Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Can't make up my mind!

Anybody else have multiple kids in multiple schools?

Would he have any peers at the Catholic school? I think that's so important, and has been a real challenge for my kids, especially my introvert. If I were you, I would send your son where you think his needs will be met and where he'll have the most chance for finding kids like him.

I have three kids, including twins, in three different schools. We tried having the twins in the same school, but it was a terrible fit for one of them. The friend issue is just one factor, and we feel so strongly that the new school will be a better social fit for him that we're willing to drive quite a ways to get him to that school.

So we do a lot of driving. It isn't my favorite thing, but my kids' needs are so different from each other, we don't feel we have much choice.

We had the same indecisions when sending the older to a gifted magnet school (school only starts from 1st so DD had to attend home school) and it turned out to be a really good decision for us. Agreeing with syobirig regarding sending your kids to the school where needs will be met first and foremost.
In researching schools and advocacy for our HG+ DD, I was under the impression that pariochial schools in general do not accelerate aggressively, have they given you a detailed plan on how they will do this as your 3rd child's needs will be very different from a moderately gifted child.
DD will now be attending the same school as DS, but this may change next school year if it is not a good fit. This school will not grade skip despite 99.9% IQ and overall achievment in WIAT. I am realizing as she progresses through her elementary years, school changes may be in her horizon.

In the best interest of the child, since you already found the child frustrated by unchallenging math classes, pick the more academically focused school with the caveat that, you should go and see for yourself if it is more challenging. People's ideas and the ways they communicate about what constitutes a challenge differ, so go to that school and see for yourself. Also, listen really hard to discern if the more academic school understands the different way gifted people are socially and emotionally.

With the more challenging, more academically focused curriculum you can save yourself frustration every school night. Because what happens, as a general rule, is that your gifted child will be on their own, not learning anything new in their school day while the teacher teaches the other children and the thing that will irk you is that the teacher will not appear to care. So, we give them the benefit of the doubt that they think their job is to get everyone in their class to pass that grade level. They are not trying to give a full year's worth of learning (at the gifted child's level) to the gifted kids. School is not currently set up to do that.

What happens sometimes when the gifted child skips grades is that then their maturity level is below their mental capability (asynchronous development) and they might not be mature enough to make 'good career decisions' when they turn 16 years for example and are making decisions about college. (And, that is a loaded question depending on whether or not you think the human brain 'needs' a college education.)

The way they teach math is so slow that it is painful to us. Math in my mind requires immersion, history, walking in prior mathematicians footsteps virtually so that you are trying to see what they saw and follow their discoveries and see if that helps lead us to 'new' discoveries that might be helpful or just really interesting to know.

Given that you have admission for him to a school that seems a great fit, I'd try that first.

FWIW, our PG son is at a Catholic school that has differentiated and accelerated very willingly -- has fabulous principal who is always open to our suggestions. He loves it there. His sibling is in preschool at a nearby school, so we've not yet faced the same/different school question.

Thanks, everyone! The EG school has an actual gifted curriculum (compacted/accelerated/enriched), understands gifted needs and really seems to pride themselves on meeting those needs, but the Catholic school would more likely have him split his day. I'm not sure if he would have peers exactly at his level, but we live in one of those rare school districts where "40% are gifted" and you have to be 99+ to be eligible for the gifted program which is overwhelmed with the # of kids so it has not been too hard for him to find friends (on that note, how common are those 99.9 percentile kids in these districts? The public school didn't seem too impressed with his iq).

Other things to consider are how long your current situation will last and what path you are preparing for. How long will the children be in the same schools? When will the oldest move up to middle school or high school and away from the youngest? Will the start and stop times be different anyway? When it comes time to pick a high school, will the school choice for elementary limit the options? Some districts have "auto admit" to special programs for students that were in a program during elementary or middle school. So if they were in gifted or IB in middle school, they can be in gifted or IB in High School. This may be true for the Catholic High School as well (Catholic middle school=auto admit to Catholic High School). Will joining the EG school now enhance the chance that your child will be in an EG program in high school? Exploring the admissions criteria for high school may help decide what middle school and elementary will be best.

Sometimes siblings just don't belong in the same place or program. During the winter olympics our family discussed at length what it must have been like for the siblings of the athletes. Some, like Carly Gold, are in the same sport and compete with their siblings (Gracie Gold). Others are into completely different things. Age, interest, and ability should ideally inform the decisions for younger siblings as it does for the eldest. Clearly, compromise may be necessary, but it may be helpful to consider what choices you would make if this were the only or eldest child.

OrlFamily - decisions like this can be really tough! I have three children, each with very different personalities, very different *learning* personalities, and very different needs in terms of academics. We've had years where we had all three children in the same school, years with two different schools and years with three different schools. One thing I'll throw out there to complicate the picture - every *family* has a unique personality also and… school districts and choices all vary tremendously from locale to locale, so it's not easy to throw a question like this out to a public forum and make generalizations or glean real info re what would be best for your own family based on the responses you get. I'm not trying to be cynical in that, just realistic!

For our family, hands-down, the best decision for us was to place all three children together in the school we liked best. It wasn't our district's gifted magnet, but it did challenge our kids in both academics and in areas that made them well-rounded as individuals. The teachers cared about the kids and cared about being effective in teaching - and those things made more of a difference for my EG and HG+ kids did than the actual academics. The interesting thing is - we found quite a few other EG kiddos there, in the private school. Most were there for the same reasons we were - difficulty finding true challenge and having academic and social needs met in our public school's gifted program.

Again, that's only what we've found in our very small sample. There were other things though, outside of the academics, that I appreciated about having all three kids at the same school - *time* mostly. I didn't have to spend time making pick-ups in three different places, which meant more family time. I was able to more fully participate as a parent in one school than in three (or even two) separate schools, and my kids valued having me there as an involved parent. There was also a little something among my kids re identifying as being from the same school - not easy to quantify, but they liked all being at the same place and being able to all answer the "what school do you go to" question without people asking "why do you go to different schools". Just a little thing. Not worth making the decision over, but the little things did make life a little bit easier

Good luck with your decision!

polarbear

eta - fwiw, my kids are no longer in the same school, but that's because I have some in secondary, some in elementary