Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional 2E Schools?

I also suspect it mostly boils down to economics. Running a private school is really tough financially, and with 2e kids you're taking one already small subset of the population of school-age kids (gifted) and intersecting it with another small subset (LD/etc) and that's got to mean there aren't a ton of prospective clients to begin with - then further factor in families that can't afford a private school or don't have time to drive or would prefer to stay where they are at etc - and you have a very small potential paying client basis.

We had a private school in our area that dealt with LD that was an *academic* success but still ultimately failed, due to a combination of economics and vision differences among the staff. It was successful for quite a few years, and I think that success was due primarily to focusing on *one* particular need (dyslexia), hiring teachers who had personally experienced dyslexia, and having a curriculum that was unique and not available in our public schools. Students would attend the school for a few years, then head back into public school once they had concurred both *how* to read and how to cope with having an LD (which was a big part of the program). Although it was not a school for gifted children, the students there were placed in whatever level class was appropriate for their current academic functioning, which allowed a great deal of flexibility - for instance a child who was advanced in math could be in whatever grade level class that was appropriate, while still getting direct instruction at a very low level in reading or writing etc. So it wasn't a 2e school, but it could fit many of the needs of some 2e kids. My older dd attended summer school and was in a class of 6 students with one instructor and the instructor, who knew nothing about her at the start of the session, had figured the one thing that would later prove key in resolving why our dd was struggling with reading - so the instructors, with smaller class sizes and the approach they used, were really able to get to know and understand each student.

I wonder sometimes about some of the schools who advertise that their mission is to serve LD (dyslexia etc) as well as ADHD/etc - sometimes I think schools reach for too large a swath of students (in order to have enough students to enroll) to be truly effective at helping what any one particular 2e student might need. But that's just me - not sure there's any basis for it in real life.

Pemberley, it's really tough knowing what to do for our 2e kids, and there really likely isn't going to be a perfect or even near-perfect solution. Honestly, school options for my non-2e kiddo aren't all that great! But we have found a good compromise for our ds12 in a small private school which does *not* specialize in any kind of 2e stuff or LD or anything. They are simply a small school who are striving to produce good citizens and high-achieving students. The key for ds has been that while the staff may not know much about ds' disability and hasn't likely ever taught a child like him before, they trust that the parents know what they are talking about when we talk, and they are willing and happy and eager to make accommodations etc that make sense in order to see their students succeed. I think we had a small bit of that occasionally in ds' previous public school, but overall there was an air of the teacher is the expert, input from parents wasn't welcome, SPED budgets were thread-bare, and the one teacher we had who seem genuinely concerned about ds suddenly seemed to have a gag-order placed on her every action and word once we initiated an IEP eligibility process. It was a tremendous stress reliever *for me* when ds changed schools, as well as it being a good choice for ds.

The bad news is, it took us until middle school to figure it out! And we knew about his challenges starting in 2nd grade. Hang in there - it's a journey. And definitely not a quick or easy journey!

polarbear