Where are you sending your high IQ child

[Anonymous]

Just to give a different perspective . . . our highly to profoundly gifted daughter suddenly became a behavior problem in kindergarten, where she was far ahead of the curriculum. We went up the chain of command, got her tested, presented info about meeting gifted children's needs and the results of not doing so, and were met with general pooh-poohing (this was at "the best school in the city.") We followed our instincts, and switched her to a school for gifted children mid-year (not Nysmith - this was in the midwest), and POOF! all those behavior issues magically disappeared.

DD is now in 4th grade and even though she is in a different school now, still behaves appropriately at school. She (and her younger brother) still have the quirkiness and sensitivity to which you refer, and it is harder to deal with in a mainstream school but easier now that she is older. Good luck. I'll be interested to hear what schools people recommend here. We're moving to NoVA in a few months and want to get the school match right.

[Anonymous]

If you expect our local independent schools to provide an appropriate academic program for a gifted child you will be disappointed. It is like expecting that the school's sports program will prepare your talented gymnast child to compete for a place on the US Olympics gymnastics team.

At bottom, independent schools are market institutions and their clientele are children (90-99th percentile). The top schools do a great job educating their target clientele, but although they may talk a good game,
they don't do nearly as much for those outside their expected parameters.

Just to give an example that does not involve giftedness, one my friends recently went on a tour of a top school. She noticed that the Spanish class in third grade was still at the beginner level. Since her DC was fluent in spoken and written Spanish it was clear that the language program was inapproprite for DC and would only be a waste of time, at best. She inquired whether the school could make provisions for DC do something else during this time --- either a language at higher level or some other subject/project. The answer was a clear no --- the AD made it clear that when such situations arose, and apparently they do with some regularity, no differentiation was possible and the student was expected to take the inappropriate class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OK, I totally hate labels, and I find it uncomfortable to talk about IQ. But on a forum like this, I figure I can do it. My DC is on the relative high IQ level (138). Not a genius, but bright. While a pretty normal kid in a lot of ways, he is quirky sometimes too and is VERY sensitive emotionally. My child is also exhibiting behavioral issues that I believe, in part, are due to his school and lack of challenge. His teachers dismiss that he may need more challenging work and he complains that the work is "stupid"l and is for little kids (he is 5). I am honestly concerned that I need to switch schools but I don't know where best to look. I welcome input from parents who have gone through similar experiences. We live in Bethesda. I am open to input on public, private, nysmith, etc. Thanks for your feedback and ideas. Also-- does anyone know of a doctor/educator or some kind of specialist that might be able to help us connect the dots on behavior, IQ, school environment, etc.? Again appreciate all input. Thanks for taking the time.

"His teachers dismiss that he may need more challenging work ..." This is a big red flag! Did the teachers give a reason why they believe this? You need to ask for hard data. I don't know what school system you're in, but you should ask if he was assessed at the beginning of the year for on grade level skills. For example, in MoCo, most teaching is now done w/ a pre/post assessment system. If the pre-assessment shows that your son already has a mastery of skills to be taught, then there can be clear discussion about what to do. If your school system doesn't use this pre/post assessment style of teaching, you can still look up grade level skills required to be mastered by the end of the year and check them off, w/ notes as to where your child really is.

For example, if the K skills show that the child know the alphabet and beginning phonetic sounds, and your child already knows how to read, then it's clear there needs to be another plan for him. You can ask for reading level assessments, or get a rough idea of reading level yourself by looking up titles your child has read to himself at www.lexile.com. As for math, if the expectation by the end of preK is that children can count to 20, and your child already counts to over 100 and knows basic math addition facts (as does mine), then you can have a clearer discussion of his special math needs.

The trick is, I've found, is to have some clear assessment of skills to be taught vs. skills already mastered. Once you can show that a substantial number skills to be taught, your son has already mastered, then you might get somewhere. In my experience, talking about IQ (although relevant), really gets educator's backs up. Stick to skills if you can.

A teacher who, in the face of skills mastered evidence, still won't accelerate, is a big problem ... We confronted this in our local supposedly good upper NW DCPS, where teachers openly admitted that our child was far above grade level but refused to assign appropriate work because it might make other kids feel bad. They had no recognition of the negative effects of boredom and lack of challenge... We found MoCo public schools much more receptive to these issues than DCPS or private schools we looked at. We made the change and are VERY happy in MoCo, although I hear that willingness to differentiate/accelerate/compact can vary by school even in MoCo.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you expect our local independent schools to provide an appropriate academic program for a gifted child you will be disappointed. It is like expecting that the school's sports program will prepare your talented gymnast child to compete for a place on the US Olympics gymnastics team.

At bottom, independent schools are market institutions and their clientele are children (90-99th percentile). The top schools do a great job educating their target clientele, but although they may talk a good game,
they don't do nearly as much for those outside their expected parameters.

I don't understand this comment. If the target clientele is for kids scoring in the 90-99%ile on the WPPSI, odds are they are all gifted or close to, no? That's a %ile, not an IQ. I would expect that 90-99% on the WPPSI is going to be something like 115-160 IQ (do IQ tests still max out at 160 or am I showing my age?). My kid scored above a 115 IQ on the WPPSI so I am extrapolating, which is always dangerous and usually wrong. Back in the dark ages when I was in school in Pennsylvania, you needed an IQ of 130 to be in the gifted program, so most of the kids in independent schools would meet that cut off if my calculations are correct. Please clarify.

One of the reasons I send my kid to an independent school is because of my terrible early experiences in elementary school before the gifted program. (Boredom does not always equal bad behavior, but sometimes it does!) If the independent schools can't handle a kid with an IQ well over 100, what's left? Home schooling?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If the independent schools can't handle a kid with an IQ well over 100, what's left? Home schooling?

I'd say it depends on how far above 100.

Many independent schools are on the small side and unlikely to have a critical mass of profoundly gifted students. They may therefore struggle to challenge these students appropriately. A large school system like MOCO is more likely to have a significant (albeit still small) number of such students.

On the other hand, if you are talking about more run-of-the-mill gifted students--kids who are really smart but not profoundly gifted--a good independent school should be fine. I'd be willing to bet most of the 99th percentile kids we hear about here fall into this category.

[Anonymous]

In terms of meeting the needs of a highly gifted kid, even some in the top 3 don't offer advanced math in the middle school level (we didn't look at all of them, so I can't speak for them all). When we heard this during the open house, DC looked at me and made a face.

[Anonymous]

Which ones?

[Anonymous]

Neither Sidwell nor NCS offers Algebra in 7th grade, I can't speak to GDS. So DC, who had done pre-Algebra in private 6th grade, was looking at repeating it in 7th. (Before I get flamed, I should say that DC did get into one of these two schools and waitlisted at the other, and the decision to go public included a number of other factors, including obviously money, but this was also a factor. Also I know 3 other families who turned down Sidwell and(!)/or NCS in favor of MoCo magnets.)

I realize, however, that there are differences of opinion about whether 7th graders should be hurried into Algebra. Some of these reasons are pretty good -- not all kids are ready to handle abstract thinking. Also kids may forget important concepts if they never understood them correctly to begin with.

Also, why rush -- so that you can do Calculus in 10th grade instead of 12th? Will this really change a kid's life? In MoCo magnets you do have the option of doing post-Calculus things like Linear Algebra and Econometrics in 12th grade, but in many schools you top out with Calculus so rushing the sequence may not serve much purpose, except perhaps for alleviating boredom in the near term.

For DC I think it worked well to do Algebra in 7th. But I should say that as DC isn't out of middle school yet, so the jury is still out on the impact this will have on DC's high school experience.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for the information. At these schools, would she have been required to sit through the same material for a second time? Or would the school have offered some alternative?

[Anonymous]

At one of these two schools I'm certain that the answer was yes, DC would have had to repeat pre-Algebra. At the other school I actually don't remember the math placement policy.

I'd suggest you ask them directly for more current information that I can give, as we looked a year ago. A quick peak at their websites suggestions not much has changed in terms of the offerings themselves. But either or both may have changed placement policies since we looked at them.

[Anonymous]

Sorry, typing too fast, that's "quick peek" and "suggests"!

[Anonymous]

Comparisons across independent schools can be tricky. I believe that in one of the schools you mentioned there is an (underadvertised?) option of being in a track that does a pre-algebra/some algebra combo in 7th grade. But to find out whether this provides enough challenge for a particular student you would need to talk to the math teachers directly.

[Anonymous]

21:57 from 10/29 here again. I think this kind of question is much harder if you live in MoCo or Fairfax. A work colleague's daughter who is in Fairfax is in the gifted program and has enrolled in college math courses the last two years. Now she is taking, as a senior, a class that is called whatever the new name for what MIT used to call "Differential Equations" 20 years ago, as far as I can tell.

I live in DC, which doesn't even have a gifted program in the system at all. I'm assuming they will teach to the median and everybody else just has to deal.

I'm sort of jealous of you MD and VA folks who get to make these nuanced and complicated decisions. Given my kid's gene pool, I doubt I am going to be looking for a "DiffEQs" class for her in 12th grade (serious verbal and performing arts ability - now you're talking), but if I am looking for that, I am going to post here and talk to all of you!

Thanks for the clarifications and interesting discussion.

[Anonymous]

What is considered "high" IQ?

[Anonymous]

In general, I think 130 and above is considered a "gifted" cut off. Certainly the world is much different for someone at 130 and for one at 150. 150 being "very gifted" go to any IQ website and they differentiate the categories for you.