Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Regions Silicon Valley

Our DD will be 5yr in 2 month, For a private school entrance, she did WPPSI-III test, and got 136. Her verbal is weaker than other area, cause she is bilinguish. Is she gifted?

I heard there are a lot of smart people in the valley, will there be more gifted kids than other places? How do other parents survive this crazy place?

I don't live in the valley, but know that places that attract smart adults very often have schools full of 'above average' kids and more than their share of gifted kids.

135 is definitly gifted by almost anyone's definition, except perhaps mine...

I define gifted as having an IQ which is so different from the local average, that a child is unlikely to get their educational needs met in a regular classroom.

So, I think you will have to 'wait and see' if the schools 'public or private' actually fit your daughter. The best, best, best way is to set quietly in the various possible classrooms and see if you can picture your daughter getting her learning needs met in that particular classroom. Look around the room at what the other kids have produced. Check out the text books. Check out the 'pleasure reading shelf.' What unspoken messages are being given in that particular room?

Good luck!

Hi scvccmom,

I also have wondered the same thing about there being a lot of gifted children here. My DS5 entered kindergarten in the public school system this year. So far, I am not impressed w/ our class and he is not challenged. I don't want to stress too much just yet since it is only kindergarten and there is a lot of socialization to be learned as well. But, I am concerned with how first grade will be. I'm afraid that in this area the schools probably hear all the time from parents claiming their children are gifted so I'm a bit hesitant to jump on that bandwagon. I am hoping the principal will be open to meeting with us regarding the best placement for him next year.

I'm thankful for this online community where we can share information without being judged. As I'm sure you know, Silicon Valley can be very competitive.

Hi gomomgo and scvccmom!

I'm also in Silicon Valley and sad about the public schools. I've toured Nueva and Helios recently but I am hoping to stay public, if possible. I'm sad that our school does not have the resources to help gifted kids.

Our DS4 is in a Reggio Emilia (play-based) preschool and very happy. Now that we've been in a public school for almost two years, I realize how lucky we were in preschool.

Great to know other parents from same place.

DD5 is accepted by Harker, but because of the long commute, we decide to let her go to a public school near home at this young age. Also, I really want to spend some time with her before preteen age (Harker is full time and I have to work full time to pay for it.)

With IQ test score, EPGY accepted her. So we can start to learn Math (K-2 level). But, do you have any suggestions for literal art and science study?

We did EPGY for DS7 this year and it has not been the perfect solution for us. Ideally, he would do it in school instead of after school and in addition to all the homework. We are doing after-school Mad Science, which is fine. DS7 really likes it. Our school offers Art-in-Action, which I teach. It introduces a little art. They also have a camp.

http://artinaction.org/

I rather not work full-time either. We are finishing up a somewhat disappointing kinder year in public school. I'm hoping next year we have a better teacher who can keep DS5 challenged and interested. We rather stay in the public school system and go to our neighborhood school since DS5 is already making so many friends.

BTW...what is EPGY? Sorry for my ignorance.

I'm in Silicon Valley too. My kids go to Chrysallis Elementary (San Jose), which is extremely small but reasonably open-minded. My DS9 does 6th grade math there, for example.

My eldest will go to the School of Choice (Sunnyvale/Santa Clara border) this fall (middle/high school combined). As he hasn't started there yet, I can't give much detail, but their stated philosophy is to provide an individualized education for each student. S of C is a lot bigger than Chrysallis but still small. It aims at gifted kids. The web site has a lot of information.

Chyrsallis is excellent value at around 8K per year and School of Choice isn't much more at 12K per year. These are both well below the fees at Neuva and Harker. Harker does have incredible facilities, though, I'll say that.

Chyrsallis might still have a couple open K or 1 slots for next year (I'm hoping they'll let DD4 skip K and go to grade 1).

Val

Hmm. Well, all I can say is that the schools here don't strike me as having much of an awareness of the needs of the gifted or even of the well-above-average. Also, CA has no mandate for gifted IEPs and on top of that, the number of school hours are shorter in California (every Wednesday is a half day).


I've done some surveying of the local schools and I haven't found anything particularly different from what people in other parts of the US have reported. Namely, there's a big emphasis on NCLB-tested subjects and very little emphasis on science, geography, music, etc. Our elementary-level science books are dated 1999. Ouch.

In this state, a major advantage of private schools is kids get a full day every Wednesday and a slightly longer school day on other days. The upshot is an extra 6 hours or so per week, which leaves plenty of time for science, etc.

Val

Sorry for not spelling that out! EPGY is Stanford's Education Program for Gifted Youth. I looked at it online last summer and decided to go with the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth (CTY) program instead. To do so, we had to take a math achievement test, which was expensive, and then we opted to pay for a full year. I was very surprised to find the web site redirected us to EPGY on our first day.

CTY is more expensive and has a larger range of advanced classes, although EPGY just added more. I was disappointed that we had to take a test to get in and then no one directed me to where DS7 should start. He had >99.9% math scores so we assumed he shouldn't start in his upcoming grade. We ended up starting him in second grade math. The things he already knew were really boring and it took him a while to get used to using the mouse.

At the end of the course, he had to take a written exam. He was very frustrated to have to write after learning to use the computer. He did fine and completed 3rd grade math in March. As I mentioned before, it's a huge struggle to make him do math at night after a full day of school and homework. We are planning to start 4th grade math this summer.

A friend had her daughter do EPGY English and she did not have good things to say about it.