Make Back-to-School as Easy as ABC...
This month we talk about how to use attention, brainstorming, and communication to help you navigate back-to-school advocacy efforts.
Hello Gifted Guides!
We’re so glad you’re here.
How are you doing?
Are you eagerly counting down the days to school starting? Or are you definitely not ready for back-to-school? Maybe you’re somewhere in between.
Back-to-school is often a type of New Year celebration. There are a lot of preparations. There are a lot of goals and ambitions. And for a while, everything is shiny, novel, and new, which makes it interesting and easy to stay engaged with.
However, much like New Year’s resolutions, even the coolest of school supplies will start to lose their allure (if you’re of a certain age, you may be longing for the coveted Lisa Frank supplies of yore – or maybe that’s just us!). New routines, fresh supplies, and reconnecting with school friends can make the start of the school year appealing to students, even if there are some disconnects when it comes to appropriately challenging course work or other advocacy challenges.
While your learner is exploring new classes and routines and friendships, you might find yourself bracing for familiar challenges and issues.
So, what do you do as a Gifted Guide?
How do you balance new school year excitement with new school year apprehension? How much is too much to share with your student’s new teacher right away? When is it time to sound the advocacy alarm bells? How long do you “wait and see,” before you start sending emails and requesting meetings?
These are the questions that many Gifted Guides are thinking about during back-to-school. These questions can quickly turn into an overwhelming thought spiral. But what if asking and finding answers to these questions didn’t have to feel so stressful?
Let’s explore ways to help make that a reality!
ABCs of Back-to-School Balance
To help us streamline and simplify our back-to-school advocacy, we’re going to focus on: Attention, Brainstorm, Communication.
What the heck do we mean by that?
Attention
One of the reasons back-to-school is so stressful for many Gifted Guides is because they remember school years past, as well as the advocacy challenges that went with them. If you’re new to advocacy, you might not have that same history and may instead be worried about how to contact your child’s educational team and when.
Those are very valid responses to back-to-school. They can also get overwhelming very quickly. This is often because the approach described above—worry about repeats of years past and concerns about conversations and meetings that haven’t happened yet, but probably need to—are focused on unknown factors that you have little if any control over.
In these situations, you’re likely focusing on hypotheticals. They may be educated hypotheticals, based on past experiences, but they are hypothetical nonetheless.
So, what can you do during the first few weeks of the school year to help effectively inform your advocacy efforts this year?
Put your attention on your learner. Ask yourself:
What is their attitude and demeanor like before school?
What is their attitude and demeanor like after school?
How are they talking about school?
What are they prioritizing when they talk about school?
What are they not mentioning at all?
Have you noticed shifts in their mood throughout the first few weeks of school?
Have you noticed shifts in their engagement with their hobbies or passions?
Have you noticed changes in their routines (ex. sleep, eating, socializing, etc.)?
Paying attention to your learner’s moods, needs, rhythms, and responses over the first few weeks of school can be a great way to assess where your advocacy efforts should focus.
Maybe sleepy, slightly cranky mornings are typical for your learner, because they aren’t a morning person. A grumpy morning wouldn’t necessarily flag an issue then. However, maybe you notice that your learner isn’t reading in the evenings like they normally do.
This shift in your learner might not be cause for concern at all. Maybe schedules have shifted, or they have picked up a new hobby, or homework is taking longer this year than last year.
In these cases, the shift in behavior seems like a natural reaction to other environmental factors. There isn’t necessarily an advocacy action. Still, noticing these shifts can help you better understand your learner’s needs this school year.
These observations can also provide you with concrete examples to share with your learner’s educational team, should you need to pursue accommodations or other advocacy action.
Brainstorm
Often, Gifted Guides feel like they have the weight of the world on their shoulders and that they have to come up with all advocacy actions on their own. That’s not true.
Ask for help.
Ask for perspective.
Ask for ideas.
Does that seem easier said than done? Wondering who you should ask to brainstorm with you?
Start at home.
Talk with your learner.
Your student will likely not have a list of action items for your 2025-2026 school year advocacy. But they probably have opinions about their education experience.
Instead of asking them big, open-ended, potentially overwhelming questions like, “How was school?” or “What do you want to change about school?” or “Do you feel challenged?” try some of the following questions:
What’s your favorite part of the school day? Why?
What’s your least favorite part of the school day? Why?
What are you excited about learning this year?
What would your ideal school day look like?
The above questions are broad, holistic questions. If these questions aren’t a good fit for your learner, you might consider asking some more specific questions, such as:
What’s the funniest thing that happened during school today?
What is the coolest thing you learned today?
What was your favorite moment of the day?
What was your least favorite moment of the day?
If you could change one thing about your day, what would it be?
If you could repeat something from this day, what would it be?
These are just sample questions. You know your learner best. Feel free to tweak these questions in the ways that work for you and your learner.
Having these conversations helps to incorporate your learner’s voice into your advocacy work. Again, the information you gather from these conversations will provide you with concrete examples you can bring into your other advocacy conversations.
Communication
Communication is an important part of advocacy work. It can also be overwhelming and daunting to reach out to others, especially when you’re asking for help or change.
Below are some tips for keeping your advocacy communication effective:
Remember who you’re talking to. Sometimes, Gifted Guides might find themselves in a situation where they feel like they are in a “me vs. you" dynamic. This can make advocacy feel adversarial. To be completely honest, sometimes, such a dynamic may unfortunately be unavoidable. Nevertheless, it’s always helpful to remember that the person on the other side of your email is a person. They are likely trying their best—even if it doesn’t seem that way to you. Making efforts to build rapport with your educational team and those you’re working with in your advocacy efforts is important.
Know what your point is. When you’re advocating for a child, the stakes can feel especially high. This can prompt us to overexplain, and in turn, overwhelm our audience with information. If you are reaching out to someone, try your best to keep your communication focused on one goal or ask. If you don’t know what specifically you’re trying to accomplish, your audience may not either. For example, you need to go deeper than asking for “challenging learning,” because “challenging learning” looks different for every learner. Try asking yourself:
What are you trying to accomplish in this email or conversation?
What do you want to happen at the end of this encounter?
Have a clear ask. Just like it is important to have a clear focus and goal, it is also important to have a clear ask. If you are not making it clear to your audience what you’re asking for, you may not get a response in line with your intentions. Having a clear ask can help to keep you and your educational team on the same page. Even if the response you get is “No,” you have made progress. You now know what is off the table and can explore other options. For example, if you ask for “things to be better,” that is a vague request that your audience may not know how to respond to. Asking for subject acceleration is more specific. Even if subject acceleration is not an option at your school, your specific ask makes it clear that you what a particular type of acceleration action on behalf of your learner. If subject acceleration isn’t an option, maybe you and your team can discuss other subject-focused acceleration options.
The crux of advocacy is community, relationship, and growth. Those are concepts that may, from time to time, also include misunderstanding, disagreement, hurt feelings, and frustration. However, if we focus on clear communication and remember that everyone we’re working with is probably trying their best, we may find it easier to move through and navigate these challenging conversations.
Our resource guides can be a great resource to get you started in your advocacy efforts.
Conclusion
We know the start of the school year can be overwhelming—regardless of your role in the back-to-school process. As you adjust to the new year, we hope you and your learner can find opportunities for joy and discovery. We wish you a curious, thoughtful, and collaborative school year.
As you work to be a Gifted Guide and to advocate and support your learners, know that the Davidson Institute is always here to help how we can.
If you’re in one of our programs already, you know there are lots of resources for you to access via our private, member’s only website.
If you’re not currently participating in one of our programs, there is still a wealth of information and support available to you. Check out our Resource Library or our free resource guides or any of our other curated resources (like our Spotify and YouTube playlists or our Bookshop.org reading lists).
We are honored to be part of your advocacy community, and wish you the best as you dive into this new school year.
What’s New at the Davidson Institute?
Apply to Young Scholars! 2025 Application Open Now!
If you’re interested in joining the Young Scholars program, you can learn more and start your application today! Get started by visiting our How to Apply page!
If you want to learn more about our program, register for our upcoming virtual Application Q&A. Our next Q&A is taking place September 22, at 4pm (Pacific). Does that time not work for you? Don’t worry. If you register for the event, you’ll receive a recording of the Q&A.
Testing Opportunities are OPEN! REGISTER TODAY!
Through our partnership with Northwestern University’s Center for Talent Development, throughout the year, we are able to offer low cost, remote testing for students in grades 3-10.
This testing can be used to apply to the Davidson Institute’s Young Scholars program, along with the Davidson Academy, Reno and Davidson Academy Online.
To learn more and register for a Fall 2025 test session, check out our Eligibility Assessment page today!
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We’ll see you next month. Stay well, Gifted Guides!