though.

When we talk about this at night, we always come to the same conclusion: this extra program isn’t necessary for Henley. It doesn’t put her on a different academic path, it’s not teaching anything we can’t her, but it’s a chance to learn in a new way. We could wait until she was considered a 2nd grader by the local schools, but why? She’s ready now. We wanted to push even more until we found a way to make this happen. We had to advocate for Henley. The thing was, no matter what we said, people talked right back and said it wasn’t their policy. That was everyone’s great answer.

A few more weeks, a lot more phone calls, and we were finally put in touch with a child psychologist. After weeks of talking with the office staff, we finally got an appointment TO TALK ABOUT OUR PREDICAMENT! An hour later, we walked out without a straight course, but with someone who was finally able to and wanted to help. From him, we learned that that the Hawaii DOE does not help those students who excel in school. The school psychologists and teachers are in place to make sure that their classes are average, that everyone passes, and that’s it. Sure, a teacher can be generous and offer more advanced work to a bright pupil, but that’s a case-to-case basis and does not have any written course of action. So, in Hawaii public schools, the goal is to not fall behind. Sounds lousy. He taught us about how standardized grade level testing works and how all tests are scored to an age norm, which means that Henley is technically ineligible for these tests, but he did say he would still give her one! We’re on the windy road to some answers, and we’re extremely grateful to have someone on our side, it’s just too bad no one else was willing to help.

Stand up for yourself. Stand up for your children. It doesn’t matter how important or menial what you want is, make sure at the very least you’re being heard.