Umm.
We live in the South Bay. Your public school choices here are pretty bleak. California public schools are pretty bad. I called around the local school districts a few years ago and asked about gifted programs and grade skips, and didn't get a single positive answer. But one principal did imply that I wasn't letting my kid be a kid after he told me he'd never done a grade skip in 20 years and never would.
There's a public magnet school in Redwood City called North Star Academy. It's aimed at "high achieving students" and supposedly compacts the curriculum. My impression is that it might be good for kids in above average range but not for HG+ kids (but possibly better than other local schools). HOWEVER, you should check into it because I'm only looking in from the outside and have only known one parent with a child there.
You're right about the half day on Wednesday. It's so common, it's practically a standard practice. Plus they have other "minimum days" when the kids go home at noon-ish. They have a fair few of those. And don't forget "furlough" days when the schools are closed because they can't afford to open them. You're also right about the lack of art and music.
One good thing about the this area is that there are a lot of private schools and they're relatively cheap. My kids attend a wonderful small-ish private school that costs about $12K per year. They have music, art, language classes, and lots of other stuff like field trips. This is because they don't have half days and because the school day is ~45 minutes longer than the public school day (public schools are out around 2:30 here; privates end at 3 at the earliest up to 3:30). When you add up all that time, private school kids here get a whole extra day PER WEEK compared to public schools. PM me if you want more information.
ETA: the school my kids attend is also very much into ability grouping (usually three groups per class in mathematics).
Last edited by Val; 06/09/13 05:07 PM.
