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    Joined: May 2009
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    Maybe this belongs in the college area, but since dd13 is in high school right now, I thought that I'd try it out here. Some of you may have followed my prior saga on how she isn't loving high school thus far. She's a freshman having skipped one grade a few years back. At this point, she's muddling through, has As in all of her subjects, and can more or less deal, but it really isn't a fit for her. I've researched the other options if this continues to be a poor fit as the year progresses and believe that I've ruled out switching to another local high school and online schooling.

    The other local high schools, like her current school, seem to equate rigor with quantity. Online just doesn't look like something that is right for her. The local community college might be a possibility, but given that she just turned 13 about a month ago, she won't be able to drive for years and I do work pt out of the home making getting her there and back a challenge. The local uni is a little more flexible that they initially purported to be and might make an exception for an under 17 kid.

    In any case, another option I've done some looking into is EEP/transition school @ the University of WA. It would require us to relocate the whole family, though. The director was very nice and helpful and dd does meet most of their entrance reqs. She'd need to retake the ACT this year and do a bit better on math, but she's there on everything else.

    Has anyone had a kid do an early entrance college program? The real draw for dd of something like this is a peer group. She looked so wistful about the idea of having kids to work with on projects who are all as bright as her or moreso and who are motivated. Dd is not PG, but she is HG and unusually directed. She is, however, not a fast kid. She's very deep.

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    We don't have any experience with the program itself, but it has been put on the " options for future years " shelf for us as that is where we are retiring in 4 years (military) and hope to be there within the next year or so anyways. It sounds like a fabulous program. Everything i've read on it at least sounds great. Good luck figuring it all out.

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    We actually live about an hour and a half from DU, so that isn't a reasonable option if she was living at home. CSU in the northern part of the state is and I've spoken with them. Their official, on the books rule, is that you have to be 17 by day one of your freshman year, which dd wouldn't even make if she graduates "on time," but it sounded like they might be willing to make exceptions.

    The appeal of UW's program is the built in support of a similar aged peer group and that dd's passion since she was 3 has been marine mammology and they have good undergrad programs in oceanography and marine biology. UW has been on her short list of college options for some time anyway.

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    Just to clarify, it isn't that she doesn't fit with college aged kids and needs same aged peers. It is more that she would love the opportunity to work in a true peer group where everyone in HG or so. College kids would be older and doing higher level work due to the age difference, but I get the feeling that she really longs for community of similarly able peers and she has never had that.

    She did have one HG-PG friend in middle school and really misses going to school with her. To have a whole group like that would be a wonderful thing for her.

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    Just a poll, would many of you relocate an entire family 1000+ miles for something like this? New jobs, selling the house, new school for the younger child, pets...

    My extended family thinks this idea is nuts and we should find a way to make her current high school work b/c we are teaching her to give up / quit when something is hard if she doesn't see it through.

    I see that to a point, but we don't have a long history of cutting and running whenever the going gets tough. I've also gotten the insinuation that dd's loneliness is due to her being condescending and/or arrogant. While I will admit that she is ticked at some of the other kids with whom she's had to do some projects and vented about that at home, she's always been really well liked and I don't think that she is unusually full of herself or rude to people (other than immediate family -- she and dh don't get along well).

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    That is a difficult situation Cricket and I think there are so many variables that may be different for different people that it is hard to answer that question. I can say that I know I've done MANY things (being a stay at home parent, homeschool, etc,) that I sure never thought I'd never do. It is hard to say "never" until you've been in that situation. I would put little stock into your relatives comments about sticking it out though.

    For me one of the key variables would be how bad the situation was for my child. If it was "gee could be more challenged" I wouldn't move for that. If it was "gee I wonder how she's going to make it through high school without self harm" then yes, I'd move for that.

    In general I am somewhat wary of moving for a school because I've seen it not work out for some other families. Perhaps before you get too far into trying to think through the scenarios it would be good to go for a really thorough visit to the UW program. For sure I would really look at the curriculum and environment for the first year and make sure that's a good fit.

    Perhaps this has already been discussed but would something like PEG or a high school boarding program be an option? In some ways that's less radical of a change and in some ways more of one.

    Last edited by passthepotatoes; 10/12/11 12:03 PM.
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    Originally Posted by passthepotatoes
    For me one of the key variables would be how bad the situation was for my child. If it was "gee could be more challenged" I wouldn't move for that. If it was "gee I wonder how she's going to make it through high school without self harm" then yes, I'd move for that.
    I worry that we may be a bit closer to the second of your statements than the first, unfortunately, although she's being a trooper and trying. I am trying to get her to explore whether things may improve in future years if she does stay at this hs, though.

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    Perhaps before you get too far into trying to think through the scenarios it would be good to go for a really thorough visit to the UW program. For sure I would really look at the curriculum and environment for the first year and make sure that's a good fit.
    We will have to do that if we are willing to consider this. I believe that their scheduled visits are in January. I don't want to waste time visiting if we wouldn't consider moving, though, so I'm approaching from both ends... would we move and will this program fit. The director did say that they, too, expect about five hours of homework/night the first year, which is a drawback, but I don't know.

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    Perhaps this has already been discussed but would something like PEG or a high school boarding program be an option? In some ways that's less radical of a change and in some ways more of one.
    We've certainly thought about it. I'm feeling that, emotionally, it would be better for her to have me around for a few more years. She and I are very close and I think that she needs that stability to lean on right now.

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    I guess that part of me that is fighting having her home in high school (although I was quite on board with homeschooling her for part of elementary) is wanting that social experience for her in high school. She really had a pretty good social experience in middle school.

    I worry that she will continue to be lonely with no real peer group if she is homeschooling or taking courses @ a community college rather than high school, for instance. We do have a homeschooling community here and I know people in that community but I don't know any right now who would meet that social/peer group need. There is a big leaning toward religious based homeschooling locally.

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    Originally Posted by Cricket2
    Just a poll, would many of you relocate an entire family 1000+ miles for something like this? New jobs, selling the house, new school for the younger child, pets...

    I personally wouldn't. Our house would be difficult to sell (long story). The set of grandparents who live with us would not want to move; nor does the other of their kids want to take them. The other set of grandparents owns their own house ~10 miles from us, and wouldn't move either. My professional license isn't old enough to get reciprocal licensing in any other state. My partner's job is in an industry that doesn't exist in most states (but I suspect she'd be very employable if we moved). No siblings or pets.

    I would consider boarding school, or home school, or living with her aunt and uncle, or homeschooling, or renting (and one of us living in) an apartment in another district, or private school, or a gap year.

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    Originally Posted by CFK
    Is she getting the social experience she wants from highschool right now? Is it enough to make all the negatives bearable?
    No, she definitely isn't getting her social needs met @ high school now. She didn't want to attend the assigned high school b/c it tended toward a lower SES group with a number of troubled kids doing things she didn't want to be around. The accelerated classes were/are also full of about 20-25% of the school population with the assumption that they all had the same needs. She just felt like she didn't fit, but there were a few really bright kids with whom she did have rapport.

    The current school draws from a more educated, well off community. She and I hoped that she'd find more like minds there, but she doesn't seem to have. Again 20%+ of the kids are in pre-AP/accelerated classes and a lot of them seem to be entitled rich kids with poor work ethic. There doesn't seem to be any greater of a population of gifted kids either, unfortunately. She's lonely.

    I was just thinking about this. She isn't a one in 1,000 kid. With a kid like her, I'd expect there to be at least a good sized handful of similarly able kids, yet she frequently winds up in a spot where she just seems a lot more "out there" than the large majority of the other kids in her peer group. I don't know why that is. It may be a personality thing as much as anything, but if I could find a way to find her a peer group of other HG kids, that would make all of the difference.

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