"There is no such thing as a gifted kindergartener"
Seems like a good idea to avoid the school where they let teachers work while intoxicated.
Parents can also "buy" high group test scores and probably more easily than high IQ scores in that the tests aren't as tightly controlled and there are ways to get ahold of them and prep. While I, too, like the spiel you mention on the website about gifted not being about high achievement, I would be very leery of a district that thought the best and only way to identify giftedness, especially in 2e and underachieving kids, was to use the CogAT. I've seen way too many high achieving but not gifted kids get high scores on that test to believe that a program populated with kids identified that way would meet the needs of a HG+ kid.
My dds (ages 12.5 and 14.5) will be going into 8th and 11th grade in the fall and the best we've done with public school in terms of meeting needs has been:
1) grade skip for the less 2e one
2) choicing to schools and a district with a higher percentage of high achieving and above average kids
In regard to #2, the benefit was that there were enough privileged kids and pushy parents that programs existed more readily for subject acceleration, pull out replacement "GT" math and reading classes that met daily in late elementary school, etc. These programs and classes weren't filled with gifted kids anymore than the GT options were at our less affluent assigned schools, but they met more frequently and had higher expectations none the less because the parents were more educated and had more money to throw at getting their kids up to the level to perform in classes with higher expectations.
It hasn't been perfect and we've definitively had some issues with getting our more 2e kiddo's needs met (they recognize the gifted aspect b/c she is performing at the level of the other kids in the subject accelerated and honors classes, but they don't see the LDs as much since she isn't below grade level or failing and that's apparently the only time they notice LDs).
