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Ania, no, they don't vary from the curriculum period. And I don't think they do anything for gifted kids until fourth grade at least. In 3rd grade they do their first standardized testing. I can't believe what I've read on this forum about other school districts and schools. We could have avoided so much if he had been in the right school from the start. Oh well. At least he's happy again.

Questions,
If your son is in fact doing this course at home and in school sits in regular LA class, I would fight, fight,fight.
Believe me that it is much easier to do what you are doing when the child is young, since they generally have more free time after school. Comes middle school or HS it will be very difficult to have them do things like that at home.
I know that in the school my kids are going to, they would be allowed to work on the computer on their own during class time AS LONG AS THE COURSE THEY ARE WORKING ON ALIGNS WITH STATE CURRICULUM.

Ania, thanks. This is exactly what I'm thinking. For now, he doesn't seem to mind the repetition, it helps him with his speed, and he feels like a success. Quite frankly, they do so little, I have no idea how long they spend on math or reading, and I wonder if it would even be enough time to cover anything on a distance learning course. After vacation, however, I plan to re-assess the situation. My bigger concern is what happens next year and the year after. If he's lucky enough to be accepted into DYS, I expect it will get the school's attention. If not, it will be a huge struggle. But what I'm thinking would be best for him is exactly what you suggest - stay in the public school and when they do math, let him go on the computer and do his own math. It certainly won't be possible in this school district for him to sit in on a different grade's classes - they're clustered in different buildings a busride away. And all the private schools around here are handwriting centric. He has some catching up to do before he can re-enter that world. And believe me, he'd like nothing better than to be home schooled. The psychologist who evaluated him agreed. So maybe ultimately, he ends up with a half and half type situation.

Questions -
I love the DYS program, but no, the school didn't care a bit - still maintained that they have handfuls just like him. Some schools are flexible, and can "see" our kids, other school are teachable, like Dotties, and some are just not going to go there. I wish it was more obvious in advance which the school was going to be.

In the end, one can increase one's ability to notice, learn as much as possible, and take it one year at a time. School that offer partial homeschooling are doing a wonderful service to children with special needs. Best Wishes - Trinity

Agreed, Trinity. Our first choice would be a school that could meet all of DS6's needs, but a strong second choice would be a partial home-schooling situation. I wish our school would go for that, but they won't.

*sigh*

As much as "our " school is flexible (and I really think we are blessed), it will not allow partial homeschooling/partial enrollment.
It has to do with funding.
That is why we are persuing individualized education during regular school hours and school sees little or no problem with that.

We are heavily involved, and I guess they feel more secure that I won't come out with some elaborate plan and then leave it for the school to quide my kids through it. They know that my kids will get all the support they need from us DURING SCHOOL HOURS.

Example: Last year while my daughter was in 4th grade, math level in her class was worst than terrible. It was just a cruel joke. I learned about Aleks on this site and suggested it to DD's teacher. Her and P picked out 4 other kids (out of 50), who were also bored to death in that math class, and they bought Aleks for those 5. Decision was made that the kids will be working on Aleks 4 times a week during regular math class. Kids needed supervision, and school could not provie an adult to stay with them . Teacher approached us, the parents of those 5 kids, asking for help. Another mom and I volunteered. But since this other mom was not very reliable and did not keep her promise, I ended up supervising them all four days. Was it easy ? - NO! It was during 4th period, so totally midday and I had to make a special trip to the school each of those days (about 12 min. drive each way). It was insane, to tell you the truth, but it did help my daughter tremendously, she became much, much better in math and it all happened during school hours, which for me was priceless!I did not have to "unschool" her at home any more!
But there was also another benefit to this whole insanity - the school saw me as a very involved parent, and by helping my D I helped 4 other kids. So now when we are bringing the possibility of other online programs to the table , they know that I will be there should help become necessary.
(thank goodness my work schedule allowed for all that insanity)

(((applause Ania!!)))
Wow - Good for you!
Trin

Okay, thought I'd report back on EPGY language arts. DS started in January with a virtual class on transitive and intransitive verbs. I was sure he'd hate it - looked dry and static to me, compared to the entertaining and colorful Elementary Problem Solving Math course at CTY. Well, surprise to me, DS loves it for two reasons - 1) he loves technology and LOVED participating in the class over the computer using headphones and a microphone; and 2) the EPGY computer course tracks his progress and he can see that the course starts at grade 3 and he is already at 3.12 after only a couple of sessions. (Note that he thought it was boring and objected to it when he started, but at the end of the 20 minutes when he saw his progress graph, he got excited - just as the tutor promised.)

One big difference b/n our current CTY and EPGY experience is that the EPGY tutor is involved and active. She emails to ask if anyone has questions, organized virtual classes, and emailed us initially to find out why DS wasn't doing the EPGY program (i.e., she had checked his progess and hadn't seen more than 3 minutes of work). It's probably just luck of the draw, but we never hear from DS's CTY tutor (nor do we really need to), but in her few emails with comments on his quizzes and tests, she's had incorrect info (such as explanation of a right answer from someone else's course in her email to DS).

I had signed DS up as a stealth method to get him to practice his reading. Rearranging words into short sentences in response to questions makes him read in a non-threatening manner (only a few words at a time on the page). The computer work has a set of problems interspersed with short lectures on things like proper nouns, topics versus main ideas, sentence structure, verbs, etc. The sentences and questions are read and then he has to either highlight all the nouns or arrange a list of words sorted by type (e.g., prepositions, pronouns, verbs, etc.) into a sentence. The only frustrating thing is that you have to move the word onto a small blue highlighted area that is hard to hit. If you don't do it right, the words get reversed, which has been a bit frustrating for him. So for now, he tells me what to click on and where to move things and I can deal with the frustration when it doesn't go where I intended.

I'd say that the EPGY LAW isn't for everyone, but it works for us. Also, since DS had trouble with writing initially, figure it's not too early to understand the rules of grammar.

And re: the RWL (books course), DS likes that, too. After reading the books, you answer questions online about the book, characters, timeline, moral of the story, etc. Our issue with this one is that his comprehension outpaces his reading ability. The tutor suggested that we read a more difficult book with me reading a page to his reading a paragraph and then working up to his reading more. One benefit is that he likes to do what the tutor says, and is already reading a page for every page I read of what they consider a fifth grade book (based on lexiles).

So in the end, I'm very pleased because it's having the desired effect for DS. Probably not the course for most, but if your child loves technology and responds to charting his progress, and wouldn't be doing language arts on his or her own, give it a try. (And I believe they do have a free add/drop period so you can test it out).

Thanks for the update, Q! It sounds as if he is really digging in! What type of books do they read for the reading course?

Wow Q - that sounds something my ds would think is really neat too. Let us know if it loses it's novelty!