In a discussion about best options for kids like ours, a friend and I ended with neither of us knowing what we would do in the following situation, so I thought I'd throw it out there and see what you all would do:

Here's the scenario: elementary age kids currently at a private school that isn't bad, but isn't really meeting the kids' needs. Possible options for next year:
1) stay where they are and hope that they get a good teacher
2) try to get into the gifted program in the district, which doesn't have a great reputation for the pg kid, but that has 2 grades combined in each of the gifted classes
3) enroll the kids in a new school being started by a teacher who the kids love and who seems to get gt kids

Assume you don't know anything about the details of any of the programs, so you can't really do a curriculum comparison, or a personnel comparison, except for knowing who the teachers are in their current school and who one of the teachers would be at the new school.

How would you decide what to do with your kid?

Well, you know that the current option isn't really working, so you might as well try option 2 and see if that works. If not, it's back to option 1.

Option 3 is too speculative, since there are a significant number of things that can go wrong with a new school.

Personally I would wait a year to see how the new school developed before considering a switch. But then I would also in real life be able to research at the least the curriculum and policies before committing as well. (Is there any reason you attached that restriction to the hypothetical question?) Also given those few details the public school option would be the default certainly between the first two choices. Better to have your needs imperfectly met without paying for it.

I would start by listing out what it is that your family wants for said child (if I'm being hypothetical about it, whether I'd be this disciplined in reality, well, working on that atm myself). Then rate each option/potential option against each factor... of course you're going to have to make some assumptions, so additional research is probably needed.

The other things to consider are what the options are for each choice if they don't wind up working out (ex. private current school, terrible teacher, can you get out of the contract? public school, turns out that your child is out of range for the class and they won't work with you to accommodate him -- can you then reenroll in the private school? etc.)

I would create a balanced scorecard, drafting a list of relevant attributes and assigning weights accordingly. Some factors I'd include:

- Cost
- Probability of being open the next year
- Commute time
- Teacher quality
- Teacher likeability
- age relative to cohort
- flexibility to accelerate
- curriculum
- extra-curricular offering
- class size
- strength of social network (existing and potential)

I'd create 4-point ratings of low to high on each attribute and assign a range of corresponding values to the indexed score to build a total score.

aquinas, you sound like me!

In this specific case however, the problem is that you don't seem to have enough hard data to make an informed choice. So I'd identify information I needed and really think about whether those facts really are unobtainable.

Another way to think about the problem space is with a risk mitigation approach:

What are the risks to staying where you are?
What are the risks to leaving where you are?
What are the risks to taking option 2?
What are the risks to taking option 3?

Then I'd estimate the severity and probability of each of the risks (scale of 1-5 or whatever), multiply to create a risk factor, and add up the relevant risks to each option.

And finally, because I'm only a project manager most of the time, I'd try to interview / tour the relevant options and let my instincts guide me as well.

I agree with Portia that a combined grade class works best for gifted kids when they are on the young end. I would create a spreadsheet like aquinas, and assess risks as mentioned by Ivy. Then I would follow my kids' inclination as you mentioned they love the teacher in the third scenario... I would enroll the kids in the new school being started by a teacher who the kids love and who seems to get gt kids.

Some may say that if the venture is not long-lived, at least there would be no regrets of the woulda-shoulda-coulda variety: at least they had some length of time with the teacher they love who seems to get gt kids. Because gifted kids may benefit from change in placement from time to time to assure a good fit, even if the new school does not remain commercially viable, it may not be a risk per se, but rather one great year which may become a benchmark by which all other educational experiences are measured.

Ha, Ivy, glad I'm in good company.

Aquinas, yeah, that's what I meant. :-)

I agree with this sentiment. Our own experience is that changing schools can be a very good thing. However, it's important to identify whether the new school will be accredited and, if not, whether the students there would be considered homeschoolers. There might be some ramifications or paperwork, especially if the children rejoin the district later.

PM geekout for the win!

*neon excel spreadsheets spiral on screen in psychedelic/hypnotic swirls*

My gut reaction is follow the great teacher, as in the end, the teacher is what really matters.

But - - - a bit of sober second thought, and I was reminded that we actually did this scenario for a daycare/ pre-school. And unfortunately, the great teacher was far too busy dealing with the massive administrative burden of her start-up to really do any teaching. Totally understandable - but the kids had a rather mediocre year, a far cry from the outstanding experience our friends had had with this teacher in her old environment.

We have also had an experience similar to MichelleC's, with a teacher who had been an AMAZING administrator as we entered the school, and a terrific resource in that capacity, and who had GT background and a fantastic reputation...

but then when my DD had her as a teacher, she was totally AWOL because of external factors (a heinous administrator micromanaging her contact with kids, plus she was doing an advanced degree on the side at the time); it was easily one of the worst years EVER.

My friend and I had the same thoughts in our discussion. The reason I put restrictions on the curriculum is that in our area it is like pulling teeth to get curriculum questions answered at any schools, other than the really expensive private school.
My friend and I both have younger kids (5 and almost 7) and were just discussing various scenarios that could happen in the area and came up with the same ideas that if it were completely hypothetical then it is easy to see what we would do and the research we'd tried to do and all, but if it is reality, neither of us know how much we'd follow our plans.
I wanted to see if you all agreed with our lines of thought. We are happy to see that we do.
Thanks for thinking along with us.