This thread has been really interesting to me because it pretty much has summed up our experience with the school system- all 7 months of it. And the realization that I finally came to was that no matter what they did, it was never going to be "enough". After 4 months of fighting bureaucracy and being passed from person to person with the answer always being "wait and see, wait and see, after this or that random date maybe we'll be able to do something". And this with a child sitting in a classroom slowly withering away on the inside. It occurred to me that if they didn't understand now, no amount of me pushing was going to make them really *see*. What I was going to be able to accomplish was to get them to give me just enough to shut me up. Until that stopped working and then we were back at square one, except now I would have the "but we've already accommodated him" line. With all that effort and energy, I could just homeschool him.
I went to a public GT middle and high school in FL, I *know* it can be done successfully on a large scale (this was in a huge city, it drew students from all over the county). The thing is, there were too many *messed up* kids that this school was just too late for. It scares me to think of that being my kids- or anyone else's for that matter.
So, IMO, it's not just that the school owes GT kids a "fair" education, it's that they owe these kids not to screw them up beyond belief. I think from the schools perspectives, doing nothing isn't hurting anyone- but my experience says that is a very, very false notion. It's just that by the time the harm becomes evident the kids are long since gone from elementary school so they are never forced to deal with what not doing anything really does.
And that's my little ray of sunshine to add to the conversation, lol.
