Dd8 had her second shadow day and still loved it. When I asked her which school she prefers she said she likes her current school because of her friends and she likes the private school because she actually learns stuff. She has come home with more knowledge than she has in a long time... i.e. learned about what gases make up the sun, wrote a haiku poem, there are working on some sort of product project where they have to create an item. Dd loves the small size of the school and the class.
Today she went into the 5th grade classroom and did 6th grade math and they worked on stuff she hadn't done before but she did well and handled it ok. The director said she's at about a 6th grade level for math (according to the assessment she gave dd, I think it was the WJ but I'm not sure if you can just give a math portion of it because dd said she only asked her math stuff).
So now we have to make a decision and it's a tough one. If we decide to pull her out of the GT program she can't go back anytime soon, applications are required the year prior for acceptance. So it's not like we will have a back up school to rely on if the small private school doesn't work. Everyone I've heard from says it's a great school and their academics are challenging.
Dd is currently in a program that supposedly is for gifted students whose needs can't be met with differentiation in a regular classroom. Yet they seem to limit students to only one year of acceleration don't allow them to go any further than that. I like how she is with other gifted kids (probably most of them are HG) and she can relate with them socially and emotionally but academically gets nothing from the program. She could be more challenged academically but possibly have no peers that think like she does. I'm really torn as to what is the best answer here.
