Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Regions Any other MA parents?

Hi,

I'm going through the whole public vs. private school thought process right now for my preschooler who is still one year away from entering kindergarten. By way of a little background on my son, he learned his numbers at 15 months, the alphabet at 20 months, phonics by 23 months, started reading/spelling words at 26 months (and currently reading books), and taught himself addition. I'm wondering if there are any MA parents on this forum that can give me some guidance. Specifically, I'm interested in your experiences with the MA public school system. Thanks.

Hi MAmom,

As a state MA is weak in gifted education - there is no gifted education mandate, there is no gifted IEP, there is no state funding.

I imagine there is a lot of variability between individual town public school systems. My only personal experience is with the Cambridge MA school district - unfortunately there is very, very little done for gifted kids in Cambridge. There are some recent moves with a group called CALA (http://cambridgeadvanced.org/) doing advocacy that has gotten the district to hire an "academic challenge coordinator" - but still very little happening on-the-ground, especially in the younger grades.

In Cambridge it is mostly up to the individual teachers to implement the official policy of "differentiation," ("every child should be challenged within the heterogenous classroom" or some such) - with very wide variability. We have had some good experiences, and some horrendous ones, and have friends who have had both. There is resistance in the district in general to advancing kids, though again with some individual teacher variability.

Hope that helps.

Hi MAmom,

Welcome to the group. There are at least a few of us from Massachusetts, including me.

Both of my children attend the public school system. My experience has been overall positive so far, but it helps that we live in a strong school system. We have never tested our children, but DD14 is probably HG, and has some academic peers and is challenged in some classes. DS11 is stronger, has a difficult time finding academic peers. He is not challenged in any class so far, but we think that might change a bit after he enters junior high.

If you have detailed questions for me, fire away in a PM, and I will answer the best I can.

There's a lot variances with the public school systems and with gifted kids. There are tons of factors involved - the school system, teachers, curriculum, other students, child's social/emotional maturity and toleration level, rate of acceleration, etc. I used to teach in a public high school in MA years ago so I've also seen in it from the inside as well as from the outside.

My eg/pg 2e DS was in a pre-k, public special needs program in NYC and MA before we withdrew him and put him in a private gifted school because he was 4.5 yrs old and writing 4-letter words, such as ramp, and reading and bouncing off the walls from boredom. Moreover public school in MA wanted to keep him in special needs for kindy due to attentional issues (without a diagnosis) which would have been a major disaster.

At private gifted school #1, DS whizzed through the pre-k/k/1st grade curriculum within 2 1/2 months and we were then told the school could no longer accommodate or would accelerate him. At the time, the headmaster said DS was socially/emotionally too young to be put in the 2nd/3rd grade class. This school was structured and there was less leeway with making accommodations so we brought him to private gifted school #2 which was considerably less structured and more Montessori-like. Private gifted school #2 lasted just over a year.

I'm now homeschooling/unschooling DS - which has its advantages and disadvantages like formal edu in private or public. I'm able to accelerate DS and work with his pace. I'm loosely following a general curriculum guide, which a 2e expert advised me to do, but DS can do 3rd and 4th grade work or more being at home, which he wouldn't be able to do at the public schools. One grade skip maybe, but two grade skips or multiple grade skips are out of the question in my district.

I will say that I took my son to a 2e expert this summer. She said it's public, private, or homeschooling. She said we wouldn't get much from the public schools - which I already knew based on our discussions with school dept after the test results (FYI - parents are legally entitled to testing through the public schools but you must put the request in writing).

I had my son in public school until 3rd grade, but the school didn't have a gifted program and had no interest in differentiating the kids in any way. We ended up at a private school that didn't specifically market itself as gifted but said on it's website that it could handle gifted kids. There we found that kids were grouped by ability rather than age for reading and math. In addition there seemed to be a higher percentage of gifted kids, many of whom are also refugees from public school. We've been very happy. Before we left, my son was miserable at school. Now he loves it.
Obviously the price of public school can't be beat, and if it works that's fantastic. But if it doesn't I think private is a great option and it doesn't have to be fancy (you need the teachers more than the indoor swimming pool!)