My DD13 is a public school student. She's classified as a GT 11th grader. She also has a number of extracurricular activities and is reasonably happy with her life at this point.
Well, okay... kinda.
1. She is a virtual charter school student. Her coursework is just as rigorous as that offered at our local district high school (and in some cases, MORE rigorous, frankly)... but it isn't very challenging to her. The virtual quality means that it's just fine that her slate of honors and AP coursework only takes her 3-4 hours a day to bang out.
2. The school is somewhat flexible, obviously, about her placement. We will, during her senior year, basically be meeting basic attendance in her course schedule, and she'll take college coursework otherwise.
3. We afterschool-- and build PLENTY of "following my passions" time into things. For example, this weekend, my DD decided to learn about the acoustics in fine string instruments. She likes to drink from the firehose of learning, as we say. That kind of immersive self-directed study is seldom well-supported by formal learning environments. But it's like oxygen for some kids.
Basically, if you KNOW your child from the inside out, and you have a great deal of ability to advocate strongly and effectively, and you have a cooperative school system, then yes it can work.
It probably will involve radical acceleration and other kinds of accommodation, however. Best to know that going into things. We've never had a "plan" that worked for more than about 18 months, and the first few times, we weren't nimble/flexible enough to respond in time to prevent the fit from getting baaaaaad, bad, bad.
Here's the thing-- you MUST be able to find a way for your EG/PG child to be challenged sufficiently, EARLY enough. This is so that the child learns to tolerate challenge, know that challenges mean "work hard" not "I should quit" and that less than perfection is sometimes a good result worthy of pride in one's accomplishment.
Sometimes you can get that and leave a school placement alone, and sometimes not. It depends on a lot of things.
