I think very few of the teachers in our school district care about students reaching their potential. One of the few who did care has gifted sons who are now adults. She told me she thought my son was highly gifted and it was my duty as a parent to homeschool my child because he would not get an appropriate education at that school. Our town still doesn't have a library and just voted against building one. The school library is not very big. I don't know what would happen to a gifted low income child in our town. Teachers would not let them read anything above their grade level at school. They would still make them do busy work for homework to use up a lot of their free time and this would make it harder for them to learn anything beyond grade level.
Last year I talked to a retired teacher at my church about it. She said it was too bad that kids like my son would fall through the cracks at our school. The attitude here is that this is just the way it is, that we have a small town school and they shouldn't have to change for anybody and if we don't like it, we can leave. I learned if you complain about the school in a small town, people don't like it, especially retired school teachers. They don't like people moving in from the city, trying to change things. They like things the way they are. They like the fact that they are really good in football. They once produced a Heisman Trophy winner. That is certainly more important than academics as far as they are concerned. They seem to think that all boys are supposed to play football or at least basketball and that there is something wrong with you if you like to read, don't do sports, and instead like musical theatre.
