Hi, all � I�m brand new here, and, seriously, I am sorry to start off in a minor key, but am frustrated today because I can�t seem to get my daughters what they need.

Our kids (DD10, DD7) attend a small rural public school district of around 200 students, K-12. The teachers are generally nice and some of them are good but they all have limited resources. There is no gifted program here, one class per grade, and little in the way of individuation or enrichment. My husband and I have fulfilling, but low-paying, careers. Moving is not an option.

My DD10 has been pinging out at the top of the assessments since she entered school. She�s in the 99th percentile on the state tests, in both language and math. Her intramural assessment never changes over the course of the school year because at the beginning of the year she is already achieving the highest levels they measure, 3 grade levels ahead. Early on I asked what the school could do to challenge her, and was told she could help the other students. We considered asking to skip a grade but I don�t think it would be any more stimulating and she�s got a good group of friends in her own grade.

We found her a tutor who meets with her every other week, to study ancient Greek and ancient history. She�s besotted with Herodotus. This has been wonderful, and she looks forward to it, but it�s also not enough.

I don�t think we can home school. My husband and I both work extremely long hours and just don�t have the bandwidth to give her what she needs at home full time, academically or socially. We are in a sparsely-populated area.

This summer, I started exploring online enrichment options for her and encountered CTY, TIP, etc. She tested into CTY, but I can�t afford the $800 tuition for the class she wants to take. We�d certainly qualify for financial aid, but I was told this morning there is no more CTY financial aid for her session available for 2019. (?!) (Aside: It would have been nice for CTY to post that info on the financial aid application and save people with limited resources a lot of expense, time, and disappointment.) Even if I could scrape it together, I don�t have any sense of the value of the class, and can�t see risking a huge chunk of limited budget on it when that money might be better used elsewhere.

I don�t know if she would qualify for DYS (I�m just getting my bearings with all these programs) but it looks like the IQ testing alone, at several hundred to thousands of dollars, is a really high stakes option for a family with limited means. After reading through some threads here I�ve written to the closest university to see if they offer low-cost testing, and am waiting for a final answer, but the initial response was discouraging.

I also have DD7 who has dyslexia (privately, expensively diagnosed, because it was obvious something was wrong, and the public school wouldn�t test her). She has been denied accommodations at school, and has been denied a 504 plan, because she�s achieving at grade level. According to the evaluation, she is highly intelligent and should be soaring through school, but she struggles to keep up. I see glaring gaps in her understanding, but as long as she is scraping by at the low end of grade level, she is not guaranteed anything by our public school system. Because of this, I have an online tutor for her, and pay for it. Again, it�s not enough.

I feel terrible that I can�t seem to meet either of my kids� needs. I�m angry that the school can�t seem to, either. And I�m also sad that the whole rural system seems so broken. Add to the above that 1) We are paying tuition and providing transportation for our kids to attend this public school, because it is better than our home public school district, where smart kids and those from �outside� are systematically bullied and, 2) despite a 6 million dollar budget for 200 kids, the district my kids are attending is financially unstable. They had to eliminate 3 teacher positions this year. Enrollment is shrinking, and the school has infrastructure problems; its future seems economically unsustainable. At which point, what? Drive to an even worse school even further away?

The really depressing part is, my kids are the lucky ones. My husband and I are both well-educated (thanks in part to functional public school systems), and have intellectual and social, if not financial, resources. The children who are really losing are rural kids who don�t fit the norm, and don�t have advocates.

So, hive of wisdom and hard-won experience, I have some questions.

My goal, for DD10, is to keep her intellectual curiosity alive, allow her to develop to her capacity, and prevent her from becoming bored or complacent in the small pond (puddle!) she swims in. For DD7, it�s more urgent and clear cut: I need to keep her from sinking.

1) What would you do if you were me? Are there quality programs for kids like DD10 that don�t cost an arm and a leg? What about DD7?

2a) Has anyone had success getting public schools to pay for online courses?

2b) Also, any advice on getting accommodations for bright dyslexic kids who manage to achieve at grade level?

3) Has anyone here spearheaded the creation of a gifted program in a small rural district? Do you think there is any real hope for that in a district that has financial problems, in a state where nothing is mandated for gifted education? (New York)

4) Any other ideas? Should we consider starting a charter school?!? The thought of starting something controversial, from scratch, makes me exhausted, but then I think of what I could do with the $30,000 of public money being spent on each of my children every year, and the exhaustion turns to nausea.

Thanks, everyone. I look forward to hearing any thoughts or ideas. And I promise to post brighter things in the future!

Kale77