Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Question for those that have grade skipped

Very interesting, Cym!

In contrast, our middle school is supposed to be lousy for GT kids. There's no class grouping to get like-minded peers, no honors track, nothing to give GT kids more challenge. Every class has the full range of abilities and differentiation is unheard of.

There is a GT enrichment class offered that consists of mostly fluff. However, to take it, they have to give up an elective. So take band or choir or drama class or whatever...or take the not-great GT enrichment class? As you can probably guess, most GT kids choose to follow their specific interests.

The middle school is also a district-wide school, whereas there are two high schools servng the school system. So it's a big school! Very scary after the small, neighborhood elementary school atmosphere they all came from.

From what the parents of GT kids in our area (including 3 babysitters and 2 neighbors *and* all 5 sets of parents) tell me, I shouldn't put my DS7 in our middle school for love or money!

Different, huh? I find that intersting.

Thanks for highlighting the variety in the schools. I think that's really important to think about when considering things like grade skips.

I think one of the most interesting things I've read recently was a "think tank" report on their study about High School drop out rates. They studied that and their report (summarized http://www.thinknewmexico.org/smallschools.html; the full report is much more impressive but costs $10) says the single biggest factor of student success is school size. Kriston mentioned a BIG middle school and how horrible that was, feeding two presumably smaller high schools. Maybe I'm overly influenced by what I've read, but I believe it. The middle school I like (where my kids attend) is 60 students, vs. the Big highschool >1200.

Wow. That is interesting, Cym. A little surprising that it's such a big factor.

(Though not completely surprising...)

I'd pick 60 students over 1200, too! No question!

Ooh, I don't know what I'd pick between 60 and 1200 ... I think 60, for middle school, but I prefer the 500-600 size for high school (4 grades). Big enough for a fair opportunity to find peers, small enough that you're not just a number to the faculty.

And our K-2 elementary school was 1200 kids. Our district then goes 3-4 (800), 5-6 (800) and high school (I'd guess 1600). And there is only in class differentiation until 6th grade when an honors math course is offered and 7th grade where there's an honors algebra course and science Olympiad - and I suppose in-class differentiation. At some point, maybe 7th grade, they start to cluster the kids more than 1-2 in every class. So interesting how the schools vary.

The think tank will try to influence legislation to prevent new construction of schools bigger than 900 (high school) or 600 middle (I think) and maybe 300 for elementary schools. It'll supposedly reduce drop-out rates, raise student achievement, increase student safety, provide more extracurricular opportunities, and increase "stakeholder satisfaction" (teachers, students, principals, parents).

Wish I had the time & energy to help start a charter high school, but for now we're in the big one. The think tank says for existing large schools, they should try the "school within a school" approach. Smaller learning communities. Even at the >1200 high school, the banquet for 4.0+ students last year only had about a dozen freshmen.

Interesting topic. I went to a 4,000+ high school, from a grade school (K-8) of about 800. It was a bit of a shock and easy to get lost. That was one reason I really liked the small catholic school my older kids went to.

Where we are now the grade school has only 250 kids total (k-8) with one class per grade. The high school has only about 350 kids. Way too small for what MrWiggly needs. I like the small school for many reasons but we are also very rural. So demographic differences in students, family values, educational values, etc. We are definitely looking at someplace bigger for middle and high school. More opportunities for both classwork and true peers. I'm just not sure how big we'll end up going with.

For those of you who have decided to accelerate, did anyone regret this decision - if so, why? I'm trying to figure out if I should start my dd3 in kindergarten early next year at 4.5 - academically - no sweat. easy decision... but socially/emotionally ?? She is physically small for her age, so I can see that she would certainly be much smaller than the other children. The director thinks it would be a bad idea because she feels that my although daughter can read at a second grade level, she would not be able to "walk into the room and command the classroom" - which is true - is this an important factor?

No regrets for single grade skip with summer birthdays (young in their classes to begin with) for each of 4 kids. Earlier skip was easiest (the one who skipped 5th grade/bridge year here had the hardest adjustment but still no problem).

I didn't regret skipping a grade myself, and so far we have nothing to regret about skipping DS.