Dds will be hitting middle school and high school next year. Dd12 will be choicing to a neighborhood high school about 10 minutes north of our house with school hours of 7:30 a.m.-2:50 p.m. and a late start day (9:08 a.m.) on Weds. I will need to drive her until at least her senior year b/c she won't turn 16 until the fall of her senior year.
We have applied for school choice to two middle schools that are right near the high school for dd10. There are reasons why the assigned schools are not the best fit for either kid.
I am having second thoughts in re to dd10, though, b/c both of these middle schools are very high performing. Like the elementary she attends (and almost all of our local schools), there are a lot of high achieving kids and the academic environment is competitive. Like her current school, 20% or more of the kids are in GT classes (one of the schools brags that over 26% of their kids are GT ided on their website).
This creates two issues:
1) If dd doesn't take the GT classes, she feels stupid and there are a lot of below average kids in the average classes since so many non-gifted but high achieving kids are considered gifted and tracked that way.
2) If dd does do the GT classes (as she is now -- subject acceleration for math and GT reading), she is really quite different from the vast majority of the kids in these classes. She doesn't power through material quickly, think convergently, and consistently perform highly. She feels stupid there too although I'd venture to guess that she is a lot brighter than the avg kid in those classes in that she has some pretty high IQ scores including one GAI in the 99.9th.
So, I'm also finding myself considering one of the lower performing alternative schools quite a ways north of us. It is an expedentiary learning model and goes from 6th-12th. The classes are small. GT probably doesn't exist at all or is not a big deal there. It is also a good 30-40 minute commute and it would be tight to get her there from 8-3:10 (especially pick-up) with dd12 being on the other end of town and getting out at close to the same time. They have early release of 1:25 on Weds.
I don't know that I could even keep my p/t job and do this. I wonder if I ought to just look at homeschooling (which I've wanted to do for a while anyway) if I am going to have to quit my job anyway. That would cut about 30% of our annual income and our health insurance
but dd10 is really in trouble. She's not doing well emotionally at all and something has to change.
I really wish that I could find a way to make enough money from home to make this all work but my dabbling in writing, etc. isn't paying enough to replace my income even though I'm not making tons of money.
Any thoughts on whether this is worth considering?
