Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion New....ish.

Hello all,

Am I still new if I've already posted a bit here and there? Regardless, I'll introduce myself and then ask the bevy of questions that have been piling up in my head lately.

I have 2 sons, ages 3 (36 months) and 18 months. The three year old has been reading for over a year and reads fluently. His comprehension has not caught up with his decoding ability (for instance, yesterday he read the phrase "extra-insulated," but I doubt he knew what that meant), but his vocabulary is nonetheless unusually large (his newest favorite word is "blur," which he both uses correctly and finds hilarious). He can also count, in two languages, even though neither his father nor I speak the second language (his grandfather, who he sees every four months or so, speaks it as a second language). He can do simple addition and subtraction. His memory is remarkably good.

The 18 month old has consistently been hitting milestones early, but it's too soon to say anything more than that.

We are at a point of thinking about schooling for our three year old. I am determined that he will not have the same unsatisfactory experiences I had. There are three main issues for us:

1) Right now, we are looking at preschools, though I am trepidatious about sending him, to be honest. The options in our area boil down to: Head Start programs, parochial schools, and Montessori schools. Neither Head Start nor parochial schools are appropriate for our family.

I like a lot about the Montessori method, and in general, I like the three schools we have narrowed it down to. However, it is clear that he has already mastered much (all? I don't know the curriculum well enough) of the reading curriculum at the primary level. When we spoke with the first two schools about what he would do for reading, one said that materials could be brought down for him from the elementary school, and the other (which is also pre-K through 8) made vague noises about him working at his own pace, without explaining how that was going to happen. The third school is a language immersion school which has no English language instruction.

At this point, I'm not sure what to do. I guess I fear lip service on the part of the schools, though I have no specific reason to expect that. I'm actually leaning toward sending him to whichever school will have the smallest (monetary) penalty for removing him early, which feels like the wrong attitude to have. Any insights, experiences, things to consider, or further questions to ask the schools would be very welcome.

2) We are thinking about having his IQ assessed. The assessment would allow us to have a better idea of his abilities, it would provide evidence (if needed) in future school situations, and it might allow us to apply for DYS (depending on scores, of course). However, even after doing some reading, I'm not sure when to have the testing done or which instrument to use. Does anyone have thoughts on those two subjects?

3) Before his cognitive abilities became apparent, we had planned to move in the summer of 2013. The cities we are considering are the greater SF Bay Area (all the way from the South to the North Bay, and everywhere in between), the Chicagoland area, Denver, Portland, and Reno.

Does anyone have a public gifted elementary (or better, K-8) school/program that they love in one of those cities? Are we insane to give any weight to a potential school, given that many gifted kids end up changing schools and given that I am becoming more and more disenchanted with public schools the more I read about them?

Thanks for reading and for any input or thoughts!

Welcome - you've seen the board in full flow already, I think ;-) Your boys sound fun and yes, many of us have btdt. My 2p-worth:

Preschool: question 0 is, do you actually want or need to send your DS3 to preschool at all? An alternative might be to skip it and just make full use of playdates, playgrounds, clubs and whatever else is available to give him the chance to play with other children.

Question 1 is what's the language immersion one like? Some people have had good experiences with such, the idea being that at least your child is spared pre-reading instruction in English and does get to learn something else, i.e. the other language. Opinions differ about how useful bilingualism is (in terms of brain development, regardless of whether one ever uses the other language) but at least it'd be likely to be a positive.

FWIW my DS8 had a brilliant time in a completely play-based nursery (preschool), and I formed the opinion that the less they try to teach the children the better :-)

IQ: I think most people will suggest leaving it until your DS is 6, unless you have a pressing reason to test earlier, and then the most widely recognised test is the WISCIV (or actually, it'll be the WISCV by then I guess). Consider then whether testing will actually be giving you anything worth the very considerable cost; it doesn't always. (My apparently-very-unusual DS8 has not been tested, and we - parents and school - discussed it again recently and concluded that it wouldn't be doing anything except satisfying our curiosity, so we won't. In the US, a high score would open DYS to your DS, of course, which might be sufficient reason.)

Schools and areas: I'm not in the US and my US geography is hazy, but the name that leaps out from your post is Reno, because of the Davidson Academy there. That's for wildly extreme children, and really honestly you can't yet be sure whether or not your DS will be one of those, but it's something to bear in mind.

You talk about public schools: so are private schools likely to be out of the question? That obviously gives you less choice than if they could be considered. How do you feel about homeschooling and how it would or wouldn't fit into your lives? If you'd be fairly happy to have that as a backup, then schools become a bit less crucial.

IMO
These ones looks Awesome-sauce!
http://www.balboamagnet.com/
L.A.  California

Then this is in the same area.  You're lucky to consider moving once.  I doubt you'll do it more than that, right?!

Granada Hills Charter High School (often called "GHCHS" or "Granada") is an independent public school consisting of over 4,200 students in grades 9–12, located in Granada Hills, California. It currently holds the record as the top comprehensive public senior high school in Los Angeles. Granada also has a high Academic Performance Index (API) score of 876, which greatly exceeds the target API score of 800 for all schools in California.[2] On April 12, 2011, Granada was named a 2011 California Distinguished School.[citation needed]


http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granada_Hills_High_School


Texas has a dedicated pg classroom with a good fit academics (first graders diagram sentences) in Carolton Texas (outskirts of Dallas). http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Resources_id_13854.aspx  
And  there is a full-sized gifted magnet school in Garland Tx, also a suburb of Dallas.  
http://www.garlandisd.net/departments/Magnet_Programs/gt_elem.asp

And then they have this in Dallas for highschool.  http://teacherweb.com/tx/tagmagnet/main/SDHP1.stm

I only see from 5-10 National Merits per year at GHCHS.

Garland, TX does have a "gifted program" but they produce few NMSFs and virtually no kids do well on the AMC tests. The same can be said for the Dallas Magnets. Carrollton is fine, but in reality, they just work two grades ahead. The curriculum does not accelerate after that. Plano, TX does have a dedicated math program called "math rocks" that is showing major successes. There are also some similar programs in NYC, DC, and San Jose area.

In general, if you are after publics, you have to look at the number of NMSFs as a % of the graduating class and how many do well on the AMC tests. The presence of these two indicators means that there are a number of high IQ kids and a cadre of teachers who teach to that level. 30 NMSFs per year and a dozen kids doing well on the AMC means that there will be whole classes full of MG kids with a few PGs present. The same goes for privates.

If your kid is PG, be prepared to be disappointed along the way by schools, no matter who they say they cater to. The number one thing in Prek/K is compliant manners. A highly energetic and questioning kid will be the outlier and will be seen as a "problem" with few exceptions. They can be reading Magic Treehouse and doing logarithms, but if they cannot sit still, then they will "not be ready" for K or 1st.

You will have to supplement to keep ahead of your kids.

I am probably in the minority here, but fwiw, when we looked for preschools, my over-riding concern was finding a place where my children knew they were valued and loved and the center of the universe - over academics. Although we landed in Montessori schools, if we'd plucked the same teachers out of those schools and put them in some other philosophy preschool I probably would have chosen the teachers over the school philosophy. I wanted them to be in places that helped foster their love of learning overall more so than I was thinking about whether or not they'd be challenged with reading and math. They didn't lose out on anything when it came time to enter elementary school, and it was a lot of fun along the way because they were exposed to so many fun projects and interesting nature walks and things like that - they learned a lot about the world in preschool and most importantly they were loved. I still love that about their preschools

RE IQ testing, I don't know much about testing at 3 years old - but if you are curious and can afford it and it's available, I'd do it. OTOH, I woudn't do it with the idea I could use it for advocacy at school - I think (and really, this is only a guess) but I think you might find that schools may question such early testing, and will require follow-up testing. Some schools also have a specific set of tests they will accept, so if you're going to pay for testing yourself and only want to do it once, I'd wait until you have a good idea what testing you'll need.

Re moving for a school or school district - I can see moving within a specific city or area to get into the residential zone for a better school district. I can't see uprooting and moving cross-country for the promise of something that might be a great school fit. There are just so many other components of what goes into a good family life (just for our family at least) combined with the cost of moving, having to rebuild a network of friends/relationships/etc, and most importantly - the unknown of what a specific school or school district will be like in 5-6 years. We've seen good schools in our district change dramatically when a principal was promoted and moved on to a different school. School funding can change from year to year etc. You can't ever know for certain from a website and survey rankings how well a school will fit your family - you can't really even know from a tour, the way you find out is to send your child there. And then what happens if it's not a good fit and you've changed your entire life just for that one school?

Anyway, that's just our family's point of view - we stayed put even though we are not in a great school district and we're far far away from any private schools that focus on gifted children. I imagine my ds12 would have had a better education elsewhere, but he's had a good education, and we've made it better than it would have been by advocating for him. In the meantime, we've also had the family life outside of school that we'd dreamed of for each of our children, and my dh and I have stayed in an area where we had the career connections that we value. I feel very at home here. I wish I could have given my kids a little bit more in their education but I also see them growing up with a solid foundation in the other things in life that are important and I think that ultimately that will be just as important for them as they move into adulthood.

I'd also add - don't discount the schools where you are at first glance and just based on what you've read. No matter what the school district, you may find some amazing teachers who really care about your kids.

Best wishes,

polarbear

eta - I wanted to add that no matter how great a gifted school looks - if you have an EG or PG kid, and possibly even for HG, chances are that no matter where you land, you're going to find yourself having to advocate for your child.

Thanks, all, for the thoughtful responses.


Oh yes, this goes through my head often. However, I suspect that my son would really benefit from a lot of social interaction, and given my introverted nature, I just don't know if I would make it happen piecemeal.


I love the idea of language immersion, but there are other issues with the school that may take it off the list for us.


You won't believe me when I say this, because I can hardly believe it myself, but there is literally no such creature around here. I've looked.


Private schools are unlikely (financially), but not necessarily impossible. Homeschooling is a possibility, and a fairly attractive one, except for opportunity costs.


Thanks for the suggestions. Re: the Texas schools: moving to Texas is about as likely as moving to the head of a pin.


Interesting. What is the metric for success? (AMC scores?) Any chance you happen to have the name of the program in San Jose?


I don't suppose this data (NMSF & AMC test scores) are already aggregated (at least, within state) and easily accessible somewhere...?


Makes sense. One question: when you look at the data, do you bother to differentiate between NMF and NMSF?


Yes, I suppose so. I'll be surprised if he's PG, but I also suspect that I am too close to it to really be able to judge effectively.

When we went to the open house at the vague preschool, I mentioned to the teacher that he could read, and she looked skeptical. (She also asked, "How did that happen?" which amused me.) When he started reading various words around the classroom she went from skeptical to shocked, and her first comment was something about the six year olds in her class who can't read the same sort of words (e.g., "fence," "pink"). Yet the words he was reading were not particularly close to the edge of his skill level.

So, who knows. What strikes us as mildly surprising seems to strike others as exceptional. This is part of why we'd like to get an assessment done.


That sounds like a call to homeschooling for us....


It sounds like you found a great place for your kids. To be clear: I don't need my son to learn a ton in preschool, but at the same time, I don't want him to be bored or annoyed when he is there.


Yes, ugh. A good reminder. We know of a family who bought into what they felt was a great school district (at a huge price, mortgage-wise), which has since fallen to pieces due to massive budget cuts.


Yes, this is why we want to apply to DYS -- to get help with the process of advocating for our son(s), should we need to do so.

Forgot to ask: are there any rough equivalents at the elementary school level? I assume state testing in most states is achievement (though also potentially suspect/problematic), but are there any proxies for IQ?

Here's the link for the best High School ranking by US News.

http://education.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-high-schools

Usually, there are good elementary and middle schools feeding into those High Schools.

Check out the school rating through here

http://www.greatschools.org/

Good luck!

Here are some thoughts based on raising three gifted kids (one with an LD as well) in one of the worst ranked states in the U.S.

1. Figure out why you want or think you should put your kids in preschool. If it is because you work and want your kids to have something better than daycare, then look for something that will give your children opportunities to explore new experiences or an academic track. It will be nigh unto impossible to find a daycare that is going to challenge your child academically, so pick experiences such as field trips to museums, lots of hands-on activities, etc and a positive, nurturing environment. If it is because everyone and their dog goes to preschool, consider bypassing it. None of my kids went to preschool and all did perfectly fine starting Kindergarten. It was nice to have a few more years with them since I stayed home.

2. You will find sucky teachers in the best of schools and amazing teachers in the worst of schools. That being said, finding a school where the majority of parents have college degrees will likely mean you have a better support base for the school and more pressure on the administrators to meet the needs of the higher IQ kids. But where you live should be about the lifestyle and environment you want for your kids, not just the school district. We choose to live in a high poverty state with not so hot schools because we love the culture, the weather, the opportunities to do things outdoors and nearby access to family.

3. IQ - the baseline IQ you'll find at age 3 may be very different than when your child is older. Unless you need it to gain entrance into a specific educational institution, I'm not sure I'd subject my child to the arduous testing when they'll likely have to do it again in a few years anyway. You know your kiddo is bright; you know they're going to learn faster and deeper just about whatever subject interests them, so I'd probably spend more time exposing them to new experiences so that their world of ideas is expanded rather than worrying about a specific number on an IQ chart. On the other hand, if you see significant gaps in abilities within your child, then it would be prudent to test to determine if there is a developmental disorder that could benefit from early intervention. My youngest is twice exceptional, and I wish I had listened to the doubts I had when he was younger. I often wonder if he'd still be struggling so hard with his dysgraphia and dyslexia in mid school if we'd tested earlier.

One word of caution here -- the highest ranking schools aren't always the best for HG+ kids. I, too, have long maintained that my oldest isn't PG, but I do have some parents here of DYS kiddos who are suggesting that she's closer than I've thought. We've generally found that highly ranked schools tend toward bright children and maybe even more MG children, but not necessarily more HG+ kids.

I pulled the list of schools in my state that made that list from US News and the only one that is in my immediate area would not be a good fit for my HG+ daughter by a long shot. Since I work in healthcare, I happen to know that the largest percentage of admits to our adolescent inpatient psych facility come from that one school and it is only one school among 10 or so large high schools in my area. Yes, their test scores are higher than the other high schools, but there is a significant reputation for rigidity, running out families with lower performing kids, and high pressure placed on the kids which may play a part in those scores.

Point being, high test scores may tell you how many kids a school can get to perform at a proficient level or somewhat above, but not necessarily what the school can do for a child who would be performing that well with little help or what the school will do for your child in terms of meeting his emotional and social needs.