I posted on the general discussion board looking for leads to good public school districts/cities so I apologize for posting more than once if you have already seen that post. I’m writing here for more specific perspective. We live in San Francisco and our kids are in private school. We are considering relocating to another city where we can afford to buy a house and sending our kids to public school.
I am very nervous about switching from a small, intimate private school to a public school and would like to hear from parents who have made the switch (either way). My older son is currently in first grade. His school is project based with an emphasis on STEAM. Kids spend much of their time being creative and problem solving, doing engineering challenges, making art and tinkering. In first grade, they spend time every day doing hands on science and they are designing and conducting experiments and keeping lab notebooks. My son is obsessed with science, building and math and he loves his school.
While the school is lovely, however, I’m not completely sure it’s meeting my son’s needs. While the student population is very bright (a large percentage of parents have Phds and are scientists, engineers and doctors) it seems that my son still doesn’t seem to have many peers. His teachers have noted that his conceptual understanding in science and math is beyond his peers and he sometimes seems disengaged and bored. He’s in first grade but reading multiple grade levels ahead. Nobody else is reading at such a high level so my son reports that he just sits and reads alone while other kids meet in groups. My son is also quirky and has had a hard time with handwriting (he’s doing well now). His processing speed when he took the WPPSI at four was average (but more than forty points lower than his VCI) and he seems dreamy and needs scaffolding to organize thoughts when writing. We don’t quite know if he has a genuine issue and will turn out to be 2E or if he is bored and starting to check out. His teacher has said that he is “brilliant” and she designs extra math challenges for him but my son often dawdles when doing the easier projects required to show that he understands basic concepts and never gets to the exciting, more challenging work. I’ve encouraged his teacher to skip the easy stuff and let him go straight to the more challenging work but I don’t think that is happening. We tried to get the school to agree to an acceleration for math for this year and during an evaluation (while still in k) they found that he already knew most of the material covered in first grade but needed practice with organization, writing and speed. I assumed he would get this practice in the context of more challenging work but that doesn’t seem to have happened because he still needs practice with organization, writing and speed!
My son is also a nerdy kid who is obsessed with science and is uninterested in playing with the other boys, who like to play spy or Star Wars. I wonder if he would be better off in a public school program that doesn’t have the bells and whistles but where he is surrounded by intellectual peers and might find another nerdy book who he has more in common with? I struggle with weighing the benefits of a small program where my son gets so much attention and is happy with a less flexible public school where he might have more peers and more opportunities to work at his level. If he does turn out to be 2e, which setting is likely to be better for him?
I’d love any perspective or leads anybody can provide. Thank you!
