Best school for gifted kid? Looking for differentiation.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Maybe. Maybe not.

You are assuming that we haven’t sought professional support. We have. His sensitivity has not caused friction at his school, with the exception of one teacher who seems to be rigid in her expectations of the way boys “should” behave. I am frustrated and angered by the gender stereotyping.

Believe it or not, private school teachers are neither uniformly excellent nor well-trained in dealing with gifted education. As for the previous poster assuming that schools have extensive experience with gifted children, I very much doubt their experience includes not responding to individual kids’ needs. The general expectation is that you’ll take what the school has to offer, not expect it to adapt to your child’s needs, even if all that is required is some degree of flexibility.

[Anonymous]

^^^ includes responding to

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here's an opinion from another Big 3 parent, as opposed to the public/AAP/GT contingent. There are lots of "average" children in the 140+ IQ range in the Big 3 classrooms. It's handpicked group, so there is a very different distribution than the public schools. And the issue of whether to feed your child's interests/desires for acceleration is a frequent question raised by parents.

My DC is no genius -- so your concerns may be completely different -- but she was academically well ahead of classmates throughout the elementary years. For us the it always seemed that she was flipping through the next grade's books and figuring out things for herself before her friends in the next grade or two. She complained about having to do group projects with others who couldn't figure things out as quickly. And her ERBs were always in the top few percentiles for private school students.

Our priority for DC in elementary school was to learn to master her emotions and impulses and how to work effectively with groups, figure out how to lead others, and relate to classmates of varying maturity levels. The school did a great job of doing just that. The stereotype of math science nerds exists for a reason - its too easy for parents to let smart kids to focus on their academic strengths and let their social and emotional skills lag.

Academically, we fed DC's academic interests outside of school when needed. She was a little kid, so it wasn't exactly hard to provide the content. A little multiplication here, a YA book there, and extended conversations about what was in the news or what she saw in a museum. Math games and crossword puzzles were great ways to build skills and vocabulary without drill and kill. We did enough that algebra in 6th grade was pretty intuitive and she coasted through the rest of high school math.

I don't doubt there are plenty of bright kids at Big 3 schools (and other top private schools). However, this idea--often propagated on DCUM--that a kid with a 140+ IQ is "average" anywhere except for, perhaps, a top physics PhD program or some other rarified environment is ridiculous, precisely because it is too rare. A very rough mathematical exercise proves this point.

A 140 IQ is present in about 1 in every 261 people.

Assuming a random distribution of people, that would mean approximately 23,500 people in the DC area (which has 6.1 million people) have an IQ of 140. Let's assume the true number is slightly higher than that, since the DC area is above average, from an educational standpoint. Obviously when you get above 140, the rarity increases dramatically. Judging from the rarity chart here (https://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/iqtable.aspx), my very rough guesstimate would be that no more than 32,000 people in the DC have an IQ of 140+. About 25% of the area's population is school-age, so let's assume there are 8,000 kids with an IQ of 140+ in the DC area.

Given those parameters, it is exceedingly unlikely that the Big 3 schools have an average student IQ of 140+.

[Anonymous]

Sounds like OP's child may have ADHD. OP there is one school that handles 2es well - Commonwealth Academy in Alexandria. Our DC who was gifted and had exec. functioning issues loved it there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What’s the criteria for being considered PG? My IQ is 147 and my sister’s is 153. We were both educated in public schools and then top privates and top universities. We were definitely bored in public school (even in gifted programs), but felt challenged in our private schools. We went private for MS and HS (my sister) and HS (me).

I wouldn’t call either of us profoundly gifted, so I guess I’m just wondering the point at which you get to people who truly need special accommodations.

It depends on the test. PG is generally considered to be 99.9% and above IQ.

http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/highly_profoundly.htm

Thanks. So, according to at least one of those tests, my sister is profoundly gifted and I'm within the margin of error of PG. As I said before, we were challenged in our private schools. I'm not saying our experience is necessarily applicable to OP's son's, but it does suggest that at least some private schools can accommodate profoundly or at least highly gifted children.

I will also note that our private schools did a ton of differentiation at the MS and HS levels.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I recommend CTY outside of school, and lots of enrichment. I think you may have to make peace with a school that provides less than you're seeking academically.

As a separate issue, I would encourage you to consider your son's sensitivity and emotional reactions apart from his need for higher-level academics. I don't think attaching it to his giftedness is all that helpful here. There are profoundly gifted kids without these issues, and un-gifted (to use an awful term) kids with them. Maybe reading about 2E kids would be helpful, or teaching some of the self-regulation strategies used for kids with ADHD or ASD.

It sounds like his lack of ability to self-regulate is causing friction at school and needs addressing, and the giftedness lens may not be the most useful way to achieve that.

It's causing friction at school to the extent that his teachers are putting negative labels on him when he responds to other kids' upset or pain. He has many friends and is a fairly popular kid.

I doubt you are an expert on giftedness, as those who are know that there is a set of characteristics that often present together in gifted children. Yes, it's true that not all gifted children have them, but many do. It's not an issue of self-regulation so much as one of input processing. If one child observes and is aware of 30 different things while another only notices 3 things, the child who is processing more has a greater processing load on a continuing basis.

DS is highly empathic and sensitive to others' emotions. It's not easy for an 8-year old to handle, nor is it for older kids and adults who have similar qualities.

Have you looked at the Feynman School? I know a few families there whose kids match your DS's profile, and they are extremely happy with the school.

[Anonymous]

We don’t even know how gifted OP’s kid is. All we have is her opinion. She hasn’t told us any test results.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It seems that schools like Sidwell, GDS, and STA don’t allow differentiation until 9th.

I have a hard time believing that this statement is 100 percent true.

I don't know about Sidwell or GDS, but STA does not offer any differentiation until 7th and that's just honors math and choosing your language. There is honors Spanish in 9th and honors chemistry in 10th. However, there are a lot of choices that junior and senior year.

It is correct that there isn't much differentiation in 9th and 10th (although in addition to math and language, they identified a cohort to do AP Chemistry in 10th last year). In fact, I think the school is extremely uncomfortable with kids who have advanced beyond a year or so of their peers. I don't want to spell out too many details about our own situation, but you should not plan on putting a 4th grader in Algebra at STA despite the fact that there are brilliant boys at the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It seems that schools like Sidwell, GDS, and STA don’t allow differentiation until 9th.

I have a hard time believing that this statement is 100 percent true.

I don't know about Sidwell or GDS, but STA does not offer any differentiation until 7th and that's just honors math and choosing your language. There is honors Spanish in 9th and honors chemistry in 10th. However, there are a lot of choices that junior and senior year.

It is correct that there isn't much differentiation in 9th and 10th (although in addition to math and language, they identified a cohort to do AP Chemistry in 10th last year). In fact, I think the school is extremely uncomfortable with kids who have advanced beyond a year or so of their peers. I don't want to spell out too many details about our own situation, but you should not plan on putting a 4th grader in Algebra at STA despite the fact that there are brilliant boys at the school.

I know that STA has let 2 8th graders do honors Geometry in the past few years, but that is only for special cases. They have a placement test for new freshmen and there are always a few who go above Algebra 2.

[Anonymous]

Our situation has similarities and differences.

OP - if you want to know more about CTY (DC has taken 3 classes) - please email me at cmezoughem @ gmail.com. I can explain more offline how it helped. Just don’t want to blast tons of personal info on a public forum.

[Anonymous]

I feel like I'm not quite getting whether it's a bad teacher or whether he's overreacting to things at school. In any case, I would look at books on parenting a kid with sensory sensitivities or sensory processing disorder (many will be aimed at kids with ADHD but the same strategies apply), at Dawn Huebner's books (She has a series including "What to do when you worry too much" - and a bunch of others about handling intense feelings--they are all excellent).

[Anonymous]

You describe the conundrum that most parents at nysmith faced - of course, there are children that aren't absolutely off the charts because people send siblings etc - but they embrace the personality that goes along with the giftedness. In fact, they even say on their website that most highly gifted children are less emotionally mature, so they spend a lot of time working on those areas with the kids.

As you get older at nysmith, the academics are intense and parents are gunning for TJ - if your kid can handle and thrive in the academics, he'll be great.

Is it perfect? no, but the differentiation in academics is impressive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I feel like I'm not quite getting whether it's a bad teacher or whether he's overreacting to things at school. In any case, I would look at books on parenting a kid with sensory sensitivities or sensory processing disorder (many will be aimed at kids with ADHD but the same strategies apply), at Dawn Huebner's books (She has a series including "What to do when you worry too much" - and a bunch of others about handling intense feelings--they are all excellent).

OP here. Thanks. We are familiar with Dawn Huebner’s excellent books.

We had DS tested for sensory issues when he was 4, and while he was on the sensitive end of the spectrum, the evaluators did not believe he needed ongoing intervention. We will get another assessment done and consider OT, as it’s possible that it could help. Again, would appreciate recommendations for OTs that have experience with sensitivity in gifted children.

As for the poster who thinks we are working just on “feelings” that DS is gifted, no. He’s in the PG range. Not surprising, as I test in that range, too.

[Anonymous]

Ok, so what are his test scores? I am in that range, too, so I have a frame of reference. You are being weirdly evasive, making me think you don’t have test results and are, in fact, working off of feelings. Many of the programs people are suggesting have test cutoffs, so he needs to have a requisite level of aptitude to qualify.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You describe the conundrum that most parents at nysmith faced - of course, there are children that aren't absolutely off the charts because people send siblings etc - but they embrace the personality that goes along with the giftedness. In fact, they even say on their website that most highly gifted children are less emotionally mature, so they spend a lot of time working on those areas with the kids.

As you get older at nysmith, the academics are intense and parents are gunning for TJ - if your kid can handle and thrive in the academics, he'll be great.

Is it perfect? no, but the differentiation in academics is impressive.

When you say the academics are intense and parents are “gunning” for TJ, it makes it sound as if the kids are pushed and stressed out. That’s not the kind of environment we want for DS. Is it like that only in the upper grades? Are 7th and 8th graders under a lot of pressure?

If so, that also seems to contradict Nysmith accelerating and differenting instruction well. For a child gifted in math and science, TJ’s entrance exam is just not that difficult.