Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Regions Gifted Options in Boulder/Denver

We are likely moving to the Boulder area for the 2012-2013 school year and I am overwhelmed with understanding the school districts and the options (or lack of options) for gifted education in this region. It appears that if you want to be in a public school, the gifted education consists of 1 (if you are lucky) coordinator per elementary school who "helps" the individual teachers with the needs of kids within the classroom environment. My kids are currently in a gifted program in their public school where they are in dedicated gifted classrooms, with a full time teacher and an accelerated curriculum. In addition, the best options appear to be charter schools which you can only get into through the open enrollment lottery, so that is pretty much a chance thing. To further complicate things, we wouldn't be moving to the area until the spring so we would likely be out of the running to enter the lottery for those spots anyway, right? My husband is considering going ahead of us to start work, but we would need to know what area for him to rent in, in order to get the best chance at a particular school. I am so confused about what to do... We also have 3 kids to consider so a lottery seems like a scary proposition. Are any neighborhood schools better for gifted education? What about magnet schools - can we get into those in the spring? Help!!!

We don't have our kids in the Boulder Valley School District but it has a reputation for meager gifted services. You may want to contact Boulder Valley Gifted and Talented to see if they have more current info about options: www.bvgt.org
On their website they mention that Macintosh Academy (private school) is trying to open a Boulder campus. Peak to Peak Charter school has a good rep for serving a diverse population well.

You may want to consider neighboring counties. Adams County has two gifted charter schools that I know of Stargate and Westgate but it may be difficult to get your kids in depending upon age. I seem to recall that when we looked at them that they tended to be hard to get into for the lower grades but had more openings at the upper grades. You also could consider Jeffco. They have gt center programs scattered throughout their district in neighborhood schools. You may want to call the district gt folks and talk to them about realistic options.

There are a lot of gifted options from what I remember in the Denver and surrounding areas but I don't know anything about Boulder which is a bit farther out from Denver metro.
I think I remember seeing lists on the gifted development centers website of gifted availability schools for that area, and they are in Denver so they may be able to point you in other directions.
We lived in Colorado Springs for years so I know they have options there but thats quite a ways from Boulder. Good luck, its hard moving and figuring everything out when you really need more than just "a school" so to speak.

I can't add much beyond what Knute did, but did want to mention that Stargate has a reputation of serving the more high achieving type of kiddos and Westgate leans more toward out of the box or 2e kids -- at least from what I hear, my kids have never attended either.

This is probably too much out of the way, but I do know that some of the members of our Denver Mensa group have kids who attend Aurora Quest Academy and are fairly happy with it. You might also want to consider joining the Denver Mensa Young Mensan's Facebook page and asking there if anyone has suggestions. I am one of the gifted children's coordinators for Denver Mensa so I promise to approve your request to join the FB page if you put one in ! I don't know if you're on FB, but here's a link to the page .

Maybe checking the Gifted Development Center's suggestions for schools might be another place to start: http://www.gifteddevelopment.com/PDF_files/giftedschoolscolorado.pdf

I guess that I had more to add than I thought!

Thanks for the suggestions. Most of the schools mentioned however - even in Denver - are charter schools. We would still have the problem of the lottery which means no guarantee of a spot. Especially with 3 kids on the line, I would love to find a an area school that is known for actually having good GT services. We would be willing to go the private school route if we really had to, but obviously that is a much more costly choice and we would like to avoid it if there is another option.

I'm not familiar with the Boulder school district either. I'm happy to PM you and give you the name of the educational counseling specialist we've been using for ability and achievement testing and advice on advocating, if you like. She's in Denver, but if she doesn't know Boulder schools well, she may have a recommendation for a similar testing/counseling specialist in the Boulder area who would be familiar with your public school options there. She used to be with the Gifted Development Center and co-founded the Ricks Center in Denver, so she knows her stuff. Let me know if you're interested in her info.

sending you a pm

My child is in Boulder school district, and I'll say that it's not a pretty sight for gifted kids. That's based on just one year's experience in the system for DD6 who skipped K. I don't know what your kids' ages are, but for K-5 there is one TAG focus school in the district - Lafayette Elementary (wish my child went there!). It has the most hours of a paid TAG Advisor at roughly 40/wk (the school population has doubled in 5 years to >600 since becoming a designated TAG focus school, and also the principal who really got that program established retired last year); by contrast my neighborhood school only has 10/wk from a less than inspiring TAG Advisor. I think the next highest might be High Peaks Elem. with about 30 hr/wk.

Peak to Peak Charter has a great reputation, but as you know is a lottery situation. There are 72 spots available at K, approx. 60 more spots open in 6th grade, and then another 20 spots open in 9th - pretty much if you don't get in those grades you won't get in at all. Aspen Creek in Broomfield started a pilot program last year where classes were cluster-grouped by ability which is probably helpful.

Macintosh Academy (private school K-8) has opened for this school year in Boulder near 65th St. and S. Boulder Rd. I'd like to visit the school soon myself. I know there were several families in Boulder who drove their kids 1.5 hours each way to take them to the Macintosh Academy in Littleton and they are thrilled to have it come to Boulder.

"Meager gifted services" just about covers it. Boulder is the land of perceived egalitarianism and Everybody is Special.

I had one other thought. Would you be willing to consider homeschooling with a formal community? There is a group in Boulder that started up a program called the Creekside Collective this school year. It purports to serve gifted children although it doesn't claim that is their only focus. They meet three days/week from 10-2 and share some responsibility for home education of their kids.

http://creeksidecollective.com/

Nm on my last post. I actually spoke w/ one of the founders of Creekside today (considering it for my dds as I continue to explore better options for next year). It sounds like they aren't meeting regularly right now and are more of an informal group with no group instruction than a co-op type of thing for now.

She, too, suggested looking @ McKintosh Academy.