I will do an in-depth search on this topic, but for quick reference I am hoping some of you will chime in with ideas....
Here's the situation: we took our dd out of the local pubic school system after K5 because it was painfully obvious they had no clue how to work with the gifted population, she spent the next few years at a fancy private school (which wasn't much better) and the last 2 years at a gifted school (but they are closing). She will technically be in 7th grade, and I plan on homeschooling her for the next year or two. Now I am thinking further down the road and what our options will be for high school. So I sent off an email to our local school board, basically asking them if they are doing anything different. I had heard through the grapevine that they failed an audit for gifted & talented programming (no shock there), and are perhaps more open now to figuring out what they can do for this segment of the population.
The Director of Curriculum & Instruction offered to meet with me next week and I want to look at this as an opportunity to start a dialogue and be part of the solution. I have no ideas of grandeur, but if I can make salient points and at least start the conversation maybe I will have a better audience. One thing I do know about this district is that they do not want to be losing their "best" students to other districts that are way outpacing them in terms of at least attempting to build decent GT programs (a point I made rather clearly in my email to the district).
So my main question to all you lovely people who have walked this walk...what were the best resources you used when starting these conversations? Can you quickly point me to articles, research, lists of questions and answers (I don't want to be stumped if they ask me questions
), really any ideas that you think will be helpful would be most appreciated! I should add that they think they have a GT program already, which is far, far, far from the truth. They have AP classes in the high school, and a few pull outs for middle schoolers, but that is about it. From what I understand none of the teachers have any gifted training, and they treat the gifted population as high achievers only, not understanding the full scope of their needs.
Thanks!
