Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Experiences with public vs private schools?

DD5 will be going into K next year, and we're confused about what to do with her. For two years, she's been going twice a week to a private school for preschool (that also goes up to 5th grade). I would love to send her there for K, but financially we cannot do it. The owner of the school wants to meet with me to see what we can work out because she's afraid DD5 will be overlooked and/or bored in public school K. I haven't met with her yet to see what she has to offer, but I'm surely thankful for her generosity. But then again, would public school be just fine??

Public school has changed so much since DH and I went to school (and we're not even that old!), and many of the new teaching methods I hear about leave much to be desired, IMO.

So what are your experiences with having your gifted children in public school??? I've heard a lot of bad things on these forums and I've heard some good things -- so what's the consensus?

(Obviously each school district is not alike, but I wanted to put this feeler out there.)

For background on our case, DD5 has been tested at preschool and is reading at a 3rd grade level. She completes 1st and 2nd grade math worksheets here with me when she wants to do "homework" with her older cousin. DD5 is a very self-directed learner -- we only give things to her that she wants or to keep her ever-busy mind occupied so I can get some peace!!

I talked with the public school today and we should be meeting within the next few weeks to discuss the situation. So far, they appear open to the possibility of acceleration, but they also told me that DD5 would not be pulled out of her kindergarten class for reading (she gets pulled out now in preschool). That discourages me, but then again, I'm new to all of this (and still in a bit of GT denial to boot)... I feel like a lost puppy!

These darn adult decisions!

Well, my first advice to anyone considering the merits of private school versus public is to know the legal lay of the land.



The reason is simple: private schools (mostly) aren't obliged to do anything extraordinary for children whose needs are outside the "norm" (whatever that happens to be for the private school in question).

Public schools are subject to LAWS that force them to at least address learning differences. Or to pretend that they are with a lot of meetings and paperwork, if you like. They also can't show anyone the door because of their differences, no matter how extreme-- they HAVE to provide education to everyone. Whether it is appropriate or not is, of course, a separate matter.

In the worst case scenarios, you can simply walk away from a private school-- or be told to leave-- since they may baldly refuse to accommodate differences in children. It's not against the law... and there are often political pressures on private schools to weed out kids that are "different." Consider this, if you will; a school with a reputation for "exceptional academics" isn't going to want a child that demonstrates that it isn't challenging enough, for a variety of reasons. Not the least of which is that other parents may be miffed if their own children don't seem quite as exceptional as they were hoping as a result of the comparison, if you see my point. Besides, if they'll "give extra" stuff to YOUR child... why not MINE?? I pay tuition too! (See the problem for administrators?)

Public schools, on the other hand, may also refuse to do anything special for gifted children... and in some places, they have the full backing of state law there. Or they may be obligated to make accommodations, but only go there reluctantly and incrementally, kicking and screaming through tense meeting after tense meeting, while slowly sucking every ounce of your energy as a parent-advocate, and leaching all of the joy from your everyday life for years on en--

Er-- sorry. PTSD. Bit of a Debbie Downer moment there. LOL. But seriously; it definitely pays to know how this has gone for others locally. Every school is different-- and it starts (generally) from the top down. So if you have a local administrator at the district level that is committed to one-size-must-fit-all, "all children are gifted" thinking, you're going to have trouble, no matter what the law says. In that case, looking private makes sense.

Also true (in a general sense) is that most charters (which are public schools) and private schools have higher baseline expectations, which means a better fit for gifted kids from the start. However, they may also be less flexible with respect to acceleration, and particularly with differentiation that has any possibility to look like a desirable 'perk' for your child.

ANY school can be a good one, and any school can be a bad one. It really just depends on how open-minded the people running it are and how well their "usual" way of doing things is going to match your child's needs. The less tweaking necessary, the better luck you'll have convincing educators of the wisdom of trying it.

In either case, expect to need to do advocacy from time to time.

HTH!

ETA: full disclosure here, I have spent the last decade as a volunteer parent advocate for a disability support group, so my take on this is based on those experiences and not so much on GT needs.

Our kids (oldest is in 7th grade; youngest is 6) have always gone to private schools. This is because I did a survey of local public schools, and was told by two principals that no way would they let a kid skip a grade. Well. One of them said she'd never done it but might consider discussing it after six weeks "observation."

I called the district office three times and left messages asking about policies, and no one ever returned my calls.

I called a few schools in neighboring districts and got pretty much the same response. One principal accused me of "not letting my kid be a kid" even though I'd only asked "What's your acceleration policy? My 2nd grader seems to need a grade skip."

This was all in the Bay area of California. YMMV. The best thing is to call or write and ask, and make sure you get specific answers to specific questions.

That said, the eldest will be going to a charter next year because his current school is moving out of our commuting range. The charter ran an algebra class in 7th grade this year (1st year in this city, but many campuses around the state), so they won't be too far behind my son (starting geometry). They do the Math Olympiad, too.

From what we've seen/learned, private schools can go either way. Test scores are important, but there're no NCLB threats, no legally mandated standards, and no unions. The lack of these things can allow flexibility. In California, the school day at a private school is typically an hour longer than at a public school. This gives time for music, science, PE, and random stuff that doesn't get as much coverage in public schools here.

I know of one chain of private schools around here with a policy of anti-acceleration ("At xx, we believe that all children have gifts"). There are also a few schools claiming to aim at cognitively gifted kids; most of these schools seem to allow acceleration. One major prep school will send 6th graders to the high school for math or English or whatever. Another school doesn't use the word "gifted," but all the materials for the second graders are third grade materials, etc. etc. through every grade up to 8th.

The charter school people didn't react in the least when they saw that a ten-year-old was applying for 8th grade. That was nice.

My big points:

1. Because of NCLB, public schools MUST focus on low achievers. If they don't, they can end up in a world of trouble. This idea is a major philosophical driver.

2. A major driver at private schools is tuition. You are a customer. This means that private schools must, within reason and at least in part, address what the customers want.

3. Private schools often have a philosophical mission that underlies how they approach education. This can be a big help to a parent with a need that's addressed by the school's mission.

HTH,

Val

Thanks for the responses.

The private school we're looking at is a Montessori-like school, and stresses the fact that each child is different. They have no problem accelerating material for one child while not for another -- that's actually part of their mission statement. So I have no worries that the private school won't meet my child's needs academically. Even with DD5 being in just preschool, they're already supplementing her reading (she reads one-on-one with a teacher each school day). Our public school I called said they would not pull her out of class for reading, which really discourages me. She's at a 3rd grade reading level, but she'd be "learning" what the rest of her kindergarten class would be learning. However, this was not definitive since we have not met with the principal and other school representatives yet.

The guidance counselor at the public school said a couple of things to me that sent up some red flags. First, she made a comment about possible acceleration, but added something about not accelerating so that DD5 would always be the top of her class (insinuating that this may be good for her). This rubbed me the wrong way immediately, and I got the feeling that the guidance counselor doesn't really get it. She also said that although DD5 wouldn't be pulled out of class for reading, she could do other things, like read a book to the class. I don't want DD5 just being teacher's helper, I want her to learn... geez. But in all fairness, this was the first phone call to the school and only involved the guidance counselor, not the principal or any teachers. Our state laws mandate that a gifted child must be accommodated, however I'm sure that can be interpreted loosely.

The private school is GREAT -- their philosophy is perfect for DD5. The school is very small, only a few years old. Class sizes are very small and include two grades with one teacher (mixed-age). DD5 is already working with the Kindergarten/1st grade teacher with reading. But the private school cost money. And I became a SAHM last year after I got laid off from my job in the medical field.

Oh, the fun begins . .. .

My son has gone to both public and private schools.
I say - go observe any classroom you think about putting your child in.

There are 3 basic issues I see -
1) Your daughter's 'readiness to learn' level is several grades higher than her agemates at the public school. If the school is willing, for example, to have her attend 3rd grade full time, then you don't have to worry about her not being pulled out for reading. If on the other hand, this particular school has a bunch of 1st graders reading at 3rd grade level, and she's full time in 1st grade - also fine.
2) pace - even if your daughter's readiness to learn level matches other kids in whatever public school classroom that put her in, one has to be prepared for this big leaps forward in readiness level, and willing to keep moving when things the mismatch gets to be too much.
3) self-directed learning - my son isn't consistiently a self-directed learner of academic subjects. Oh, occasionally he'll get interested in a topic and devour the wikipedia entries and any related tutorials he can find, but for the most part, he has well learned the lesson of traditional classrooms: It's good to sit and be bored while your classmates catch up. You can't expect to be learning something all the time. You have to balance your need for material at your learning level with the whole classroom's need for learning material at the majority learning level.

It isn't that every private school uses Montessori-style expectations that each child is a self-directed learner. It also isn't that every child will take advantage of this expectation. But I do sometimes wonder how different my son would be in this area if he had been in a Montessori-style classroom from the preschool years.

And it's possible that my son gained some important life experience by being 'part of a classroom' - who knows? Still, I wouldn't do it knowingly again.

Good luck! I feel confident that if you spend some seat time inside the public school classrooms of different grades, you will have what you need to know.

Love and More Love,
Grinty

From my experience with Montessori (which was great) I would suggest that if you do go this route you look out for a couple of things:

1) Repetition:
It's great to be able to go at your own pace, but watch out for the amount of material needed that your child needs to "churn" through before they can go to the next subject. Gifted kids generally need less repetition.

2) Maxing out the classroom/school:
It can happen quickly! Make sure they have materials available that stretch a few years beyond the last grade of the school. Then there is always the transition to worry about....later....

DS7 goes to public school. It is in public school that his need for a grade skip was recognized IMMEDIATELY. Our county's public schools aren't the best in the state. Our state's schools aren't even close to the best in the country, but they did recognize his need for more. Sure there are issues, but I don't think ANY situation is going to be perfect for every little thing. You need to make a list of what is most important to you and your child's education and see what option meets those on top of that list best.

Both of my DC are going to be attending a charter school starting in the fall. The change wasn't because the school we are zoned for is a bad one, but that this school is a better fit for our DC.

My son (DS 10, 5th) was in private school from Kinder to 1st grade. He's been in a parent-participation K-8 public charter school since 2nd grade.

None of the schools that our son attended has GATE program, hence no gifted testing. We were also oblivious to the gifted issue and only last year were 'introduced' to this. Our son has since been tested and we've been advocating for him.

Although the school doesn't offer GATE program, they do differentiate through ability grouping. We have Math Mix-up in Kinder/1st grade, 2nd/3rd, and 4th/5th. However, since math is not done at the same time across grade level, there can be tricky scheduling issues when a child needs to move up above their combo class level. It becomes even trickier when elementary students need to move up to middle school math.

That being said, our son was pretty lucky since he got an excellent teacher in 2/3 grade (it's a combo class, and the kids stay with the same teacher for 2 yrs). He was able to do 3rd grade math in 2nd grade. When he couldn't go to 4th grade math because of scheduling issue, she continued to challenge him in her own classroom.

Our daughter's teacher (DD6 - not tested) is amazing, too. She grouped her students (K/1 combo class) based on their ability in reading, writing, and math. She has some of them working on 2nd grade reading and math. At the other end, she also has kids who are still learning their letters and numbers. She has no trouble working with one of her students who loves chemistry and has started learning about Periodic Table before entering Kinder.

On the other hand, our son's math class this year was not a good one. The teacher has no idea how to differentiate. I've talked to him directly, and even talked to the principal many times. In the end, we decided to pull him out, and he's now working independently. I teach him at home and I sometimes come to school, too, during math time. It helps that we had the SCAT and WISC-IV test results when we talked to the principal. He's also been supportive and found a middle school teacher to mentor our son in science.

The next challenge will be when our son gets to middle school next year. We've started the conversation with the principal, middle school math specialist, and home teacher about math progression. Our local public high school's principal is against math acceleration. There is a fear of 'holes' in their math abilities and of course, "We're running of math class to offer!"

In dealing with public school, knowing the laws certainly helps. You can also make stronger case when armed with results of some formal assessments. Gathering information and learning about gifted issues (esp. from the amazing board!) help us understand our children better and thus advocating for our children more effectively.

When it comes to private schools, it would be most helpful to get their stand on giftedness. I've visited supposedly highly academic private schools that are very inflexible. On the other hand, I know at least 3 private schools in the area that get giftedness and make accommodations.

Val, we live in Bay Area, too. I'm curious where this charter school that you're planning to send your child to. Would you mind sharing that info? Thanks!

Both of mine were in a similar situation. I worked at a private school, which allowed both of my children to go there for free. DD4 was in a pre-k program for 3year olds, and DS7 was in kindergarten. This year we moved to another state. Here we have no private schools, and the pre-k programs are, quite honestly, a joke. DS7 was put into the gifted program, but still bored to tears. The problem with public schools is that, partly due to No Child Left Behind, they are forced to cater to those kids who are struggling, often at the expense of those who are not. Private schools don't have to do that. Cruel as it sounds, if someone in a private school can't keep up, either their parents get them a tutor, or they go back to public schools. Now, with that having been said, if you get a good teacher in a public school, it helps a lot. DS7's teacher has done everything she can (within the limits of the given curriculum) to challenge him. But I still supplement at home and keep a notebook in his backpack full of extra stuff for him to do.
So in short, I firmly believe that any child can get a good education at any school - but sometimes it takes a heck of a lot of work on the part of the parents.