Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Regions Gifted schools in San Francisco?

My husband got a job offer in San Francisco and we're seriously considering moving there.

My DS is 4 and is in half-day kindergarten right now. His achievement testing shows he is at the end of 2nd grade in reading and math. We put him in K, not because of his academic achievement, but because he enjoys older kids much more than kids his age, and we wanted to make sure he has fun in school. However, he is not doing very well right now. Once the novelty wore off, he is very resistant to going to school or doing his homework. He is bored. He doesn't understand why he has to do repeated work on phonics and patterning - things he could do easily when he was two years old. He gets hyper when he is bored and got into a lot of trouble yesterday in school. His teacher is very nice but doesn't know what to do with him. There are no schools for gifted children in this area and they don't offer gifted classes in regular schools until 3rd grade.

Does anyone have advice for me? Do you know of any schools or special programs in the San Fran area that might be appropriate for my child? Thanks!

Junior

There is The Nueva School in Hillsborough.

San Fran is a pretty big area with diverse areas. Do your homework on where you choose to live. There is definitely a lot to do there with kids. But the COL and creeps can be negatives.

My SIL/BIL live there with two kids they adopted. My BIL grew up in Marin. I lived several years in the City proper.

Not sure if this will work for you, but something to consider - If I moved back and worked in the City, I'd get an apartment as close to work/school as possible and just have one small car. San Fran and Chicago rank with NY in terms of being a true walking city and the BART system is pretty good.

My Neice and Nephew (both gifted) attend a public Mandarin immersion program in San Fran (Brother and SIL live in Noe Valley). I think it's called Starr King. It has been a great experience for them and they are learning to speak and write fluently. I think it was the best PS solution for them because they would have been underchallenged with a regular curriculum.

I spent a year out in the San Jose area doing scientific research, and my DH worked at SLAC for a while. I'm sure that there are amazing possibilities out there for gifted education. Unfortunately I am not well versed in them since we were out there in our pre-children phase of life. Can your DH ask around at his new job location about the quality of the schools nearby? My one suggestion is that I have found that there are usually very good school near major universities. In fact, I usually try to find out where the university professors live and where they send their kids. I don't know if you know anyone from Stanford or Berkley, but a good realtor may know such things? I also searched for gifted education in the San Francisco area and found this link. Hope it helps.

http://www.cagifted.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=50

Also, here is a link to Hoagies' Gifted web site, which includes a regional section. There are many places listed under California, although it is a rather big state.

http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/schools.htm#uca

Good luck with your decision. It is a beautiful area. You have the mountains nearby with Yosemite, and gorgeous beaches along HWY 1 (Monteray Bay, Big Sur, Caramel). I hope you enjoy it.

Baywood Learning Center is across the bridge in Oakland, CA (lovely location in the park-like hills).

http://www.baywoodlearningcenter.org/

Just for fun I clicked on that link and pasted this from the first page on their site:



"If you are seeking a large school offering competitive sports, uniforms and emphasis on scoring well on achievement tests, this is not it."


-Love it!