OrlFamily - decisions like this can be really tough! I have three children, each with very different personalities, very different *learning* personalities, and very different needs in terms of academics. We've had years where we had all three children in the same school, years with two different schools and years with three different schools. One thing I'll throw out there to complicate the picture - every *family* has a unique personality also and… school districts and choices all vary tremendously from locale to locale, so it's not easy to throw a question like this out to a public forum and make generalizations or glean real info re what would be best for your own family based on the responses you get. I'm not trying to be cynical in that, just realistic!
For our family, hands-down, the best decision for us was to place all three children together in the school we liked best. It wasn't our district's gifted magnet, but it did challenge our kids in both academics and in areas that made them well-rounded as individuals. The teachers cared about the kids and cared about being effective in teaching - and those things made more of a difference for my EG and HG+ kids did than the actual academics. The interesting thing is - we found quite a few other EG kiddos there, in the private school. Most were there for the same reasons we were - difficulty finding true challenge and having academic and social needs met in our public school's gifted program.
Again, that's only what we've found in our very small sample. There were other things though, outside of the academics, that I appreciated about having all three kids at the same school - *time* mostly. I didn't have to spend time making pick-ups in three different places, which meant more family time. I was able to more fully participate as a parent in one school than in three (or even two) separate schools, and my kids valued having me there as an involved parent. There was also a little something among my kids re identifying as being from the same school - not easy to quantify, but they liked all being at the same place and being able to all answer the "what school do you go to" question without people asking "why do you go to different schools". Just a little thing. Not worth making the decision over, but the little things did make life a little bit easier
Good luck with your decision!
polarbear
eta - fwiw, my kids are no longer in the same school, but that's because I have some in secondary, some in elementary
