We have that situation with our local H.S. for DS. And I remember my mother having this problem with the school district we moved into when I was 8. And we had that problem with what was supposed to be a wonderful 6th grade GT teacher who sent my son into therapy and gave another friend headaches.

It depends on the situation. When I talk about the "wonderful" 6th grade teacher I mention that this teacher's teaching style didn't work for my son. I talk about how the class & teacher serve two styles of students the gifted and the highly motivated. The highly motivated work great in his class, the but in particularly the GT boys struggle under the organizational skills this teacher expects.

As to the H.S. it's easy because while the school has a reputation for being excellent, but it also has a local reputation for eating GT kid alive. So not everyone things you are odd for complaining. This school worked fairly well for my older DD so I do have good things to say about it. There are some really excellent teachers, and there is a large cohort of other GT kids. But the group of kids who struggle the most with the school are the GT kids who aren't as intrinsically motivated.

I think the issue is that if your child is really HG/PG it's hard to find ANY school that is going to work well. Things will always be a bit of a compromise. I always try and talk about the specifics I don't like. Particular inflexibility, the district refusing to consider any GT program till the kid are in 4th grade. I just mentioned to someone yesterday that the reason a educational options isn't available to my son is that I feel our district is a bit "stuck up". They think that since they are so "excellent", have such great test schools they are serving the needs of all their students and don't need to offer additional options.