DS goes to a public school and in second grade they allowed him to work with advanced fifth graders for math. He was also moved up for reading and spelling. The school has no gifted program and they do not identify kids as gifted. But this has been the best fit. He could be attending a school where he would be identified as gifted (over 98th percentile cognitive ability) and placed in a "cluster" of other gifted kids within a regular classroom, but my experience has show this to be practically useless, because it's so poorly organized. My point is that we are choosing a school with NO gifted program over one that has one. The best choice depends, mainly, on the flexibility of the school and the administration in doing what they can to meet the child's individual needs. The worst schools for gifted kids are the ones that are so entrenched in "policies" that all they can see are cut-offs and rules rather than each child as individuals.
