Being a good parent and teacher

      So this week in my Exceptional Learners class I was part of a group that presented on the chapter in the textbook on gifted students.  My portion of the presentation dealt with how the classroom needs to be an inclusive setting for the gifted student just as it is for students with other exceptionalities or learning disabilities.  As part of my presentations I conducted a mini interview with my son Kye.  Kye is a smart kid, not to seem like I am bragging or saying my son is gifted, but he just is a smart kid.  Before he started grade 3 this year he had already taught himself how to multiply; not just by memorizing a chart but by figuring out how to multiply using groups to figure it out and has since grown comfortable with it.  In fact he is so comfortable with it that a couple weeks ago started asking how division works since he knows how multiplication works.  In his math class at school they are doing 3 number subtraction currently, which he finds incredibly easy.  Now this is only a small sampling of what he is like...he loves school and learning and would love to be in school more and is sad when there are days off that he feels are not needed or too many days off in a row.  Summer holidays can drag for him if he does not have enough learning activities mixed into it.  So right around the time I am reading this chapter he comes home and is all serious in the fact he feels his teacher is holding him back - his words exactly.  This isn't the first time he has had issues with teachers who don't seem to want to allow him to work to his potential.  His home room teacher finds it funny that he likes to work so fast and that he loves to read and will actually make him sit and wait while she is explaining worksheets to the class when he already understands what needs to be done and just wants to work.  During the 3-way parent/teacher/student conferences his teacher says he needs to work on his reading which dumbfounded my wife and when she questioned it his teacher just laughed and said that they just put that down for everyone.  Kye reads extremely well, over last summer he read the entire Harry Potter series and can answer pretty much any question from any of the books; I don't even have that sort of retention ability with what I read!  His reading level, without being formally tested, appears to be in the grade 6-8 level and we have managed to get the teacher librarian to allow him to take books from the young adult section of the library so that they are to his ability level.
     I feel like I have rambled on about this a lot already but my point is that this morning I talked tot he principal while walking the girls to school and just gave him a heads up that I am cc-ing him in an email to Kyes teacher in which I want to know what can be done in the classroom and school to help keep Kye interested in being there and learning.  He has made mention more than once that he would like to be home schooled so that he can be learning at his level and to his full potential - again these are the words coming from his 9 year old brain not mine.  There are many things done to help the students that are on the lower end of the academic scales but why is it that the students at the upper end often get left out in the cold?  As a teacher I understand the challenges especially when you can have such a varied range of student abilities in a single classroom and the instruction time is not enough to intensively cater to the all but just as supports are put in place for the disadvantaged so must challenges be placed to support the advantaged student as well.