New to Private School World, Need Advice – Rising 4th Grader

[Anonymous]

I read the pinned posts about the basics, but if someone with more knowledge than me could help orient me, I’d be really grateful.

We are parents who went to public school ourselves, live within walking distance to our community school, and thought that would be great for our son. Unfortunately it turns out that our school has not been able to challenge him. We have tried to be patient (didn’t want to raise a stink with a Kindergartener/1st grader and then the pandemic hit and they’re just trying to get by) but it has become clear that they aren’t going to do anything to differentiate, enrich or teach at his level. The school has designated him as “gifted” but that seems to mean literally nothing. I’m concerned he won’t learn how to learn resilience when met with a challenge and feel like he’s being cheated out of the joy of working hard and learning a new concept. My husband was a gifted student and had a similar public school trajectory and is very wary of repeating it with our son.

We haven’t done any testing because it just hasn’t been on our radar to think that way, but he is extremely curious, a fast learner, gets concepts the first time, and has always been way ahead of kids his age. He scores way above the 99th %ile score on MAP tests and gets all A’s on his report card, while reporting school is boring.

He is a totally normal kid. He has friends of all ages and abilities, still plays on the floor with matchbox cars, loves video games, etc. Chatty AF and a bit impulsive, but friendly and a bit naïve for his age.

I know that many private deadlines have passed or are passing. But we are starting to feel like the school situation is untenable. MoCo has a Center for Enrichment Studies program for 4th and 5th, but the lottery is so inclusive that it is unlikely he will get in, and of course they don’t decide until after private deadlines. I am starting to feel like we are not doing right by our son to sit back year after year as the school system can’t educate him.

My question is, where do we even start? Is it really too late for 2022-23? I am not virtue signaling when I say that prestige or future Ivy acceptance is truly not the goal for us. My goal is for him to be lit up by new concepts and experiences and taught how to meet a challenge. I want a nurturing but challenging environment and certainly don’t want him in a high pressure situation. My worry is that we pay all this money for a private school to end up with the same issues where they are teaching to the bottom and my kid gets told to read a book in the corner. Do I need to seek out a gifted school? Or will all privates be able to better differentiate?

I know this is a broad question but I feel so green, so if anyone has any guidance I would really appreciate it!

[Anonymous]

I thought every kid was gifted……..

[Anonymous]

I have a kid like yours OP and no, the privates do not differentiate at this level. LS academics at many privates, especially in STEM subjects, are behind public schools (parents will say they're teaching children to go "deeper" and get a better number sense, but those have always come very naturally for my son). Exception might by Nysmith, we haven't tried it.

[Anonymous]

Maybe call St. Anselms or Nysmith.

[Anonymous]

St. Anselms begins in 6th.

[Anonymous]

Try Green Acres

[Anonymous]

I’m not sure where you live in MoCo but I would start reaching out to schools close to you. WES & Woods Academy in Bethesda. Norwood and Bullis in Potomac. Lowell and Burke in NW DC. SSFS in Olney.

Try to see which are still accepting applications and start from there.

[Anonymous]

OP- your instincts are correct that at this age a lot of private schools will not have a sufficiently advanced or enriched curriculum. Ask for curriculum guides and compare to MCPS. At the older ages I think you get more value in private.

[Anonymous]

Without testing to prove he's actually gifted, he sounds like the kid of every parent who posts on DCUM. True giftedness needs special schooling. If he's just a bright person like most kids of DCUM posters, then just let him be around other kids. There's a lot more to learning than just academics at his age. How are his leadership skills? Public speaking? Is he responsible? Kind to others? Creative? Does he stand up for others who need it?

There are many, many ways to learn resiliance and rising to meet challenges -- as there are many challenges outside of the academic world.

[Anonymous]

Seriously, just supplement a lot. Have him take language lessons, do fun advanced math/logic puzzles, send him to interesting camps. Re-evaluate private for middle school.

Private school is great but you aren't necessarily going to get more accelerated academics in 4th/5th grade. There are a lot of gifted kids who are not being particularly challenged at this age, but it's not that important. As they move into MS and HS, they will get experience doing "hard" academics and learning to cope with them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Seriously, just supplement a lot. Have him take language lessons, do fun advanced math/logic puzzles, send him to interesting camps. Re-evaluate private for middle school.

Private school is great but you aren't necessarily going to get more accelerated academics in 4th/5th grade. There are a lot of gifted kids who are not being particularly challenged at this age, but it's not that important. As they move into MS and HS, they will get experience doing "hard" academics and learning to cope with them.

This. And my HS BF truly was brilliant, full scholarship to MIT, math Olympian, etc. And save his parents getting him into college math/science classes in morning as he had already taken all of the available classes at our HS, his parents told him to figure the rest of it out on how to challenge himself as they were not going to allow him to graduate early.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Ok thanks everyone. I really appreciate the responses.

Serious question then - why private school if they don’t differentiate any better than public?

He’s in a Spanish immersion school, which we hoped would help enrich him a bit… and it has. But with Covid learning interruption they are still doing kindergarten level Spanish in third grade. He picks up languages very quickly so it’s another thing that’s now way too easy for him.

He’s a normal kid. He doesn’t want to take extra schooling on weekends or after school. He wants to ride bikes with friends and play with legos - and I value those things for him too. I do understand there are other ways he can learn to overcome a challenge - he’s been interested in starting guitar lessons, etc. - but there is a uniqueness to the school environment, and with the sheer amount of time spent there, I was hoping to find a place where he could actually be challenged regularly.

Thanks for the feedback though. Back to the drawing board I guess!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Ok thanks everyone. I really appreciate the responses.

Serious question then - why private school if they don’t differentiate any better than public?

He’s in a Spanish immersion school, which we hoped would help enrich him a bit… and it has. But with Covid learning interruption they are still doing kindergarten level Spanish in third grade. He picks up languages very quickly so it’s another thing that’s now way too easy for him.

He’s a normal kid. He doesn’t want to take extra schooling on weekends or after school. He wants to ride bikes with friends and play with legos - and I value those things for him too. I do understand there are other ways he can learn to overcome a challenge - he’s been interested in starting guitar lessons, etc. - but there is a uniqueness to the school environment, and with the sheer amount of time spent there, I was hoping to find a place where he could actually be challenged regularly.

Thanks for the feedback though. Back to the drawing board I guess!

Each school will be different. However, focusing on LS, the lack of differentiation is compensated for by having smaller class sizes so every student gets more individualized attention and the overall level of each kid will be within the same range and higher than public which will allow for the class to cover more material in more depth.

Also, most schools don’t do testing so teaching and curriculum is structured around learning instead of the tests. This is related to the level of the students in that in public schools/teachers are evaluated based on how many students meet minimum standards which means that there are incentives to ensure that resources and attention are focused on lower performing kids and higher performing kids frequently can be ignored. In private you can guarantee that your kid won’t be ignored. For some kids it doesn’t make a big difference, they work independently in any case. For other kids this can make a big difference.

My feeling is that K-3 really doesn’t matter, so long as your public option is not a Title I school although even Title I ESs can be fine. At 4th is when learning organization and study skills becomes more important. You will see many privates focus on this at that age over actual instruction, which I think is good. Learning how to learn is probably the most important thing that kids can learn.

However, each school is different, each kid is different and YMMV.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Ok thanks everyone. I really appreciate the responses.

Serious question then - why private school if they don’t differentiate any better than public?

He’s in a Spanish immersion school, which we hoped would help enrich him a bit… and it has. But with Covid learning interruption they are still doing kindergarten level Spanish in third grade. He picks up languages very quickly so it’s another thing that’s now way too easy for him.

He’s a normal kid. He doesn’t want to take extra schooling on weekends or after school. He wants to ride bikes with friends and play with legos - and I value those things for him too. I do understand there are other ways he can learn to overcome a challenge - he’s been interested in starting guitar lessons, etc. - but there is a uniqueness to the school environment, and with the sheer amount of time spent there, I was hoping to find a place where he could actually be challenged regularly.

Thanks for the feedback though. Back to the drawing board I guess!

Do you have an option to switch out of Spanish immersion (since it sounds like he's not really getting Spanish) to another school or track? If so I might explore with the school whether that program would offer any additional opportunities for differentiation. In my experience there's less differentiation in the language immersion programs because 1) the teachers are already juggling an extra load with the language component, and 2) they think the language itself is sufficiently challenging and place a lower priority on additional differentiation.

As for why private, there are so many reasons. We love the smaller classes, the focus on outdoor time and activities, and the more developmentally appropriate instruction, particularly in the lower school. We've found teachers vary widely in terms of their ability to differentiate - first grade was amazing, second was mostly remote and there was no differentiation (or challenge) at all, and third has been a mixed bag. That said, from talking with friends whose kids are in public school they get even less differentiation and less challenge. Most friends with kids who started in public made it to around the point you are at and moved them to private. No one felt like it was a perfect solution, but most felt it was better.

[Anonymous]

OP, if your child is a self-starter, a school like Lowell with a progressive education philosophy and project-based learning might be more challenging and interesting for him.