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How is your local DCPS elementary treating your 99th percentile child?
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Anonymous
| Am I the only one who is uncomfortable with the term "high achieving child?" These kids haven't achieved anything yet. They may be very bright, but lots of very bright people I know haven't "achieved" huge things in life while others who wouldn't have been pegged as gifted in school have major accomplishments under their belts. Using that term makes it sound like your child's life has already been determined to be blessed to be successful. You aren't there yet. I say this as a parent of a child with 99+% test scores. He's nine. He's achieved third grade. |
Anonymous
| 14:04, if you want to start another thread on this I'm happy to continue this discussion there. The problem in MoCo is that there are lots of extremely bright kids, the problem is how to choose just a few for the limited spaces. And my information comes from parents who've told me their strategies -- most of these are not my own kid's year, or they probably wouldn't have confided in me. |
Anonymous
| The whole G&T thing is overrated. All of my friends children tested with IQs in the gifted range and they have very different learning styles and levels of success in school. Having that label and the enrichment classes does not guarantee success in school. In Montgomery County, like Wobegon, every kid is above average. This is why I opted for private school over MoCo. The District does not have G&T, but I do not think it's a big loss. The graduates of Wilson and Walls did fabulously in their college admissions this year. |
Anonymous
As far as I'm aware, there is no hard cut off numbers-wise for "gifted" designation in MoCo. Can this poster please cite to source if there is? The GT testing in MoCo involves input from several sources -- parents, teachers, GT testing, and academic performance. So, the idea that only those who test in the 99%ile have access to gifted programs is not entirely correct. Also, MoCo has GT/LD programs, and LD (learning disabled) children often have issues that keep them from testing at the 99%ile even when they are clearly gifted. Numbers do not tell the whole gifted story in MoCo. |
Anonymous
DCPS has no gifted programs across the system at the moment, although Chancellor Rhee has mentioned creating a gifted middle school (too little, too late in my opinion). There is no systemic GT testing of individual students, no GT curriculum or even standard add-on components for enrichment, nor standard ways of compacting curriculum. By contrast, MoCo tests all kids at the end of 2nd grade, has standard ways of accelerating in math, standard reading programs that can be used for enrichment, and systemic/specialized gifted programs for 4/5th graders and middle school gifted magnets, as well as GT/LD programs. |
Anonymous
There are 4/5th grade programs called something like "centers for the highly gifted" -- usually one center for a few high school clusters. You apply for these programs, and there are more applicants than spaces. If accepted, your child moves from the home school to the Center for 4th and 5th grade, and then goes back to the home school if it has a 6th grade, or moves on to middle school if the home school does not have a 6th grade (few do anymore). There are also middle school gifted programs (6/7/8 grades) -- for example, Takoma Park is a middle school gifted magnet for math and science. Eastern has a gifted program in the humanities. Applications are required for both. If your home school is one of the few that still has a sixth grade, in order to attend the gifted middle school program, your child leaves that home school elementary a year before his peers (although most of the rest of the county goes to middle school for 6th grade) |
Anonymous
Yes, it is completely ad hoc. Our child was in DCPS in upper NW -- supposedly one of the better schools. She has tested 99.9%ile, although we didn't know those numbers when she entered preK. It was clear that she was ahead of the curve in preK though because she talked in a very complex way for her age. She learned to read in the first few months of preK (although not at school -- many kids there didn't even know the alphabet yet.) Her preK teacher came to me at the beginning of the school year and said she had identified her for extra reading tutoring since she was so clearly ahead, but that same teacher came back a few weeks later and said that all the tutors would be used instead for kids who needed extra help to get the basics (sorry, nothing for us). PreK and K were not such a problem because she was enjoying the social aspect of school and getting used to the rules/routine. She learned some, but not a lot. Most of her learning came at home, and not because I worked her, but because she had the classic never-ending questions of a gifted child and a ridiculously good (and annoyingly good, at times) memory. First grade was OK, because we got a great teacher (fluke), who really tried to teach to the different levels in the class. He did this totally on his own, and had no support from the administration or system for it. Second grade was a disaster. Our daughter was bored. She spent most of the day reading silently at her desk after finishing her work. She could read hundreds of pages a day like this. The teachers insisted on not breaking kids into groups for instruction, even though there were at least 2 other children at the same level, because it might hurt other kids feelings. Even though DD tested at the 6th grade reading level, she was never assigned any books to read appropriate to her level. There was "enrichment" offered in math once a week by a parent, which was good but totally disconnected to the curriculum. Other than that one day of math enrichment a week, she had to sit thru months of addition and subtraction work which she already knew. Even after meeting with the principal, there was no response. Socially, it was clear that our daughter was learning not to raise her hand because she would not be called on because she knew the answer (her words). She was teased by classmates because she brought more adult reading material to class to read to herself during reading time. We knew it was time to flee when she started having meltdowns when she couldn't do something. Essentially, because she was never challenged in class, in the rare times she did get confronted by something she didn't know, she would freak out and insist that she was terrible at it (having difficulty with a math problem ? -- "i'm terrible at math, I hate math, etc., etc.). I could see all the classic signs of burgeoning depression, self-doubt and under-achievement .... I looked long and hard at all our other schooling options both private and public. I chose Montgomery County because it has a very systematic approach to GT. All kids are tested & all are supposed to be offered differentiation. None of the private schools I visited seemed to have any differentiation options. Within a week of starting at the new MoCo school, our daughter had been identified to skip a grade in math, and her teacher encouraged her to do a special research project when she exhibited a great deal of interest in a subject. Her new teachers and school totally get her and have offered her many appropriate opportunities we would have never gotten in DCPS. The social atmosphere is much better for her because she has more academic peers. We will consider applying for a highly gifted center in elementary school, but I think she will be OK in the home school if left there. The academic work is much more rigorous and creative in MoCo than we experienced in DCPS. Too bad, because I loved DC and would not have left except for the school issue. As far as I'm concerned Chancellor Rhee is a big improvement, and, based on our own experience, she should sack more teachers (and administrators) not fewer ..... |
Anonymous
| Wow PP I'm 14:03 poster. Thanks for your story. I hate to leave DC too but we are stumped on what to do with our son. |
Anonymous
| DC has no resources for gifted and talented children. There are so many underperforming schools that the focus is on the students lagging behind. Which is why parents of children who require more differentiated or advanced curricula flee to Md. or private. My son isn't gifted (although he is bright), but we found that after 4th grade in our highly regarded DCPS, the teacher was spending more time on teaching for the test and trying to keep order in the classroom that our son just wasn't getting what he needed. We're now in private school. |
Anonymous
| any feedback from DCPS charter school parents on this issue? Do any of the charters (Capitol City, EL Haynes e.g.) address GT? |
Anonymous
| Alice Deal will be starting an IB program for 6th graders starting next year so if you're OK with no G&T in elementary school, you should be all set for middle school (and I suspect Wilson will soon follow suit with its own IB program). |
Anonymous
will Wilson have it's own IB program? A few years agao, I heard that Wilson considered IB and turned it down because they thought it would track the participating students too much, separating them out from the general population. AP courses were considered OK, because a kid decides to whether or not to take each AP class individually -- AP isn't a whole program. If Wilson doesn't have an IB program then I don't understand how kids continue -- will they have to apply to Banneker near Howard University? |
Anonymous
| I've heard alot of mixed assessments of IB. I've listened to a presentation on Deal's IB program. It is the entire school that is participating so it really isn't a program. It isn't a curriculum either - it is more the how than the what of teaching. Wilson does not offer it. The middle years program is designed for 6-10 with the diploma program offered 11-12. So deal will go to 8th and it looks like it will end then unless perhaps Banneker offers it? |
Anonymous
Banneker already has an IB program. |
Anonymous
but Banneker is an application school, if I understood correctly. What happens if you go to Deal, want to continue IB but don't get into Banneker? |