Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Regions Best gifted elementary schools, best gifted HS?

Wren -

I bolded the areas I felt were especially relevant. (there are other you can pick out) If a school can live up to its word in these areas, they will be providing hg children with an amazing educational experience.

Interesting that they use developmentally precocious and not the "g" word

- EW

FYI.... The Speyer Legacy school is in NY.

Hi Jayne,

I wonder why you are saying what you're saying about Cupertino schools. What information do you have?

I live in Cupertino and my kids go to the public schools. They did not go to Faria, which is certainly not a school for the gifted. It is an alternative elementary school, with a program designed for parents who believe in strict rules and lots of work. See their web site <http://www.cupertino.k12.ca.us/Faria.www>, which describes their philosophy right on the home page. They are known for teaching to the tests and therefore they do well on tests. I wouldn't send a gifted kid there. But I don't speak from personal experience other than going on a school tour years ago.

As to Monta Vista High School, I have two children there. The older one opted out in junior year to do Middle College because Monta Vista was so awful. I cannot imagine sending my now 7th grader to Monta Vista for high school. He is highly gifted and would go nuts there. It's all about rules and homework and grades and actually learning things seems to be far down the agenda.

De Anza Community College is just a community college. The classes are not for the gifted nor is anything special available. My 11th grade son, who is taking classes there instead of Monta Vista, reports very few students who care to think or ask questions, and naturally the classes are taught to the level of the students they have.

If these are the best public schools, we're in bigger trouble than I knew. If you believe that API test results mean anything useful for gifted students, then I think you are fooling yourself. I don't think you'll find that "competitive" means good. So far as I can tell, what it actually means is that the administration is very concerned about grades, and so inordinate effort is expended in attempting to prevent cheating.

Reading through this, I sound pretty unhappy. I guess it's because I expected better. This is not to say there aren't individual teachers who are great -- there certainly are. But it's pretty much in spite of the school.

Regards,
Jon

Hi Jon Z,
We lived there for many years and moved out a couple of years ago.
My oldest went to Monta Vista. She was on the fast track plan. Recently, (maybe last year?) her friends told her it ranked 23rd in the country. I don't really go for high school rankings much, since they don't include concurrent enrollment data or early graduation data. She and her friends have done very well in colleges, and many have full rides, especially to the UC system (favoring Berkeley, Davis, and UCLA) and a few at Stanford.
We had a wonderful experience living in Cupertino. And it is considered the best elementary school district in the state. This has come up on many surveys for a well-rounded education - acceleration, languages, arts, music, musical theater, band, and more. The elementary schools also worked with EPGY to help advanced math students move forward.

Also, the computer labs provided by Apple and the training for the teachers to implement the programs needed for the students is a benefit. They also have many field trips to a variety of educational experiences - besides camping for the week, they go to the tech museum, Stanford museum, and went to Sunnyvale Theater productions. My son was in a group in 5th grade that learned how to use the computers and media to present a daily tv school news morning show that they wrote. He also did Lego robotics. I could go on as why it continuously is ranked for elementary school districts.

When we lived there, De Anza was ranked 5th in the nation. Several of the classes my daughter took there were taught by Stanford and MIT professors. Many of the students there go right to Berkeley and Stanford and do well, but many do have a lackadasial attitude. It is a junior college. Maybe I can find stats on where they go after attending there.

As far as Faria, it is a gifted school. Unless they changed things in the past year and a half, students have to take a test and supply other information to attend. The people I know there did very well, and I was impressed with the many activities/projects that the students were able to work on. Another unique school in the district is Portal, who don't use grades (if I remember correctly).

By the way, I never said that "competitive" is good. I'm not big on worrying about grade levels or grades, which is a competitive viewpoint. I'm always considered more about learning a lot for a given amount of time. My philosophy is that I want my kids to learn and love learning. I want opportunities available to them to expand their interests and the teachers to care. I want funding available for arts. We found all of that and more available there.

Jon,
You were right about Faria not being a GATE school. I really think it used to be only GATE,but maybe I misunderstood at the time. If it's an alternative school, I'm wondering how they focus it now. They must have had some flack or something and changed it. I bet it's run the same though.

Here is a kinda older fact on DeAnza. It's from 2006 and states that it provided the second most transfers to CSU/UC systems. Orange Coast JC and De Anza College ranked for Transfers I haven't found data on specific to Stanford or Berkeley, other than knowing my daughter's friends. I do know that they are "articulated" with many state and private schools for almost all of their classes.

For those who posted about Speyer, I really question some of the things they are doing. I think the talk sounds good, the walk is wobbly and confusing.

I don't think they are on the right track.

As for choosing best school for my daughter, it seems she has her own mind. She wants the "science school". Not totally convinced what that means, but she is clear. There is one gifted school called New Explorations in Science and Technology + math. Yes, they did the + math at the end. They do the Singapore math, compared to the more established gifted school that does the Everyday math. But they have a designated science teacher for the lower grades, who is wonderful.

Ren

Jon, I agree that some schools that call themself gifted are not good fits for some GT kids, especially HG/PG. That's merely my opinion, though. While you have to test GT to get in, what's really going on when the child gets there?

We moved to a district to attend a school like the one you describe and our experience is that it wasn't a perfect fit for our HG(+) kids. What you describe, teaching to the test for high scores and excessive work....I see a lot of that here and I'm not thrilled with it.

Isn't Speyer almost 30K a year?

If anyone knows of gifted public schools I would love to hear about them. Private schooling is not financially feasible...but I really think they should have some public schools that have programs or classrooms for gifted students. I am sure they do, but not in my district and none that I really know about. I am not planing to move yet, but you never know.

Shellymos - Can you kind of clarify what you are looking for? Age, interests of your child (writing, math, art, etc.)? I posted my experience above as an option, but Jon is right in that what fits one, doesn't fit another.

There are different programs all over the country. I am thinking options are most available in high school, but I may be wrong.

Anyway, more details would help.