Thank you, Grinity! That is great advice. I've been mentioning homeschooling a lot to my husband. He definitely is not for 100% homeschooling - he wants the kids to have the "school experience", which I totally understand and agree with (so long as that school experience isn't totally disheartening for them!) But a partial-homeschool situation might be something that could work, if needed. If we had a school that was willing to work with us, we could send them to school for part of the day and then homeschool them the other part of the day. So, yes, I am keeping homeschooling in my mind as an option if we need it someday.
My husband and I both feel a bit selfish for not wanting to move to a more populated area. We aren't making any decisions - we still have plenty of time for that. But we really enjoy the more rural lifestyle. Plus this area is closer to some extended family, and that has weight too.
I did recently find a nice public school that could be a contender. It is just over the state border. I have no idea if they would let our kids attend if we paid a tuition fee (some public schools allow this, others don't). It's actually only about 15 minutes from our house. I found that they have a gifted coordinator, so I wrote to her and asked a few questions. She wrote back the same day - and this was a Saturday!
I hope it's OK... I'd like to copy her response here to get your opinions. I think it sounds pretty great - very flexible. I'm taking out identifiers (like the school name, her name, etc.) just because this was a private correspondence and I don't want to get anyone in trouble.
SCHOOLNAME uses a variety of ways to accommodate students who are talented in academic, specific academic (Math, Reading), artistic, creative, and leadership areas.
Each teacher uses differentiation in at every grade level. We also accelerate students whole grade levels from early entrance into kindergarten to accelerating whole grades in every other grade level depending on the results of a series of formal assessments, including IQ testing. In addition we also subject accelerate depending on the needs of the student such as in Math or Reading. Beginning in Grade 3, we offer enrichment opportunities as well including Math 24 pullout groups, First in Math online programs, online math and reading programs, etc... Another great feature about our school is that our talented Math middle school students have the opportunity to go to the high school and take Math towards an elective credit. For example, one of my 6th Graders who is very gifted in Math is taking H.S. Algebra this year and loves it. He will have 3 high school credits coming into his first year of high school.
As you can see, being a small school district, we offer a lot of opportunities to accommodate the needs of our talented students. We do a great deal of formal assessments to determine if children need services beyond the regular classroom.
I honestly thought these guys sounded more flexible than the private gifted school we visited. Plus with the money we'd save sending them to a public school (even if there was a tuition fee, it would surely be less than the private gifted school), we could afford to do a lot summer enrichment experiences later - like science camps, trips, and the like. What do you think?
Thanks again - you all have been so helpful to us in thinking this through!
