I agree that it's a disturbing set-up, but I also think it's quite common, even in fairly wealthy areas.
Our area--also middle to upper middle class, with a pretty good chunk of downright wealthy people--doesn't ID until 3rd grade unless a teacher or a parent requests early testing. There are no programs whatsoever until 4th grade, and they are slim: the weekly pull-out for an hour kind of thing. Not ideal!
The GT coordinator--one per school--handles everything for that school: all the paperwork and administrative stuff and copying work, as well as the teaching load. If the teaching time amounts to half-time for 600 kids, I'd be surprised. They do their best, but there's too much to do.
Now, a GT program is not necessarily required for a GT child to have needs met. Acceleration--by subject or grade--might be much better. Grouping with other GT kids in the classroom can be really super. Differentiation, which is not my pick for GT policy, still can be a lifesaver for some kids if it is practiced consistently across the grades.
In short, a band-aid of a weekly pull-out GT program is not nearly as important as actually meeting the needs of a child.
Jen, how flexible is the school? Are there any kids who have been accelerated, by subject and/or grade? Do they group? Do they differentiate? If so, what does that really look like in practice? (For example, giving MORE of the same work isn't really differentiation! It's punishing the GT kids!) Do they try to challenge all kids, or is their attitude that since a child is ahead, she can just sit on her thumbs until everyone else catches up? What's their approach to individualizing education?
The danger of "good" schools in my experience is that they sometimes think that they have it all figured out and so they are inflexible. "We know what we're doing because all our kids are GT" is NOT what you want to hear! The needs of GT kids change so fast that they need a school set-up which will respond accordingly when things change.
I think the moral of the story is that a "good" school may or may not be good for a particular child. Good for the average kid may be really awful for a GT kid. The attitude of the school to individual learning needs and the attitude of the teacher are a lot more important than a GT program, IMHO.
