We have the opposite problem in Orange County. I was just on the phone with the gifted coordinator for our public elementary school. Basically, the ONLY gifted programming they do for elementary aged kids is "enrichment" which is AT (NOT above) grade level. So they take all the first graders out of their regular academic classes one day a week and do enrichment activities (an example she gave is "they write their own word problems"). There is no presentation of work above grade level standards, and they do not believe in either grade skipping OR subject acceleration. All I can say is that this is going to go nowhere fast. DS is in K, and is working at third grade level math. They have no interest in fostering his abilities, and say "that's not what gifted education is about. We just want to present the material in a different way for different learning styles." Hello? The truly gifted kids already KNOW the material. They don't need it presented in a different way, because they don't really need it presented at all!
This is very frustrating to me. We are going to be scheduling our meeting with the gifted coordinator and the gifted teacher for first graders (they don't have a program for K, but said he could possibly come work with the first graders if we wanted). We'll see, but I suspect we will stick with our private school and work through whatever accomodations we need to with them.
