DD is techinically a GT student but I have yet to figure out how this actually makes a difference. The district has "gifted clusters" which means they group kids together who have certain ability/achievement test scores and put them in the same class. Theoretically the teacher should be pulling the cluster aside and working with them as a group but I never saw this happen. Just recently, in the last couple of weeks, the class is now divided into reading groups and the teacher meets with the 4 cluster kids (plus a couple others in that group)...but now that we have about a month left of school it's too late to make a difference. For math, about 8 kids in the class get an "enrichment packet" that they are supposed to do on their own but no new concepts are taught. If there are new concepts in the packet they are expected to figure it out on their own.
Meanwhile my DS is too young to be identified as G/T but his teacher in a different school is bending over backwards trying to give him work at the right level. She even gives him individualized spelling words. I didn't ask for any of this, all that I told her is that he needs to make academic progress and she went with it.
So I think it boils down to the overall attitude in the school about gifted kids and whether they think it's important to give differentiated work, as well as individual teachers. Our district rattles on about how important it is for kids to learn at their level, they go on about how they have a gifted program, but other than the magnet which very few kids qualify for, it is all talk. They can put it on their glossy brochures to advertise and attract people to the district. It was a group of parents who advocated for the magnet to the school board about 5 years ago but it only benefits a few kids in certain grades.
