Gifted programs, options

[Anonymous]

There are limits to what any school system, let alone DCPS with its challenges, can do for profoundly gifted, or even highly gifted kids.

Our DS, who is probably somewhere in the latter category, was allowed to accelerate with online classes in math in middle school and is taking Calc BC in 9th. Since he had to be enrolled in a math class every year, they formally put him in a class but he would just print out IMO/IMO Short List problems every day from home and work out the proofs in class or teach himself something new. It did help him quite a bit for what he wanted but it isn't the same thing as working with an instructor.

There is essentially no mechanism for middle schoolers to take college level classes in DCPS, and nor do I expect it. The dual enrollment program for high schoolers could be made stronger, but scheduling classes and transportation makes it quite challenging on the student and budgetary issues remain a constraint for the school.

In my many years lurking on this forum, I haven't really heard any practical solution for how a really talented kid's needs were managed (i.e. college classes while in high school etc.) through DCPS or a charter school -- the one kid I know of who was a concert level pianist in middle school wasn't served well in Deal and had to leave for conservatory.

[Anonymous]

"Profoundly gifted" is all a matter of semantics. The traditional definition was an IQ of 180+ and a rarity of less than 1 per 1,000,000 people. Those are the kids with extreme needs who end up graduating from college as 12 year olds.

Then, there's the DYS definition of calling every kid with a 145+ IQ "profoundly gifted." DYS type profoundly gifted kids occur at a rarity of around 1 per 1000. There are many kids like this served in regular magnet or gifted programs. In the old school definition, they'd be called "highly gifted" and not "profoundly gifted."

Almost everyone claiming to have a "profoundly gifted" child is using the DYS definition.

[Anonymous]

^ PP here. The point is not to quibble over whether someone's kid ought to be called profoundly gifted. It's that using the term when asking for educational advice, as OP did, is meaningless if people don't know which definition of "profoundly gifted" applies. There are options out there for DYS level gifted kids. There aren't any real public options for kids who are like 6+ grade levels ahead in all subjects and who have an absurdly high IQ.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was just told that the "smart kids" had to spread out among the grade so there wasn't too much of a concentration of kids in one class. This means my kids friend group is split up. And it also means there is no interest in pushing a high achieving cohort. this is our last year in a Title 1 school.

Wow, that is terrible especially since there likely isn’t a large number of high achieving kids to begin with. I would definitely get out.

+1. Are school ensures the kids are grouped in a way so that each class has chunks big enough to provide appropriate differentiation. If there's a tiny top tier of achievers, they'd all be in the same class. At our school, there's enough to split them between two classes (which is not all of them).

[Anonymous]

^ Sorry, talk to text error! Our school, obviously...