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

Oh my goodness, I love your description of these seemingly random leaps in understanding/capabilities. They seem to come out of nowhere, and there's often no predicting what will spark them or what area they'll occur in. My husband and I will just look at each other and shake our heads.

"Spooky" jumps--perfect!

Personally, I find that they are useful in a secondary or tangential manner, as well:

it's an easy differentiator for determining which teachers are truly well-educated and genuinely interested in gifted children, too.

The ones that are the real deal tend to get very excited by reports of kids like this, and are pleased to get to work with a real example of something that they may only have 'read about' or 'heard about' in their training.

Of course, some of them can lose sight of the fact that this is a real child we're talking about-- not a laboratory animal.

Homeschooling this kind of gifted child is a CRAZY-hard challenge, (I can't begin to tell how many different workbooks and curricular packages we used 5% of before they were worse than useless) but it does make me appreciate the difficulty of appropriate accommodations from the school's perspective, which has led me to be a much more patient advocate than I might otherwise have proven.

I also strongly suspect that this sort of child has a tendency more than any other to be mislabeled as ODD, ADD, or some other pathology by frazzled educators.

Holy cow!!!! I have to come on here to express my total jubilation with the meeting we had with the private school yesterday.

It's a small school with only 30 students in K-5th grade (and 45 pre-K kids), so DD5's K/1st class would have just 10 students. They are completely on par with DD's abilities and are easily willing to advance her at her own rate. Each student gets an IEP (this happens there at pre-K, too, so I'm familiar with all of this already with them)... so she'd technically be in K next year, but they anticipate teaching her alongside the 1st graders (it's a mixed-age class with K and 1st being together). Then the following year, they said they'll probably skip 1st grade and bump her up to 2nd. They have other gifted children there as well, but they said DD5 is definitely the most gifted they have seen. They're very excited to have someone like her at their school.

I knew the private school near us was the answer to my child's education, but the tuition was holding me back. The principal/owner of the school offered us a full-ride scholarship for DD5. However, DH and I took another look at our budget and feel confident we can swing half the tuition. I told the owner I did not want to take away the scholarship from someone who needed it more than us (and we may very well need it once DD2.5 is ready for K there as well).

I canceled my meeting with the public school set for Friday. I don't think they could offer anything me anything that would compare to what we'll get at the private school. The public school has already said some things to me that have sent up red flags and have shown a lack of cooperation. Maybe I'm being misguided for not checking out the public school, but DH and I don't even want to go down that road if we can help it (DH spent his entire school career in this district, and I spent 6 years in it, so we both know what the district is like).

Anyway... yippy skippy to DD5!!
And the generosity of the private school is well worth commending.

Yippee! That is excellent news. So amazing that they can SEE your child, and what a big deal that is!
Smiles,
Grinity

Awesome!

You might want to get the accommodations in writing before you sign anything. Hopefully the administrator you met with will send you a follow up letter with everything in there.

This school sounds a lot like where my dd went to k - while it lasted, it was the best!

I plan on riding this train until the track ends!

Oh, this is WONDERFUL news! Thanks so much for sharing-- your joy absolutely radiates from your post above.


Good, good vibes!

Awesome! I have heard good stories from some people with kids in Montesori. (Some bad ones too - but the good ones were really really good.)

Not trying to be a wet blanket.... but sometimes what works one year doesn't work the next. Do consider testing to see if your child could get in the Young Scholars program.

I would have been lost without my family consultant when Snoopy was younger.....

Mary

HoosierMommy,

Wow! It appears like you hit the jackpot! I hope the school works out for you and your daughter.