Kickball,
I agree with what everyone says about each child being different and having to look at their maturity level. I think another difference I've noticed just in my family (GT sibs, although we didn't know it, GT nieces and nephews now)is that GT boys seem to be more challenging than GT girls in school. Please let me know if any of you disagree with this - it's just my own personal observation. Anyway, if you see my posting "just starting out" I'm having difficulty with my DD4's Montessori school not wanting to enter her into K early. Her B-day is Jan. also. I'm looking into other options and I'll let you know how that works out. I can tell you our Pub. school has a Jan. 1st deadline for consideration for early entrance, but we may try to bend the rules - also looking at a Catholic school.
As for the "good" district vs. "bad" district. I've witnessed the same things. My doctor's son attended one of the top 5 districts in the area and was very poorly served as GT. They cater to the middle-of the-roaders. They don't do well with anyone who differs from the norm in either direction. The reason they get good reputations is mostly because of achievement testing scores which caters to white, middle class, typically developing kids and ultimately tells you nothing of the district's true worth. My nephew goes to VERY poor rural school and the teachers are bending over backwards to accomodate/challenge him. My niece (same district) had a teacher recently ask her to bring in different works of art she's created b/c she suspects she's artistically gifted. It takes a great teacher to notice that! It also depends greatly upon the individual teachers. I teach in a district with 5000 teachers, some brilliant, some glorified babysitters.
(Sorry I have such a tendency to ramble -as many of you have said, I can't talk to anyone else about these things and I get excited to communicate with people I can relate to.)
Anyway, I'll let you know how things work out for us and anything that works/doesn't work along the way.
