Since the Rocky Mountain School in Boulder closed, I believe that we are without any gifted schools in Northern Colorado. While most of the local public schools do have gifted programming, we've generally found it to be limited in scope and not always geared toward solely gifted kids since achievement scores play as large or larger of a part in identifying kids for TAG than does ability.

We are fairly happy with our older dd's school setting currently and are not gravely unhappy with dd#2's schooling as we are supplementing w/ EPGY at home and she is in TAG reading for an hour/day.

However, I do remain concerned about dd#2's social and emotional well being in the absence of a setting where she can be herself. She feels that I am socially handicapping her by insisting that she use proper grammar for instance when everyone else says things like, "I says...," "me and her went to...," and "There's a lot of things..." I must admit that I do see her point in that I am a bit of a social misfit at work for the same reason and while my co-workers seem to find my speech amusing it does create some degree of cultural misfit and distance. I am usually willing to pay the price for being different in order to be true to myself, but as a young 9 y/o dd is not.

I've, for years, had running around in the back of my mind a career change wherein I am using the education focus of my Masters degree in gifted education rather than health education and running some sort of enrichment program or school or even a homeschooling cooperative for gifted kids. I just haven't figured out a way to make it financially viable as of yet.

Is there anyone in the Northern Colorado area (Fort Collins, Loveland, Longmont, etc.) who might want to get together and brain storm to see if we could pull something like this together? What are you doing for your kids in terms of community otherwise up here?

Before you give up on schools, why don't you look into Ridgeview Classical Charter School in Ft. Collins. This school is rated 4th in the country (Peak to Peak is 68th). You may find children more like your daughter here.

Are you in the N.CO area? I do know some people whose kids attend Ridgeview. From what I've heard from current and former students, it isn't the type of school in which my dd would thrive. They have a reputation for being extremely rigid (their local nickname is "rigidview"), for running out parents who disagree with the administration, and for making life so unpleasant for the kids who don't perform well on the tests that are getting them those high rankings that the kids eventually leave.

Oops, based on this statement, I am thinking that maybe your kids attend Ridgeview. I really didn't mean to offend with my prior post. I just don't have the type of kid who I think would do well in a strict, rule driven type of school. She is more of a Lab School artistic divergent thinker type.

Our charter school gets the same reputation (rigid) but it is such a superior education & experience to the traditional public schools here (middle school level). One of the toughest things they enforce is submitting homework. If you don't, you get a "0" and after 3 zeros, Saturday school. I thought it was too tough on kids at first (one parent said "militaristic") until the public high schools raved about the kids who came from the charter school being the only ones who submitted assignments. The top 5% of the high school classes are from the charter school. Success in high school, I have found, is not at all related to how smart you are, but how disciplined you are. Even though I didn't like telling my son--I don't care how stupid and boring the assignment, do it and do it well--but it is a reality and the charter school rigidity prepares them well.