We've tried so many private schools in the area (one of them even called a "school for the gifted", believing hope beyond hope that these schools have experience and resources to help educated gifted children. No luck. Really. No such thing as advanced classes, etc. We tried private for the last time this year. That's it. We're done. We're moving to public.
Our daughter finally, officially is skipping a grade this year. It took months and months of talking. The school principal was literally shaking when considering the idea. I mean, really shaking, as though it could be something dangerous or cause tremendous harm. Unbelievable. And finally we had to go to the asst. superintendent (public school, virginia). Our daughter will be 9 and going into the 5th grade (while still doing her outside CTY/JHU gifted middle and high school courses). We tried everything. She was doing her learning at home and being at school all day with other kids her age (but given so many time outs for daydreaming or just answering questions). We'll see. Her academic level is so above the 5th grade, but I'm just not ready for her to be in middle school yet. Small steps, I guess, and just see how it goes. We're hoping it works for at least a year, then we will see about what to do next. We just got into the Davidson program, so we are hoping our family counselor can help us come up with schooling options. The current plan is to meet with the middle school principal this fall, just to start to prepare for the "how are we going to make this work next year for this child?"
Sometimes this whole walk with our child seems so uncertain and tenuous. Really! Half the time, we just don't know what to do.
