I think the difference is a school that has a philosophy “ how can we be creative and make school work for this particular child who is a unique individual?” vs. “I have a school with 1100 elementary kids who I have to get into and out of the cafeteria, I have to get them all to special area classes (art, PE, music, etc.)...I can’t worry about one kid and if he is happy or not and if I do this for him I have to do it for everyone. And if I start doing that there goes the schedule. Plus he’s doing fine I have tons of kids I need to worry about who are below grade level, now that’s where I have to focus my creativity.”
So the gold standard to me is meeting the unique needs of gifted kids...sometimes group solutions sometimes, individual solutions and valuing their problems and challenges in getting an appropriate education as much as typical students and those struggling to meet grade level expectations (due to disabilities or ...language, poverty or whatever). Having on staff teachers endorsed with gifted education as well as administrators with the knowledge (not their own biases but know really a lot about gifted education)
