Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Gifted private / public schools in NJ

stacey, sent you a pm.

We are on the Hunterdon/Warren county border in Hunterdon. Our district has become more gifted friendly over the past year or so. We introduced our district to the Iowa Acceleration Scale with they can use now to gauge appropriate placement. DD8's current teacher and all of our DD's teacher to date have been exceptionally supportive.

Stacey, you'll want to check out specific districts in PA. It all sounds great, but the better districts are very controlling of the gifted ID process. I guess the process is fine if the kid is PG and will score well on any IQ test under any testing conditions, but if not, the process could be a problem.

In our district, the district chooses the IQ test and they administer it. Must be FSIQ >= 130, no GAI. I know of a number of districts that operate in the same way.

You also need to consider that your kids are young. I don't know of any district near us (SE PA) that has a good gifted program for young kids. The advantage of being in certain school districts is that some have quite a few very bright/gifted kids. My eldest, now in college, was probably in the top 15-20% of her class. There were a number of kids brighter than her (she was IDed based on IQ > 130).

There are also a lot of great private schools in the Philadelphia area. I attended one. I see a lot of neat programs they have in the younger grades, but I still think that the academics in the elementary years would not be challenging. I am nowhere near PG (and never IDed so may not be gifted) and I was bored in the elementary years. I spent a lot of time moving around the typewriter key caps to confuse others.

amazing!

We looked at Quaker schools in our area, and though we felt they'd be better, in the end they would have been a major financial hardship for just moderately better.

I get what you say about different districts. Sometimes, I have to remind myself that the grass isn't necessarily greener on the other side of the bridge!