For those who doesn't know DS, let me do a short introduction. DS7 is in first grade. In January, he did an WISC IV IQ test with GAI 146. In April, we took him in to get an achievement WJIII test done and he is scoring pretty consistantly at middle school level reading and writing, and high school level in math. I think he is seriously bored in class, although he denies it.
We had a talk with the head teacher of the school. She refused to subject accelerate DS and was reluctant to grade accelerate him. We did not proceed to talk to the principal because we thought it would be very hard to accommodate DS without radically accelerate him and we don't want to do that. After thinking much about his education, we decided to pull him out next year and full time homeschool him.
We have a very small school. The principal of our school is also the principal of 2 other schools. She came in to observe the teachers today. By the way, DS has a pretty bad teacher this year. She thinks that gifted kids are a burden. The principal saw that DS was quite unfocused in class. They were supposed to do their work quietly, but DS was not paying attention and the teacher did not care. So the principal walked up to him and asked if the work was too hard. Then DS started a whole lecture about how he knew those words years ago and he knew many more harder words and he was reading way ahead of others... and the lecture went on. It shocked her to see that DS was so bored in class and the teacher was doing absolutely nothing about it.
Without knowing the above had happened, I called this morning to set up a meeting with the principal. When I met her at the end of day, she saw the IQ and achievement scores and related to me her encounter with DS. She finally realized how advanced he was. I told her we were leaving to go full time homeschooling next year. However, I told her I wanted to see if there were other options within this school. So she offered me an option in another school under her. So here are my choices for next year:
1. The school she offered to us has multi-grade montessori classroom. She will put DS in Grade 3-6 as a 3rd grader next year for 4 days a week. They ask lots of open ended questions in class with lots of projects that suits students at different levels. She also offered to do 2 days homeschooling and 2 days in school per week if we want. However, this school is 40 miles away from where we live, with a 40-45 minute commute (mostly freeway). It seems very far. This is a small school.
2. The principal also offered us another option. Next year, she is going to pull one of the good teachers from option 1 school to a school near us. This school is also montessori based, but new and not very established. It also offers a multi-grade classroom. DS will be put in 3rd grade in grade 3-5 classroom. Currently the school is not very well run.
3. The homeschool program I have already enrolled DS in is 14 miles away (30 minutes, mostly local). It provides 1 day of academic classes and 1 day of play classes on-site at its campus. This is a traditional homeschool with classes. It is popular among homeschoolers in our area. However, because the school is so big (1000+), DS may not see the same people every time.
All 3 schools draw money from the state and are tuition free.
Does anybody has good experiences with upper-elementary montessori schools for HG+ kids?
Are multi-grade classrooms a good idea?
