Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Regions California vs the East Coast

What GT funding? The only requirements were for ID, and I don't know of any district which didn't repurpose the pitiful amount of money allocated for GATE programming for their general fund when the N-... 3? 5? round of budget cuts allowed them to do so.

We live a little farther up the peninsula than South Bay.

We have art, science, and field trips, funded by either the district's education foundation or the PTA. Fundraising is not horribly guilt tripping: the district is economically diverse and they won't push. Our school does an OK (not stellar, not enough for kids above the +2SD mark) job at differentiation in LA and math.

Different districts, sometimes bordering each other, can have completely different populations and personalities. Diverse districts will have wild variation from school to school. You might need to talk with an education consultant who knows the range of possibilities...

There are three private schools for gifted kids. They have different approaches, and tend to be expensive (25k/year?).

Yes, exactly. There was some hope that 'categoricals' like GATE would be funded again until the latest school finance changes were proposed. Now it's completely gone. Our district stopped IDing two years ago and has no intention of ever starting again.

I'm sorry if it sounds bleak, but it is. Much worse than when I was a kid in CA. Do not expect your district to do anything for gifted kids.

I'm not in CA, but have a friend who worked as a teacher in CA several years ago - fwiw, one of the things I'd want to ask about is teacher-student ratio - when my friend's school district was faced with large budget cuts several years ago one of the measures to deal with it was increasing class size and it was increased significantly larger than I've heard of anywhere else in the US. Please know I don't know if this happened elsewhere in CA, but it's definitely something I'd ask about!

And fwiw, I've lived in CA. For all the troubles with schools and all the 8 million other things people might tell you about the challenges or frustrations of living there - I would move back in a heartbeat! I loved it The schools might not be great where you are moving to, but the things you can do as a family, the places you can easily visit, the outside-of-school everything - I put a lot of weight into family life too... I think it's every bit as beneficial to our HG/EG/PG kids to have a wealth of simply being with family and having experiences as a family. OTOH, CA is expensive (cost of living) and commutes can be long.

Good luck with your school investigations -

polarbear

What area are you calling South Bay? We are in South San Jose which is usually included in South Bay. This area there are charter schools that are either chartered by the school district or the county. They names of the programs/charters do not necessarily appear on Great Schools. You might try looking at the school district sites. The Charters are usually entered by lottery with the first round going to school district residents and have a participation requirement. The Charter schools do have some advantages even if they aren't perfect matches intellectually. Such as our District has a GATE program and about 30% of the class has qualified.

The school that DS goes to also has a ranking of 6 on great schools and does not have grades or tests, but portfolio work. The first test that DS took was in 2nd grade, the NCLB standardized test. The principles of the school are differentiation in class and project based work. The PTA and fundraising support an art and music program, we do field trips and depending on the teacher science is a lot of fun. This year, 3rd grade the kids did a squid dissection.

In some ways the lack of testing actually worked against my son as the teachers did not get DS. Grouping in the class was determined by the childs oral exam of written material within a 15 minute period. So in first grade even though he was reading Wayside school stories at home he was in the lowest reading group at school. And it wasn't until the standardized test results came back that they were willing to listen to us.

Just an FYI, but the school district just north of us has a number of schools that rank 10s on Great Schools though the area just north of us is a very rich area and overall the very large school district has a lot of troubled schools.

South Bay can also refer to the region of southern CA that includes Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach, etc.

Thanks. Yes, this helps a lot. I did start looking at charter schools but it seems that enrollment is over for the school year 2013-2014. I think I did call one of the charter schools in san jose, and this was the response I received. I also have to be honest -- I did not call every single charter school in San Jose (I called about three to four schools, and everyone was super nice on the phone, and told me to apply next year). I also apologize - I did not know that California had more than one south bay. I was referring to the south bay in the city of San Francisco. Sounds like I have a lot of reading/talking/exploring to do, considering I am pretty clueless about the area.

Rocky, I have also been looking at schools at the other town you mentioned. I know it is a super rich area, but I would appreciate some feedback on how the schools really are. The phrase "troubled schools" worries me. I am looking at some of the schools in that area, even though going to that town would probably be detrimental financially.

If you would like to PM me, instead of writing to this thread, that is okay as well.

I have been reading everyone's responses and they are all very helpful.

Ha, It's like when we lived in Brooklyn and people would refer to the City or New York City. If you lived or worked in Manhattan, the City meant Manhattan. If you lived in Long Island or New Jersey anywhere in the 5 boroughs was the City. I grew up in the Central Valley, and this area was referred to as the Bay Area. Hence, San Jose is South Bay.

It's not that enrollment is over, so much that their programs are full and probably have a waiting list. If the program wasn't full, I am sure they would still accept an intraDistrict transfer or school of choice.

The school District I was refering to is San Jose Unified and it is huge. The schools in the south (expensive areas) are rated 10s moving up to the downtown area where a couple of the schools rate a 4.

ljoy, this is an old thread, but, I am curious to know the name of this private school that you recommend for HG+ kids. Thanks!

Sending you a pm.