I have to say that at the moment we're actually pretty happy with our public school. We're in Canada so some stuff is the same but some is slightly different. Our teachers are well paid and all of the newer ones have at least 6 years of university. In my city it is extremely difficult to get a teaching job unless you speak French and there are thousands of unemployed new teachers looking for work. All of the teachers I have dealt with so far have really cared and tried their best. Not all of them completely understand gifted/2e kids needs or can manage to juggle them with a class full of a wide range of other issues but so far at least, it hasn't been for lack of effort.
DS was identified 2e through private testing last year part way through grade 1. We chose to test privately to avoid waiting and I'm ok with that. There are far more people in the system who's kids need an eval for bigger issues and who can't afford it. Once we had the report we went in and talked with the VP who turns out had just worked for 5 years in the board's special ed department - she gets it which is nice. We then got an IEP in place for the rest of the year that mostly dealt with the LD side of things but I was ok with that (at least short term). I helped in the classroom weekly and last year the LD issues far surpassed the gifted ones and that teacher couldn't handle doing both. The VP hand picked his class and teacher for this year and it has been a million times better. We send in work for him to do during math and we informally after school to satisfy his insane drive for knowledge. School at this point is about socialization and working on the LD side of things. He's now to the point that he hardly ever needs any of the accommodations in his IEP so we can now focus more on the gifted side (and it has made his gifted side more obvious at school so they are much more willing to focus on that). This calm likely won't last forever but for this year at least we're enjoying it. The gifted programming starts in grade 4 so hopefully we can figure it out until then (and hopefully it will be enough). If not then we'll deal with whatever comes.
DD is in SK and we'll likely test her once she is 6. We've had comments about her for years since she doesn't appear to have the same 2e issues. For now, she's happy, loves playing with her friends and then doing all of DS's grade 2 work when she gets home
Next year might be fun since it will be less about play and more about academics that she has already mastered.
My mom and MIL were both teachers for 30+ years each and I've worked a lot in the schools over the past couple years. They are juggling a lot and I empathize. The schools cater to the majority and for the most part that works (at least for the majority). When you have a 1/100 kid (or a 1/10000+ kid like some of you do) the system breaks down and you need caring, compassionate, educated people to patch together solutions. Unfortunately from the sounds of most of the stories here they are few and far between which is sad especially for the kids who's parents can't or won't advocate on their behalf.
