Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Where are all the "gifted magnets" located?

I think you find magnet schools in many of the larger school districts in the country. LA Unified, NYC has magnets are two examples. There are magnet schools in S.F. but I don't know of any that are specifically for "gifted" students. There certainly are many private schools in the Bay Area and S.F. area that call themselves schools for gifted students. Magnet schools need to have a large population to attract students from so they tend to be more available in large cities.

Lowell (public) High School in San Francisco is "magnet", for high achievers, with restricted admission (by the previous grade point average?). High/stressful work load. The instruction quality is comparable to the other public schools in SF.

Well...I don't know about the "many" part, but there are a few here. Nueva uses IQ tests, but as far as I know, it's the only one. Harker recruits gifted kids, but I'm pretty sure their policies are achievement-based (not dissing Harker; my understanding is that they don't use IQ tests). I've heard good things about Harker's high school from a DYS parent. There's also a school in Santa Cruz, but they did an interview in a local magazine two or three years ago and the teachers they interviewed were saying that everyone evens out by third grade, including those amazing kids who learn to read when they were two (paraphrase: "reading is a milestone like walking; you don't hear about eight-year-old 'gifted walkers'").

Two of my kids go to a small private school in the Valley that's all about individual pacing. I asked them to place my daughter (10) in algebra 1, and they were wonderful about going ahead and doing it. They said they'd try it to see how it worked out, and it's been fine so far.

I think the takeaway is that just because it's a "gifted" magnet/charter/public/private school, doesn't mean that:
a) they understand the difference between intellectually gifted and high achieving
b) it will be right for all or any specific gifted child
c) differentiation is supported (the "all our kids are gifted argument"
d) the quality of instruction is any better than any other school

My advice to people looking for a better educational fit for their HG+ kids is to look outside the box and not to rely on a school's marketing material or label.

My former school district (Virginia Beach) has an elementary magnet school and a middle school exlusively for gifted. All children were eligible for gifted clustering in ES and MS in their 'home schools', but your child could apply to one of these schools if they tested gifted... and these schools were highly selective and the programs very rigorous compared to taking say an accelerated track in your assigned MS. The IB program was also offered in MS and HS and though giftedness was not a requirement, the program was highly selective academically. The school district also had a number of 'schools within schools' at the high school level in different disciplines like math, technology, language, etc.