In some of the discussions lately, there have been a number of comments that it is difficult (if not impossible) to meet the needs of a HG+ child in a regular classroom in a public school. Are there any success stories out there -- particularly in low elementary grades? My DS6 will be in 2nd grade next year.
DD6 entered a virtual school as a 3rd grader mid-way through the year (in March-June completed the 3rd grade year), and completed 4th-5th the
following year.
After that, she was placed in 6th grade (as an 8yo) within the just-starting GT program.
Honestly, I give this arrangement ~70% in terms of grading. Yes, it has
worked. It's also required continuous management/interference from us to MAKE it work tolerably well... and the mismatch between DD's readiness levels in literacy, science, and social studies as compared with math... and most troublesome,
written expression... have meant tethering her to her WEAKEST skill set for the past 8 years.
Now, her writing is now college-ready and then some, so it has worked to prevent those asynchronous gaps from widening further, and I do believe that they would have if we'd continued to homeschool. However, this has also come at the cost of crippling perfectionism that developed (IMO) in large part as a response to a completely inappropriate educational setting otherwise.
DD appears to be functionally PG-- I know HG and EG students in the school who seem to have tolerated it
far better than she has. Though again, this is with both parents running interference and tweaking elements of the program as you go... and it amounts to the time commitment of homeschooling, but with more stress since it's not on your own timeline.
On the plus side, my DD14 can still get a week's worth of AP coursework done in about 10 hours, as opposed to the 30 she would otherwise be spending just at school as a 12th grader... which frees her up for more engaging pursuits. Provided that her task-avoidance doesn't kick in and make that 10 hours something more like 75. {sigh}
Credentialling is excellent with this model, though. So there's that.
