The school had an open house, where all the kids and all the parents and all the teachers are there at the same time. We entered the crowd, clueless. No signs told us where to go, so we popped into an empty classroom and asked the teacher there, “Where do we go?”

“Well,” she said, “Who’s your teacher?”

“We have no idea.”

She frowned. “Didn’t you get a letter?”

“Nope.”

“Oh, well, let me take you over to the second-grade rooms. They should be able to help you there.”

And so we made our way there, and figured out The Boy’s class by going door to door, looking at the rosters, until we found his.

So we met The Teacher (who seems very nice), saw his desk, and met some other kids. In fact, he already had two textbooks waiting for him — reading and math.

I flipped through the reading book. A little on the simple side for him, but not the “See Spot run” I was worried about. He won’t be challenged, but he won’t be bored.

Then I opened the math book. And laughed. It was stuff like “3+4=” and “How many sides does a square have?” and other really, really basic stuff. Kindergarten stuff. My laugh was because I knew what The Wife’s reaction would be. And sure enough, she saw that and made a beeline for the teacher.

Worry not, she was told. Yes, that’s a really basic book, but we differentiate. Just give us a couple of weeks to get settled. Whew. And then The Wife mentioned all the materials we had given The Principal — all The Boy’s work from the past year. The stuff The Principal had assured us would be passed on to the teacher.

Oops. Never got that. The Teacher had no clue about The Boy’s previous work, the whole gifted thing, or anything else we talked to The Principal and The Guidance Counselor about.

Oh. Must have slipped their minds in the couple of months between our meeting and the start of the year. Hm. Well, we’ll take care of that.

We left the open house happy with The Teacher, but wondering why The Principal hadn’t forwarded all the stuff she said she would. What other things were “forgotten”? Guess we’ll find out.

It was important to us to meet the principal of The Boy’s new school. We wanted to talk about the gifted programs they had, make sure he wouldn’t be doing really low-level work, and so on.

So we did; The Principal and The Guidance Counselor sat down with us for a very nice chat. We explained the work The Boy had been doing, showed the test scores that prove he’s “gifted” (a child isn’t considered gifted unless you have a test to prove it, you see), and gave them some samples of his work.

Great, they said. All this will go in his folder which will go to his teacher. She’ll be able to review if before the year starts (when she reviews all he kids’ stuff) and thus be able to differentiate.

That’s the big word: differentiation. The kids should be getting work at their own level. If they know fractions, they shouldn’t be taught “3+4=” and if they’re just learning addition to 10, they shouldn’t be given fractions.

Assurances were given — of course there’s differentiation, no worries, besides, it’s required by law. Yes, he will get work that challenges him. Yes, he can write in cursive (he loves writing in script). Yes, there will be plenty of opportunities to engage and challenge him.

They were very nice, but I am a skeptic. There was too much a feeling that they were telling us what we wanted to hear. I realize that’s a Southern thing — smiles on the outside no matter what you’re thinking; better to lie than to make someone feel bad, and so on.

But we left knowing that we’ve laid the foundation for future meetings, and we’d be able to talk to his teacher about the specifics. If nothing else.