Schools will too work, some schools, sometimes. Parenting the gifted child just means you have to be more flexible and more adaptable. You just can't set the timer and walk away. Disclaimer: I get all my opinions off reading the Internet. You can try literally any school and hope for the best as you keep an eye on it and monitor for a bad fit situation. My dad said "just pick any school and show your kids that you value education because most teachers want to teach and if a child wants to learn they will learn anywhere". I kind of agree, in theory, and I kind of disagree, in theory. I remember many years being teachers helper, unpaid underage tutor. Now I don't call that the teacher teaching. A couple years I got a bad fit teacher. A couple years I got an engaging teacher for me. So that's why I kind of disagree in theory.
I just signed my kid up for public school pre-k. (I'll make another post about that). My mom asked why I don't put him in private school instead of losing all the work he's already done. The part that's relevant to this thread is that most of those mediocre-fit teachers I described above were in private schools- they're not that much more academic than public schools in my experience. The other two reasons were that all the good private schools here are Catholic and we're not: and I will be after schooling. I'm just going to send him to school because I think he'll like it (I did, mostly) and he'll go as long as he likes it and behaves himself.
I heard something similar to what you heard. Some gifted personnel told me that, "school will probably never meet the needs of a kid like that" when I told her that I completely believe he'll be able to write a book report independantly by the first grade. I just helped him write a three paragraph essay about his family last month and he's not in pre-k yet. Texas law says they can not enter public school using early entry and they can do "credit by examination" (skip a grade) up to one grade a year, beginning with skipping kindergarten. While I think that's less than efficient I still don't see where it hurts to try to send him, be flexible enough to pull him out if it's just not working, and even be not afraid to try again at a later date if he wants to because it will be a different teacher and a different situation. But I do wish they would test him with the MAP test and put him with similar ability groups in the different subjects according to his ability test results (heard about that here) and not ration grade skips on a schedule and only by whole grades. Who wants to skip kindergarten anyway? That's the fun year.
