Good questions. Thanks. I'm going to observe a classroom tomorrow. It is the GT classroom. In this particular school district, there are 2 90-minute pullouts each day (math and LA) so that's 3 hours a week with gifted kids and a gifted teacher. The rest of the day is in a typical classroom (recess, science, pe, music, art, etc). I talked to the GT coordinator already and she is very much in favor of acceleration. We didn't talk about subject acceleration, but they do two years of curriculum every year, so maybe that wouldn't be necessary. The teachers I'm seeing tomorrow helped write the curriculum the district uses for grades 3-5. The coordinator and one of the teachers shared that they are looking to go to an all day GT program with multi-age classrooms. That's probably a few years out, which wouldn't help us, but it does give me an idea of their philosophies. The coordinator looked at his WISC and WIAT scores and said he would qualify for both programs and wouldn't have to retest (they use the Naglieri and the ITBS) so that's good. They have a good parent group and a lot of extracurriculars, even at elementary. A couple of downsides: it is a very money-oriented district and, being a public school, comes with the states mandates (TAKS testing, attendence and tardy rules, stupid bureacracy).
I don't know for sure that this school is where we'd be, but there are only 3 elemetaries and they all use the same curriculum. I'll let you know after I visit tomorrow. The question above about "2+ levels up" scares me - what if it's not enough? Aagh. Thanks for the responses.
Others?
