Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Is homeschooling the only option

You know, Dottie, you're at the top of my list of people for whom public schools are working well, but I wasn't including you in my list of 5 at not-good schools.

Make that 6!

Dottie, you are for sure one of the parents who made it work. I admire you for that. I don't think I would ever master so much patience, persistence, and tact.

As for homeschooling it really depends on what you really want, what schools are available in your area and how accommodating they are. You may end up in an area with a self contained gifted class for HG+ kids or you may end up in a school district where you cannot even use the word gifted.

There are quite a few PG kids who thrive in school, there are also lots of PG who ended up homeschooled at some point. I think the earlier years are the most difficult ones as the difference between PG and ND kid is very pronounced. The idea of a child reading Harry Potter sitting in K and "learning" to read words like cat is downright scary.

In our case after a bad year in K, we tried to imagine the best possible scenario. One in which the public school would do exactly what we thought was best for our son. Unfortunately we couldn't come up with a reasonable enough scenario that would address both his academic and emotional needs. What would be a good academic fit would most likely be a complete disaster socially. At the end homeschooling looked like the easiest way out and it still does.

I guess I should add, in light of the above, that when I said that we live in an excellent school district, I did not mean that our students have high test scores. I guess I'm out of the schooling world enough that I didn't even realize that that is the traditional standard of measuring schools. Instead, I meant that we have a very flexible school district, with a lot of different options, which is probably partially due to the very large number of ESL/ELL students (who are mostly the kids of our University's foreign students and visiting professors), and a lot of community support, which is probably due to the fact that we live in a small, highly-educated city.

I agree with everything that's been mentioned here. So much of these decisions are really on a per-parent/per-child basis. If you don't want to homeschool and you aren't interested in it, you probably shouldn't. If your child really wants a school experience, that's another thing to take into account. I would look at all your local options - traditional and non-traditional. Some of the GT families I know have the best luck at school are at some of those under the radar schools that don't tout the highest test scores. GT magnet schools can be great, or the might just be more busy work at 1 year ahead of grade level without much flexibility.

You're in a wonderful position to find out what you can and be asking around while your daughter is so young! I didn't even know anything about the world of GT until my son was almost done with kindergarten. Turns out we're all HG+, but DH and I were never IDed. So until our own kid started complaining wildly and having stomach aches daily, along with an alarmingly high test score did this all come together for us.

Good luck! I will say homeschooling can be wonderful if you can find a good local network of like homeschooling families.

I'm with Dottie. You have the right idea, no5no5.

The ways that most people judge what a "good" school is are often just kooky. The pressure in our school on the testing is crazy. I'm sure it's that way in many school systems, but I could honestly envision our district cheating if they had a bad year so they could hang on to the perception of being a "good" school. (To my knowledge they haven't cheated, but the pressure is *insane*.)

It's a financial issue. After all, property values drop if the reputation of the school system is damaged. The informal PR reps have worked overtime, and they have been very effective. You should see the shock expressed when I say that we're homeschooling: "But you're in the <blank> district! That's a GOOD district!"

Yeah, yeah, yeah... *sigh* I just wish it had been good for my kids.

A truly good school system is flexible and supportive of all the kids, including the HG+ ones. Those school systems do exist. Thank goodness!