Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments school choice

Refresh: we moved to Toronto, DD is going into the gifted 4th grade. They put the gifted in the school in the area with the poorest scores, though it also has special ed, which changes scores and it also has a pool so one day a week, they swim.

There are 4 others schools in the area that all have similar good scores and many kids qualified for gifted. One school had 15 kids qualify but only 2 took the school DD is registered at. Found out the principal of that school, the one in the area I like the best, decided to run her own gifted class as to not lose the kids.

My dilemma. If I try and get her into that school, she will have many more girl peers, not sure about acceleration, no bus, so I have to get her there. Not awful but a pain.
The school she is registered has so few kids coming that the 4th is a split class of 4/5. Which means she might be able to skip. Since she has already done the CTY 5th grade math and reads at 6th I think I can get this done. But the class has mostly boys. One girl from down the street, who will be in the 5th grade there, has some personality issues and the mother smokes so no playdates at her house anyway.
So one side has strong possibility for grade skip, bus, and swimming. The other side has peer population and a school I like better.

Emotionally, what are your DD's needs this year?

I think that probably looms larger (in light of your past year) than a lot of other factors.

I'd probably go where she will have a peer population, but I say that without knowing your DD's personality-- and without knowing where she is in terms of processing all of the changes in her life.

That was my instinct as well.

be careful banking on a grade skip in the TDSB. i've heard parents are being told these days that it is a total non-starter in that board, and literally never, ever allowed anymore.

clearly, i'm not sure about the actual rules or if it's just something that administrators say to shut people up, but it might be a good idea to bring the idea up explicitly before choosing?

and all the best!

Well, I found this newspaper story. It was written in 2007.

This blog post is dated last month. It was written by a woman who teaches in the gifted ed program in Toronto, and it mentions acceleration. But it also makes two apparently contradictory statements, which is weird:




I'm not sure what this means. If a child finishes first grade math in November, will they send him to the next classroom? Or just give him more first grade work that's supposedly "in depth?"

Quote 1 is regarding gifted Ed in general. Quote 2 is regarding her school board, and most of those in Canada.

One solution for that first grader is to stop teaching curricular math in November, and move on to special projects and math games instead. Several classes I had as a child did this sort of thing - finish the vocabulary book in the first month of school and spend the rest of the year just discussing literature, for instance.

that's how i interpreted those anecdotes, too. they're not from people i know personally, otherwise i would also know how their situations have played out, but i do know that's basically what happened with DD5 last year in Pre-K.

when i asked at a mid-year meeting why she was still testing at the same level in math they had quoted in September (ie. was she having a problem with specific material?) they essentially said, "well, as you no doubt recall, she tested 3 Grade levels ahead back then, so what's your hurry?" it turned out it was their policy to not teach any new material to kids that are outside of the year's scope. (oh, how naive i was - but this totally shocked me!)

this policy would probably have been ok for DD if they'd been able to cope with finding her enough engaging stuff to mark the time, but they couldn't/wouldn't and DD got very, very depressed.

disheartening to think this problem might be pervasive in Canada...

Wren, do you have a good understanding of *why* there are so few students at this school? It's a public gifted school, right? There are a lot of factors that might go into low enrollment, but I'd want to be sure I understood that mix of factors before I sent my child there. Is it simply location, or is there a frustration among parents who's children have attended in the past, either with teachers or curriculum etc? If gifted children in your neighborhood school are choosing to stay put in the neighborhood school, something must be happening that is a good thing, other than simply the convenience of the location.

Small schools can work really well if the staff is flexible and wants to keep their students challenged, and sometimes the reason for low enrollment has nothing at all to do with the actual school program - so the gifted school might be a GREAT fit for your dd - but again, I'd want to understand what the reason is for the low enrollment before making the assumption that there's a chance for challenging work and differentiation etc.

Best wishes,

polarbear

Ah yes, "gifted school in the ghetto" is the policy where we are too. It's definitely a factor in families not choosing that option.

Thanks for all the good feedback. One, I know parents do not like to leave their zoned school because they are pretty good in this district. The one that opted to create a gifted class is really good.

The one that previous had the only designated class is on the outskirts of the district, had worse scores, in part due to the special ed, but in general parents are pretty favorable and elementary runs k-6 and then for middle, kids end up at this particular school. So many kids in the whole district end up there for middle. So it is not a small school but the gifted program is not big. I cannot find out all the answers until next week since the schools are still closed for summer.

But since the principal who had the original gifted program and thought she might have enough numbers to open a second class, may be negotiable to do the skip. Apparently in my research through a gifted board (ABC Ontario) the principal actually has discretion if the child comes from an international school or private. Some parent negotiated a skip for her child in the TDSB through the principal coming from a private school where she was skipped. And somehow it goes through this international department where curriculum in different countries will be different.