Hi,

We may be moving to the Boston area just in time for DS5 to start K. Probably not Boston precisely, but Cambridge, Newton, Quincey, Lexington? Three major concerns in choosing where to live are: schools, minimizing commute to Cambridge area since that's where major job opportunities are focused for us, and cost of house/rent.

Can anyone help with how to think about schools and schools for a gifted kid in schools in this general area? I see MA is not "gifted-friendly" via info at the Davidson link on the left of this page... I understand that some of the area schools deal with enrollment on a lottery basis, which sounds alarming. I'd like to stay in the public system for financial reasons.

Not sure what DS may need, and I know that's a big factor. He may be fine in a regular public school classroom, although he'd be the quiet, wallflower type probably, no matter how unengaged he was. he is very happy in his 24 kid+2 teacher preK/K mixed class currently. I'm now wishing we had some testing as guidance for whether he may need something beyond a regular classroom with his age peers.

Do we go for the best overall school district we can afford, hope for the best with the lottery system (if that's how it works) and see how things go? In the vein of, do the best you can for schooling now, and adjust as necessary?

Thanks for reading the ramble, appreciate any thoughts or direction towards reading material!

Beak

That particular area has lots and lots of gifted kids in it, and the schools sort of expect OG to HG kids. I have friends in Newton who have been quite happy.

I think Aimee Yermish is quite familiar with these areas -- worth a call to her to ask if she is. Long term she is an excellent resource.Check out:

da Vinci Learning Center blog � Aimee Yermish. Thoughts on intelligence, creativity, psychology, education, and whatever else comes to mind ...
davincilearning.wordpress.com/

Other nice thing about this area is that there are a fair number of gifted 'events' throughout the year.

Best Wishes,
Grinity

Brookline and Arlington have gifted programs, although Brookline has changed its name to a "Enrichment and Challenge Support Program".

Of the school districts you mentioned, ignoring issues such as commute and house prices, I would recommend consideration of Lexington. It does not have a gifted program but does have many gifted children and participates (and does well) in many academic competitions, such as math leagues.

Lexington is quite liberal and has for example a diversity curriculum in elementary school http://www.wickedlocal.com/lexington/news/lifestyle/columnists/x125181726#axzz1Mjd0DBcm . You can decide if it is a good fit.

We moved back to MA from NYC last March; I'm from MA. We initially moved west of Boston before moving again in Dec and enrolling our son (5 1/2) in a gifted school on the North Shore.

I had towns such as Arlington, Newton, Winchester, Lexington, Concord, Belmont, Lincoln and others under consideration - all of which have highly esteemed public school systems. However, these towns are expensive; and I soon discovered that my son was eg/pg and the public schools would not be able to accommodate him. If you have a mg/hg, you might be ok in Lexington and the other towns listed. I'm not familiar with Quincy's school system, except I know it's not as highly regarded as any of the public school systems west of Boston.

From what I understand, Brookline's program is a pull-out situation for a couple of hours a day or week. Brookline is an expensive community and this may not be an option as a result.

Cambridge schools operate on a lottery basis. If you live across the street from a school, it does not necessarily mean your child will attend. I've heard mixed things about the Cambridge schools. You might want to post a question on http://www.city-data.com/forum/massachusetts/ to get more details about Cambridge.

MA has some excellent school districts, but much of the challenging course work is aimed at the high school age. There's not much for kindergarten and elementary grade in terms of giftedness in the public school system. It can vary widely from school district and within a school from year to year with teachers. In fact, you may potentially face open resentment and hostility with the term giftedness, especially with kindergarten if you mention it; that's what happened with me.

There is a new, private gifted school (Anova) which opened in Melrose and you might want to consider. Melrose is also supposed to be offering a full gifted program this year or next, partly to counter Anova and exodus to the Mystic Valley Charter Schools (which is supposed to be good).

I spoke to a parent in Watertown last summer who was able to grade skip their kindergarten student, but I am not sure if this was a system-wide process or an individual one based on the k's test scores, which the parents got privately.

I would say that you might want to play the school situation by ear and see what happens. A lot is going to depend on the child, the school setting, and how quickly he learns. If he's fine with 24 kids in a mix pre-k/k situation now, you might be ok next year with the public schools in MA.

Thanks for the links, suggested towns and other google-able information. Some of this reinforces other information we've gathered so far on towns, which is great.

I am wishing we had more than just our sense of his intellect and ability to go by. Maybe he's optimally gifted, meaning he'll probably be ok in a regular classroom? Particularly a classroom with some other OG/HG kids?

Is it really possible that we could have him evaluated by a professional familiar with gifted kids, and we might be told he can't be served well in a regular classroom with his age peers? Or are we borrowing trouble to worry too much about this, given that he's doing pretty well in current school situation?
How many questions can I get into this post!

I think its borrowing trouble to walk into a new situation smothering what the gut is worrying about. Not sure if the metaphore is breaking there but yes you can get help that will be useful...particularly from Aimee and maybe she will say that you won't get his needs met in the regular classroom. But she herself may advise you wait and see instead of testing now so call and ask. No matter what there will be some fiddling required but wouldn't it be nice to start off in the right ballpark. That is why you are even framing your home seach in these terms.
Peace
Grinity

You know Grinity, you are quite right. It's the ballpark I'm looking for, and it is worth putting effort into finding the right one!

I see Aimee Yermish is in Stow, MA...thank you for pointing me towards her site.

It's a few years down the road, but if you plan to stay in the Boston area for high school, I would look at Commonwealth School, and I think that I read somewhere that Boston University started a high school program that sounded very interesting. (I could be wrong. It's been a long time since I lived in Boston.)

Good luck.

I'd say take a wait and see approach. Perhaps get the testing done. But don't drive yourself silly with it.

Any decision you make with education at this age is reversible. Your son is young and it's not like any school situation at this age will cause him irreparable harm.

There's a lot of variation with kindergarten students today. The situation in MA is no different. Some kids enter K already reading; others barely know the alphabet. It really depends on far ahead your child is with the reading, writing, and math to other kids in the school or class OR how quickly your child will acquire these skills. With either scenario, you may not know what happens with your son until he is placed in a more academic setting and confronted with the material/curriculum. Even then, there are other aspects of education besides the academics that you might want to consider.

I just caution using the term and concept giftedness in MA because in my experience I encountered some public school teachers and schools who were completely hostile to it. You may find some public school teachers who are not so opposed to it. I hope you do for your sake.

My advice would be:

1) spend some time in his classroom right now and see what's going on.

2) Test.

3) If you were considering buying, maybe consider renting, or maybe buy on the low end so if you have to go private, you can do it without breaking the bank. I wish we had rented for a while following our move. The first years of school k-3 may give you a really good sense of what's going to work for him, although your child's needs may change over time. Once you've recovered from the move/testing/acclimating whirlwind, you will (hopefully) have made contact with other gifted parents which will help you make a well-informed decision. I can't tell you how many stories I know of people buying a house in a "really good school system" and realizing after a year that it wasn't going to work for their child. In this market, it is an expensive, time consuming process to correct course if you have to sell your house.

We are leaning towards renting for a year or two, to get the lay of the land, and see how our first choice for school district turns out. It's a great suggestion. The only downside is moving to a new house 2x in a couple years though! But it could be worth it. Lots of decisions to be made...

Yes, I know some gifted students who attend Boston University Academy. Roxbury Latin for boys and the Winsor school for girls are also middle/high schools worth considering. Boston Latin is a well-regarded public exam school.

Yup, DH was already living in a 'really good school system' sort of town, but I wanted a 'more cultural amenities' sort of neighborhood.

I got swayed by the 'school' idea - wouldn't it be nice to send my kid to a school where he felt normal more than I did?


And public schools mattered because both DH and I felt a strong emotional allegiance to the idea of public schools,



and certainly we weren't 'the kind of people who sent their kid to boarding school.'
It's hard to know exactly, but part of the reason we limited our parenting to our 'one and only' is because we were 'house-poor' in the 'fabulous' school district for so long. (Of course DS gets some of the blame - needy, fussy, 2E, PG, anxious toddlers are a great form of birth control. See 'quote' below)


So if misery loves company, we followed all the familiar advice such as 'pick a 'good' school district' and 'buy as much house as you can' and well - I think familiar advice works great for people in general, but my life has been all about how general =all, including me.

I love the renting idea!
See our Flylady thread on how to declutter so that moving in a few years can be an opportunity instead of a disaster.

Love and More Love,
Grinity

Following up on Grinity's comment to this. We actually decided not to buy in the "really good school system", precisely because we thought we would feel obligated to use the schools there if we did, and we weren't at all convinced that they would be a good match for DS. Going through this decision made us realize that, although we do feel some allegiance to the public schools, it doesn't extend so far as to require us to choose them over some other option that is clearly better for DS.

That said, every choice will have its downsides; so for those so-inclined, second-guessing forever remains an option.

Hey! I resemble that remark!

To the above OPs (Grinity), thanks for reminding me why we moved from NYC, to west of Boston and then to the North Shore. We were renting west of Boston and had few options in terms of buying with a 2e, pg, only child; so I can totally relate to you Grinity.

In the end, we decided to move to the North Shore so we can buy a cheaper house and send our son to a creative, private school in a lacking public school system. The creative, private school is a bit unique in MA and fits our son's needs to a t. The creative, private school has a different curriculum and approach to anything found in the public schools so for us it works but it's not cheap and there are tradeoffs. My husband, at the moment, has a terrible commute while he's looking for a job closer to home.

Yes, I would strongly urge you to consider renting around west of Boston before you buy something. Some communities like Concord and Lincoln are more rural than say Newton. Some communities are going to fit your needs better than others.

I know many people try to buy into the best community in the Metro west area of Boston so their kids can go to the best schools. For some people, it works. But it doesn't for everyone.

West of Boston is an expensive and very desirable place to live because it's convenient to Boston and Cambridge where many jobs are located. As a result, many of the school districts are quite competitive with uber professionals at Harvard, MIT, high-tech, and bio-tech industries. There's a perception within the state that some of these communities are the cream of the crop places to live and suitable for gifted kids regardless. I would disagree however. Take a look. See what happens. Keep your eyes and mind open to alternatives.

Me too, Grinity. Me too...

This is very interesting. I do like to revisit my decisions... second guessing ahoy! I've been trying to limit that, thanks to cognitive therapy, etc!

cdfox-Can you expand on this below? I was starting to like the idea that the towns filled with MIT/Harvard/high-tech/bio-tech folks would have schools that might work better for a gifted kid (optimally gifted?), at least in part because of the skew in population.



We would like the cultural opportunities of being closer to the city, and ideally would like a train line near the house for commuting.

Watching this thread as Boston is a possibility for us as well. I suspect we are dealing with more optimally gifted rather than PG so a strong public school would be adequate--Newton I think would be my first choice but I don't think we could afford it. Good luck in your search. The Sage School is supposed to be great FWIW.

Several suburbs of Boston have public school that look good on paper, based on the fraction of students going to 4-year colleges, average SAT and AP test scores, etc. Besides the favorable demographics (a largely White/Asian, affluent, college-educated population), some of the success may be due to programs parents are paying for outside the public schools. A large fraction of parents we know are sending their children to places like the Russian School of Math http://www.russianschool.com/ (started in Newton, and now expanded to other towns) or the Math Club http://www.themathclub.com/ in Lexington. Many Chinese parents send their children to Chinese school one or more days a week, and these schools are not entirely focused on Chinese culture. It may be better for some families to live in less expensive towns within driving distance of these towns, so that they have money for extras such as these.

Lexington is one town in particular that is filled with MIT/Harvard/high-tech/bio-tech folks. It's true that the kids there tend to be bright because of the skewed population. It's also true that there's a competitiveness in this town that you may not find elsewhere; I know Concord and Bedford, for instance are less competitive than Lexington. The other issue is that Lexington is quite expensive, though not as much as Weston which is the most expensive in the state and has the top school system in the state as well.

I will say that I love Lexington and especially the playground with a full bathroom by the high school. We were looking to buy there last year as well as other towns west of Boston. I kept drawing that circle over and over again. When I discovered that Lexington and Concord do not address giftedness, I began to question. One of the issues for us is that my son has a late birthday so he would not have been in kindergarten until this September despite the fact last October he was already reading and writing at the 2nd grade level and bouncing off the walls in an integrated, pre-k program.

Lexington is considered to have a better school system than Arlington. I think Boston Magazine ranked it 4th in the state this year.
See http://www.bostonmagazine.com/articles/best_schools_2010_the_rankings/
But Arlington's Brackett elementary school is higher rated than Lexington's elementary schools - based on the MCAS tests.

I spoke with a teacher at a Lexington school fair last spring. This teacher lived in Arlington and said that the kids in Lexington have access to more resources (i.e. extra help, music, arts), than many kids in the Arlington schools. Take this with a grain of salt though.

That said, I know some parents with gifted kids moved out of Lexington because the schools did not want to differentiate the curriculum for them. These parents banded with others in Winchester (another top school system) who were frustrated over the issues of giftedness to create the Anova school in Melrose.

West of Boston has some excellent school systems, but there are other areas of the state as well with equally excellent school systems (Hamilton-Wenham, Topsfield, and Hingham come to mind).

Visit the playgrounds and area and talk to other parents. You'll hear what I'm talking about. There's a perception within the state that you've got to get your kid into a school system like Lexington or Newton or else you've doomed your child to failure. I disagree with this perception, especially if you have a gifted kid.

Some of the school systems west of Boston are a bit obsessed with MCAS and testing. It looks good on paper to see the high test scores and it helps boost property values, but there is a flip side to the testing and hamster treadmill approach to education.

I'm just saying that there other factors to consider when looking at the various towns and school systems.

Sage School is located in Foxboro. It's expensive.

Hi cdfox - I see what you mean about various factors to balance. Thanks for giving some more thoughts and examples.

Everyone's thoughts and links are very helpful.

I do a lot of special ed consulting and as such see many school districts and am familiar with the culture and resources. cdfox has hit it spot on. Lexington is very competitive and has an excellent program for bright kids (without learning disabilities!), but you need to be cookie cutter. Concord is also high - performing, but the culture is a bit more inclusive and less high powered. Acton Boxboro is also high performing and has a similar, competitive culture to Lexington, but in a more rural setting. I'm less impressed in with Arlington. I am very familiar without the North Shore Schools, and agree that Hamilton/Whenham and Topsfield/Boxford/Middleton are the best on the North Shore, they are much more relaxed than those in the metro west area - and in general test scores are slightly lower. If you are looking north or north east of Boston, I'd also look at Andover (not North Andover).

I don't have any personal information to help you, but I did want to mention that in Hernandez' A is for Admission book (college stuff) Acton-Boxboro Regional (public high) is on the list of schools with the highest acceptance rate to Dartmouth (which is a stand in for "Ivy League" ). It's up there on the top ten list with Phillips Exeter, Phillips Academy, Deerfield Academy, etc. Just an FYI while you are considering your options.

I note that Mich has also mentioned this school district (and its competitive culture), and with first hand experience, may be able to give you more information if you want it. I don't know about this, but I imagine that Acton is just far enough west to be a little more affordable than Lexington...

Ok so Boston is now officially on the radar for us, I appreciate those who have shared personal info. Mich, do you have any info. on where we might find a district that would work for my 7 yr old son with Down syndrome (high functioning for lack of a better term), as well as dd10 (MG+?) and dd4 (some sort of gifted--I think >MG). (Oh--and financially I am thinking that towns like Lexington would be prob. too big of a stretch financially--will check out Acton. Thanks for any feedback!

(Been reading this board on and off for a while, but now I actually have something to say that's constructive! Yay!)

We bought a house in Arlington because of the same amenities that the OP wants - proximity to Cambridge's jobs, excellent subway/bus access, vibrant culture, high civic engagement, lots of people in high tech and academia. But that was before we had a child. Turns out that Arlington's school system, while good, is not as good as some of the more expensive Boston suburbs... and it's especially thin for highly gifted children. I know several such kids who are homeschooled, and several others who go to private schools.

But we stayed in Arlington, because we just weren't sure about pulling up stakes and moving to a much more expensive house, just for the option of public schools we may not ever use anyway! We saved our money, swallowed hard, and looked at private schools instead. (DS is in K this year.)

We tried one school, but it wasn't a good fit - they differentiated, but not enough, and he was bored and stressed. In January, we transferred him to The Birches (http://birchesschool.org), a new "one-room schoolhouse" in Lincoln. Much better! It's a multi-age classroom, not exclusively for gifted kids, with a ton of science and nature work. He works at his own level in math, Spanish, writing, etc., but he can still be a kindergartner socially. And the teachers are fantastic. They really "get it" about gifted education.

Stepping back a bit... one of the interesting things about the Boston area is that when parents get frustrated enough to start their own school, they do. :-) Several schools around here are very new: Birches, Tremont, and Acera (formerly Anova), just to name three. Plus homeschooling groups, and math programs, and "maker spaces" like Einstein's Workshop. There's a *lot* of entrepreneurial energy around here. Definitely don't limit yourself to the public schools, with a gifted kid! Such kids, especially those with unusual combinations of abilities and asynchronies, are not served well in Massachusetts schools. GT education is severely underfunded here (though MA schools are good overall, compared to national averages), and MCAS/NCLB plus budget cuts assure that gifted kids won't be prioritized anytime soon in most towns. Other entities pick up the slack, but at a cost. Be prepared for that.

(BTW, Aimee Yermish rocks. You should absolutely contact her if you haven't already.)