Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Please help us decide between two schools

Sounds like a hard choice. But it's nice to have two viable options!

I am wondering about the ages/abilities of your other kids and what grades the two options go up to.

I think if you were talking about an only child I would say go with the private school, even knowing only what you have posted. But with the needs of two other children to consider...that makes it harder.

I would imagine that if your relationship with the private school remains good they will work with you to modify your aid package when the time comes for you other children to attend school. Do you think this is possible?

We are looking at a public school GT center that sounds similar to what you are describing (but we don't know yet if our kids will be admitted). One of my concerns is the neighborhood of the school. My kids have been pretty sheltered up to now. In our case, the kids in the GT program are completely isolated. If they weren't, I would have some concerns. I'm not sure how my kids would do in a gym class with kids who live in violent, crime-ridden environments. Maybe that doesn't sound PC, but I'm pretty sure my bookworm kids would get their butts kicked. We live in a city - it's a small city, but it's a city and the parts that are "bad" are truly bad.

OTOH, it's a good thing for kids to understand the world they live in.