Welcome!
Our DS7 is PG according to tests, and we have some experience with some different school options. But as a preface, I would never say to anyone that a particular school option will likely work for their kid, and the kid will be able to stay there for all of elementary; there are too many variables, and the kid's personality will be a big factor. (FYI, we are in a smallish city 45 miles outside a major metro area.) Here is what we did. We got IQ testing on our son at age 4, because we thought he should probably start school early and in our state the schools generally require proof of IQ >130 to start early. We were shocked with much higher scores, and the psychologist gave us advice to wait another year to enter school and let our kid play awhile, since we would likely have lots of school changes in our future. We approached the local GT coodinator the spring before DS would start kindy with IQ report in hand, even though the district GT services didn't start until 3rd. We asked her what we should do. She acted as a liaison with the prinicpal, who helped hand select a kindy teacher who was good at differentiation and who would like having a kid like ours in her class. The school psychologist did some achievement testing, and we also filled out some other sort of social testing. It took half a year before DS was given appropriate math (which ended up being really great - the GT coordinator bascially tutored him on 2nd grade math). The kindy teacher was good at differentiating in reading, so we didn't worry about that. At the end of the year, we used that Iowa Acceleration Scales to convince the school that DS needed to skip 1st. They ultimately agreed (since it would be easier than the planned differentiation of 2 years for math/reading if he had stayed in 1st). We had troubles when DS started 2nd in getting him the right math (he was supposed to have 3rd, but they just kept him in 2nd, which he had already done). When we finally got math right with the local 2nd, we heard of an opening in a school for HG kids 45 miles from our house. The school is a year advanced, so with the grade skip DS was 2 years ahead baseline. We transfered DS mainly because we wanted him to be with kids closer to his level. The biggest change was that my stress level went down immediately, since DS was finally getting appropriate challenge across the board and we didn't have to closely monitor/remind the teacher that DS needs more in something or another.
DS is now in 3rd at the HG school (just started). I am hopeful that this will be a good fit for a while, but I am prepared to be flexible. This school seems particularly good at letting kids work at their own levels, and grouping kids by ability. Although it is easier on us to have him at this school, the local school was very willing to work with us and was pretty flexible, so I think we could have made it work if we didn't have this other option.
A quick comment about private schools. They do not have to do anything if they don't want to, so I wouldn't recommend moving near a private school unless you had a bunch of assurances in writing. Also, I'd try to track down families with kids like yours in the area who went to various schools and ask them how things went.
Gotta go. Sorry for the rambling. In sum, I'd say that if you remain flexible, things will be fine, even if you are not in the ideal school (if there is one). Work with the schools like your are partners, and try not to be too demanding.
Last edited by st pauli girl; 09/08/11 11:53 AM.
