GT children at independent schools

[Anonymous]

To the poster above who asked for more info re. WPSCII scores and cutoffs (I am the NYC poster).

Our children attended private schools in NYC; that is how we are familiar with the system there.

They now attend a well-regarded private school in DC. I have been told directly by teachers and administrators at several schools that WPSCII scores are not a major part of the admissions process; that they do not seek out high scores but rather use the scores to "select out" only those who score very low. There are a wide range of IQs in each of the schools. This is fine for most parents; parents of GT kids who assume the "top tier" schools are picking the upper 5-10% of IQs and teaching accordingly just need to be aware that this is not the case.

[Anonymous]

My daughter who is now in third grade, attended an independent school in DC from Pre-K until February of 1st grade. We switched her schools in the middle of first grade.

My daughter has an IQ which would suggest she is gifted. She also had issues getting along with kids and with attention, according to the school. We paid to have her evaluated and the recommendation was that her verbal skills, which are quite advanced, caused social conflict with same age peers and ideally she should be grouped with older kids. None of he tests indicated that she had an attention issue.

During Pre-K she was in a combined Pre-K-K classroom and did very well. She had previously done a year of PreK at her day care because they tracked on ability and she had a November birthday. Didn't miss the cut off by much.

The school would not take the phycologist recommendation. This was followed bt another year and half of complaints about social skills and little comment about academics. Finally the school focued on my daughter's inabililty to be considerate of others -- that was her big social problem. Then one day she spent 20 minutes in the bathroom and got in trouble for being gone so long. According to my daughter no one asked why she was gone. I asked her. She was cleaning the backroom floor so no one fell -- it had snowed and the kids tracked in mud. So much for being inconsiderate.

Her best friend was with her at the time. The punishment was that neither of them were allowed to leave to go to the bathroom by themselves for the rest of the week. The teacher and her friend forgot this and allowed the friend to go to the bathroom alone the next day. My daughter remembered so when she needed to go to the bathroom she reminded the teacher. The teacher called the best friend over to scold her for not having remembered and said, "don't become like her." Meaning my daughter, while my daughter was listening. My daughter only went to school there one more day, and that was because of the Valentine's Day party.

From our 2 1/2 year experience, I believe this particular school is more interested in social IQ then intellectual IQ. This particular school is much more about social engineering. It was not a good fit for us. I don't subscribe to the theory that all people have to be best friends with everyone else. You must be polite and respectful but not necessarily best friends. It sure seemed like that was their goal.

We decided to take Dr. Irvin's approach -- send your kid to school in the early years close to home so they can have friends and fun (my take one her comments). My daughter now attends our local Catholic school, we are catholic, and she loves it! They do differentiate the instruction as much as they can. Most importantly, my daughter feels appreciated and liked. Nothing is worse then spending all day at a place where people don't like you. My husband and I can teacher her a lot of the academic stuff ourselves, and at the rate she reads she can teach herself!

I hope this helps. FYI -- my neighbor across the street's oldest boy is gifted, went to basic catholic schools and is now in his second year at Harvard on scholarship. In my opinion, some giftedness is innate -- these kids will learn what is around them without effort. Other kids are "gifted" because of what they have been taught, some effort was made by someone. Just something to think about.

[Anonymous]

NP to the thread here. I just wanted to say that - as an adult who was a child who was finally tested at age 12 and tested as HG (165, not sure of the test type) - the experience of scapegoating of HG children by teachers outside of G&T programs is NOT uncommon at all - and, for children with good social skills, far more of an issue than isolation from peers.

I attended 7 different educational settings before ending up in a G&T program in 6th grade. My only good experiences during these years were during pre-K and K which were at a Montessori school where I was allowed to pursue any given learning area to the furthest degree without even knowing that my performance was unusual in any way - and the G&T program in 6th grade in which I was separated out with other gifted children for certain subjects.

Here's an example of the scapegoating by mainstream teachers and the contrast with G&T teaching:

In 5th grade I was in a mainstream program with a teacher who publicly shamed me (called me - in front of the class - a know-it-all and other worse names that I just don't remember and even once in frustration slapped me) for - among other things - pointing out errors in the answer section of our workbooks, raising my hand when I knew the answer (as we were supposed to do) and helping my classmates with their work when they asked. Keep in mind, I had no idea that I was "smarter" than the teacher at that point - I assumed that everyone could do what I could do intellectually, and this assumption was especially true of teachers. I also assumed that, like I did, everyone else would want to know more, to learn more, to know what was correct versus not correct. I was, fwiw, popular enough with peers, who even comforted me in secret on the playground about the teacher's treatment of me. My experience in that setting contributed to my developing clinical depression that year. This is, yes, an extreme example - but not hugely so compared to my experiences in other mainstream settings.

My experience to my classes in 6th grade that were with a G&T teacher who enjoyed and wanted to teach gifted children could not have contrasted more greatly. My teacher there recognized, through her experience, that all workbooks and text books contained errors and that gifted children would be drawn to noticing them. She gave extra credit for pointing them out and being able to explain why they were wrong. She appeared to take delight in our learning and was never threatened or shaming in any degree. I cannot even put into words the relief and the difference in terms of my emotional well-being that year.

From what I have observed of discussion about gifted children, the issue of potential teacher maltreatment is often overlooked by parents in their consideration of how best to meet their children's needs. So please take this information in the helpful spirit in which it is offered.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Would an academically gifted child who is highly sociable be better off in MD or VA public school, where he or she could be in a GT program, than in an independent school? I'm starting to that that might be the case for our DC, who is both highly gifted and highly sociable, and who by all accounts had a stellar application, yet was unable to secure a spot at any of the independent schools we applied to. Our concern is that even the "prestigious" independent schools wouldn't be able to sufficiently challenge our child. Perhaps being turned away was a blessing in disguise.

Theoretically, yes. In MoCo, at least, however, there is a great deal of difference across schools when it comes to getting actual individualized instruction for gifted kids. MoCo is also toying with the idea of dropping the "gifted" label altogether, while retaining the ELL and LD labels, and this causes some concern for parents. Individual schools also have different practices regarding differentiation. Many schools are leaning toward heterogeneous grouping within the classroom. In some cases, "magnet" now means putting magnet kids at a table to read on their own. Class size is also very important when considering whether differentiation is going to work at all. All of these issues are affected by budgetary concerns in MoCo, and I would assume the same is true in Virginia. You may want to read some posts from the MoCo Gifted and Talented Association's GTA Letters group on Yahoo Groups to get some background on all of this as it relates to MoCo.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would an academically gifted child who is highly sociable be better off in MD or VA public school, where he or she could be in a GT program, than in an independent school? I'm starting to that that might be the case for our DC, who is both highly gifted and highly sociable, and who by all accounts had a stellar application, yet was unable to secure a spot at any of the independent schools we applied to. Our concern is that even the "prestigious" independent schools wouldn't be able to sufficiently challenge our child. Perhaps being turned away was a blessing in disguise.

Theoretically, yes. In MoCo, at least, however, there is a great deal of difference across schools when it comes to getting actual individualized instruction for gifted kids. MoCo is also toying with the idea of dropping the "gifted" label altogether, while retaining the ELL and LD labels, and this causes some concern for parents. Individual schools also have different practices regarding differentiation. Many schools are leaning toward heterogeneous grouping within the classroom. In some cases, "magnet" now means putting magnet kids at a table to read on their own. Class size is also very important when considering whether differentiation is going to work at all. All of these issues are affected by budgetary concerns in MoCo, and I would assume the same is true in Virginia. You may want to read some posts from the MoCo Gifted and Talented Association's GTA Letters group on Yahoo Groups to get some background on all of this as it relates to MoCo.

details please

You're definitely not including schools like Eastern MS in your description. correct? How are you defining magnet?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My daughter who is now in third grade, attended an independent school in DC from Pre-K until February of 1st grade. We switched her schools in the middle of first grade.

My daughter has an IQ which would suggest she is gifted. She also had issues getting along with kids and with attention, according to the school. We paid to have her evaluated and the recommendation was that her verbal skills, which are quite advanced, caused social conflict with same age peers and ideally she should be grouped with older kids. None of he tests indicated that she had an attention issue.

During Pre-K she was in a combined Pre-K-K classroom and did very well. She had previously done a year of PreK at her day care because they tracked on ability and she had a November birthday. Didn't miss the cut off by much.

This school is not social-engineering, it is mean!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter who is now in third grade, attended an independent school in DC from Pre-K until February of 1st grade. We switched her schools in the middle of first grade.

My daughter has an IQ which would suggest she is gifted. She also had issues getting along with kids and with attention, according to the school. We paid to have her evaluated and the recommendation was that her verbal skills, which are quite advanced, caused social conflict with same age peers and ideally she should be grouped with older kids. None of he tests indicated that she had an attention issue.

During Pre-K she was in a combined Pre-K-K classroom and did very well. She had previously done a year of PreK at her day care because they tracked on ability and she had a November birthday. Didn't miss the cut off by much.

This school is not social-engineering, it is mean!

huh?

[Anonymous]

It seems the school is mean because the teacher forbid the child from going to bathroom.

[Anonymous]

wow I could have written so muc of this earlier stuff but just joining in now. I too was called a know it all as a HG kid in regular old public school. My DC was also reading at age 2, and read Harry potter in pre K, and one could say socially is not as advanced. But i want to add to the discussion not just shout me too, me too!

I have a child in the cathedral schools (NCS/STA) and for the first time ever, they are being challenged. It isn't differentiation, it is other kids who can do what they can do. That makes a big difference to not feel like you are so far ahead everyone else.

I love the school and the way they have motivated this child to be the best they can be, to become organized, to read and then to read some more...being smart is cool, and recognized by the other kids as a cool thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would an academically gifted child who is highly sociable be better off in MD or VA public school, where he or she could be in a GT program, than in an independent school? I'm starting to that that might be the case for our DC, who is both highly gifted and highly sociable, and who by all accounts had a stellar application, yet was unable to secure a spot at any of the independent schools we applied to. Our concern is that even the "prestigious" independent schools wouldn't be able to sufficiently challenge our child. Perhaps being turned away was a blessing in disguise.

Theoretically, yes. In MoCo, at least, however, there is a great deal of difference across schools when it comes to getting actual individualized instruction for gifted kids. MoCo is also toying with the idea of dropping the "gifted" label altogether, while retaining the ELL and LD labels, and this causes some concern for parents. Individual schools also have different practices regarding differentiation. Many schools are leaning toward heterogeneous grouping within the classroom. In some cases, "magnet" now means putting magnet kids at a table to read on their own. Class size is also very important when considering whether differentiation is going to work at all. All of these issues are affected by budgetary concerns in MoCo, and I would assume the same is true in Virginia. You may want to read some posts from the MoCo Gifted and Talented Association's GTA Letters group on Yahoo Groups to get some background on all of this as it relates to MoCo.

details please

You're definitely not including schools like Eastern MS in your description. correct? How are you defining magnet?

I'm defining "magnet" as county-designated magnet programs within MoCo schools. I don't have any experience with Eastern MS. What I am learning however, is that magnet programs can involve as little as letting kids read at their own pace at a separate table, and magnet-specific classes can be open to anyone. Magnet and GT services vary greatly by school. The future of GT education in MoCo is very much up in the air.

I guess my primary point is that just relying on "magnet" or "GT" programs isn't a guarantee of meaningful acceleration or individualized instruction.
Instead, I recommend getting information through both the parent groups on Yahoo Groups, GTA and Parents Coalition. I also recommend talking directly with parents who have experience with the specific programs you are interested in. Then you'll have the kind of information you need to make informed decisions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would an academically gifted child who is highly sociable be better off in MD or VA public school, where he or she could be in a GT program, than in an independent school? I'm starting to that that might be the case for our DC, who is both highly gifted and highly sociable, and who by all accounts had a stellar application, yet was unable to secure a spot at any of the independent schools we applied to. Our concern is that even the "prestigious" independent schools wouldn't be able to sufficiently challenge our child. Perhaps being turned away was a blessing in disguise.

Theoretically, yes. In MoCo, at least, however, there is a great deal of difference across schools when it comes to getting actual individualized instruction for gifted kids. MoCo is also toying with the idea of dropping the "gifted" label altogether, while retaining the ELL and LD labels, and this causes some concern for parents. Individual schools also have different practices regarding differentiation. Many schools are leaning toward heterogeneous grouping within the classroom. In some cases, "magnet" now means putting magnet kids at a table to read on their own. Class size is also very important when considering whether differentiation is going to work at all. All of these issues are affected by budgetary concerns in MoCo, and I would assume the same is true in Virginia. You may want to read some posts from the MoCo Gifted and Talented Association's GTA Letters group on Yahoo Groups to get some background on all of this as it relates to MoCo.

details please

You're definitely not including schools like Eastern MS in your description. correct? How are you defining magnet?

I'm defining "magnet" as county-designated magnet programs within MoCo schools. I don't have any experience with Eastern MS. What I am learning however, is that magnet programs can involve as little as letting kids read at their own pace at a separate table, and magnet-specific classes can be open to anyone. Magnet and GT services vary greatly by school. The future of GT education in MoCo is very much up in the air.

I guess my primary point is that just relying on "magnet" or "GT" programs isn't a guarantee of meaningful acceleration or individualized instruction.
Instead, I recommend getting information through both the parent groups on Yahoo Groups, GTA and Parents Coalition. I also recommend talking directly with parents who have experience with the specific programs you are interested in. Then you'll have the kind of information you need to make informed decisions.

I would agree with the above comments about the gray in the meaning of MoCo magnet classes, and I would add that the MoCo terminology "magnet" is very confusing because it is applied by MCPS to two very different types of schools. There are application-only magnets for which kids are tested and get parent and teacher recommendations, such as Eastern, Takoma Park Middle School and the Highly Gifted Centers -- these generally have a curriculum "above" the normal Mo Co -wide curriculum. I'd call them "selective magnets."

Then there are thematic "magnets" such as the middle school magnet consortium of Loiderman, Argyle and Parkland, which have thematic studies. Students also have to apply to these, but these are not "selective" admissions in the sense that grades, test scores, etc. determine admittance (they don't). I think Argyle is a performing arts school, Loiderman has something to do with aeronautics, and I can't remember about the other. Another example would be an elementary math and science magnet school -- ours takes just neighborhood kids, but has a special focus on math and science, but that doesn't really equate to an entirely separate or much more highly rigorous curriculum. MoCo is touting these non-selective middle school magnets as good models for increasing rigor in their middle school reform efforts. Many parents question how much more rigorous these classes are and whether it would just be better to expand the curricula developed for the selective middle school magnets. Well, many parents would even question if there is a "curricula" for the selective magnets in any case; there seems to be obstruction on the part of MCPS to clearly and transparently outlining what the selective magnet curricula is.

For this reason, I would agree with the comment that "magnet" doesn't necessarily mean meaningful acceleration or individualized instruction. Same with GT, because "meaningful" has a very different meaning when applied to each different student. For some, the GT "acceleration" of reading a book 1 grade ahead might be "meaningful" for others who read several grades ahead it is "meaningless". That is why many parents would like to see MoCo develop a standardized "gifted" curricula and pathway in language arts, and other subjects, as has been done in the maths to some extent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would an academically gifted child who is highly sociable be better off in MD or VA public school, where he or she could be in a GT program, than in an independent school? I'm starting to that that might be the case for our DC, who is both highly gifted and highly sociable, and who by all accounts had a stellar application, yet was unable to secure a spot at any of the independent schools we applied to. Our concern is that even the "prestigious" independent schools wouldn't be able to sufficiently challenge our child. Perhaps being turned away was a blessing in disguise.

Theoretically, yes. In MoCo, at least, however, there is a great deal of difference across schools when it comes to getting actual individualized instruction for gifted kids. MoCo is also toying with the idea of dropping the "gifted" label altogether, while retaining the ELL and LD labels, and this causes some concern for parents. Individual schools also have different practices regarding differentiation. Many schools are leaning toward heterogeneous grouping within the classroom. In some cases, "magnet" now means putting magnet kids at a table to read on their own. Class size is also very important when considering whether differentiation is going to work at all. All of these issues are affected by budgetary concerns in MoCo, and I would assume the same is true in Virginia. You may want to read some posts from the MoCo Gifted and Talented Association's GTA Letters group on Yahoo Groups to get some background on all of this as it relates to MoCo.

details please

You're definitely not including schools like Eastern MS in your description. correct? How are you defining magnet?

I'm defining "magnet" as county-designated magnet programs within MoCo schools. I don't have any experience with Eastern MS. What I am learning however, is that magnet programs can involve as little as letting kids read at their own pace at a separate table, and magnet-specific classes can be open to anyone. Magnet and GT services vary greatly by school. The future of GT education in MoCo is very much up in the air.

I guess my primary point is that just relying on "magnet" or "GT" programs isn't a guarantee of meaningful acceleration or individualized instruction.
Instead, I recommend getting information through both the parent groups on Yahoo Groups, GTA and Parents Coalition. I also recommend talking directly with parents who have experience with the specific programs you are interested in. Then you'll have the kind of information you need to make informed decisions.

I would agree with the above comments about the gray in the meaning of MoCo magnet classes, and I would add that the MoCo terminology "magnet" is very confusing because it is applied by MCPS to two very different types of schools. There are application-only magnets for which kids are tested and get parent and teacher recommendations, such as Eastern, Takoma Park Middle School and the Highly Gifted Centers -- these generally have a curriculum "above" the normal Mo Co -wide curriculum. I'd call them "selective magnets."

Then there are thematic "magnets" such as the middle school magnet consortium of Loiderman, Argyle and Parkland, which have thematic studies. Students also have to apply to these, but these are not "selective" admissions in the sense that grades, test scores, etc. determine admittance (they don't). I think Argyle is a performing arts school, Loiderman has something to do with aeronautics, and I can't remember about the other. Another example would be an elementary math and science magnet school -- ours takes just neighborhood kids, but has a special focus on math and science, but that doesn't really equate to an entirely separate or much more highly rigorous curriculum. MoCo is touting these non-selective middle school magnets as good models for increasing rigor in their middle school reform efforts. Many parents question how much more rigorous these classes are and whether it would just be better to expand the curricula developed for the selective middle school magnets. Well, many parents would even question if there is a "curricula" for the selective magnets in any case; there seems to be obstruction on the part of MCPS to clearly and transparently outlining what the selective magnet curricula is.

For this reason, I would agree with the comment that "magnet" doesn't necessarily mean meaningful acceleration or individualized instruction. Same with GT, because "meaningful" has a very different meaning when applied to each different student. For some, the GT "acceleration" of reading a book 1 grade ahead might be "meaningful" for others who read several grades ahead it is "meaningless". That is why many parents would like to see MoCo develop a standardized "gifted" curricula and pathway in language arts, and other subjects, as has been done in the maths to some extent.

11:38 here. Thanks very much for your amplification of my statements and the terrific additional information you were able to provide. FWIW, it's my understanding that the "selective" magnet classes at Takoma Park Middle School are now open to all students. Further, TPMS did away with GT science classes at least in part because the principal was frustrated with what she perceived as racial segregation within homogeneously grouped science classes. It's frustrating to learn of these "innovations" because at least some of us see them as steps backwards for high-achieving kids. I wonder how much of this, at the high school level, is driven by Jay Matthews' system of ranking area high schools. . . .

[Anonymous]

14:13, it's 11:38 again. Do you know if the magnet program at Montgomery Blair is now open to all students?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP to the thread here. I just wanted to say that - as an adult who was a child who was finally tested at age 12 and tested as HG (165, not sure of the test type) - the experience of scapegoating of HG children by teachers outside of G&T programs is NOT uncommon at all - and, for children with good social skills, far more of an issue than isolation from peers.

I attended 7 different educational settings before ending up in a G&T program in 6th grade. My only good experiences during these years were during pre-K and K which were at a Montessori school where I was allowed to pursue any given learning area to the furthest degree without even knowing that my performance was unusual in any way - and the G&T program in 6th grade in which I was separated out with other gifted children for certain subjects.

Here's an example of the scapegoating by mainstream teachers and the contrast with G&T teaching:

In 5th grade I was in a mainstream program with a teacher who publicly shamed me (called me - in front of the class - a know-it-all and other worse names that I just don't remember and even once in frustration slapped me) for - among other things - pointing out errors in the answer section of our workbooks, raising my hand when I knew the answer (as we were supposed to do) and helping my classmates with their work when they asked. Keep in mind, I had no idea that I was "smarter" than the teacher at that point - I assumed that everyone could do what I could do intellectually, and this assumption was especially true of teachers. I also assumed that, like I did, everyone else would want to know more, to learn more, to know what was correct versus not correct. I was, fwiw, popular enough with peers, who even comforted me in secret on the playground about the teacher's treatment of me. My experience in that setting contributed to my developing clinical depression that year. This is, yes, an extreme example - but not hugely so compared to my experiences in other mainstream settings.

My experience to my classes in 6th grade that were with a G&T teacher who enjoyed and wanted to teach gifted children could not have contrasted more greatly. My teacher there recognized, through her experience, that all workbooks and text books contained errors and that gifted children would be drawn to noticing them. She gave extra credit for pointing them out and being able to explain why they were wrong. She appeared to take delight in our learning and was never threatened or shaming in any degree. I cannot even put into words the relief and the difference in terms of my emotional well-being that year.

From what I have observed of discussion about gifted children, the issue of potential teacher maltreatment is often overlooked by parents in their consideration of how best to meet their children's needs. So please take this information in the helpful spirit in which it is offered.

I am so sorry for your experience, PP. I had a similar experience in elementary school, but unfortunately never went to a GT program because there was none in our school system until I was placed in "honors" classes in high school. I was never challenged in school until college, sadly. I never want my children to endure what I went through.

When we moved DC from public to private, we told DC's teacher exactly how we felt DC needed to be challenged, and the teacher smiled and nodded, but gave me a look that meant, "Yes, of course, Mrs. XXXX. I'm going to do what's best for your child, NOT what you think is best." I was taken aback by that attitude, but because DC was happy, trusted the teacher. As it turns out, the teacher felt that what matters is not what DC is ABLE to do, but what makes DC feel successful. Yes, DC is far ahead of DC's classmates in some ways, but this particular teacher searches out the weaknesses of a particular child, and builds those up, while still challenging, but not pushing the child in the areas in which the child excels. The result is the child feels more confident overall. This is a rare teacher, and we're blessed to have him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:14:13, it's 11:38 again. Do you know if the magnet program at Montgomery Blair is now open to all students?

still a test-in program (and probably will always be that way, as these students are exceptionally bright)