Gifted programs in NoVA?

[Anonymous]

Which of the NoVA public school systems (Arlington, Fairfax County, Falls Church City, Loudoun County) has the best gifted program for highly gifted students?

[Anonymous]

Well, I don't think there is anyway to make that determination. What is good for one student may not be good for another. And I have learned, painfully, that your child's experience in any school/district/program is only as good as their individual teacher. How highly gifted is highly gifted? That makes a difference as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, I don't think there is anyway to make that determination. What is good for one student may not be good for another. And I have learned, painfully, that your child's experience in any school/district/program is only as good as their individual teacher. How highly gifted is highly gifted? That makes a difference as well.

Thanks for your insight. I suppose that highly gifted is a bit like beauty in that it can be in the eye of the beholder. In our case we're looking at a WISC-IV GAI of 158.

[Anonymous]

PP again. My DD's GAI is 153, high verbal, low processing speed. She is a third grader in her first year of FCPS GT. We elected to stay at our base school for Local Level 4 vs the GT Center for various reasons specific to our situation. The work is at a good level for her. For the first time she actually has to think about her work, which is good. On the downside, I think there is too much homework and because of her low processing speed, she struggles a bit with the additional writing expected this year.

I think that with 158 GAI you need to look at a very strong GT center like Haycock to get appropriate challenge in FCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP again. My DD's GAI is 153, high verbal, low processing speed. She is a third grader in her first year of FCPS GT. We elected to stay at our base school for Local Level 4 vs the GT Center for various reasons specific to our situation. The work is at a good level for her. For the first time she actually has to think about her work, which is good. On the downside, I think there is too much homework and because of her low processing speed, she struggles a bit with the additional writing expected this year.

I think that with 158 GAI you need to look at a very strong GT center like Haycock to get appropriate challenge in FCPS.

Thank you for your advice about the Haycock GT center. I will start to do some research on housing options in that area.

Would you say that the Haycock GT center would be better than the gifted options in Arlington, Falls Church City, or Loudoun County?

Thank you again for your help!

[Anonymous]

I don't really know anything about the other districts. Just from talking to a friend, I think Falls Church has a GT push in (vs pull out). I didn't think Arlington had a formal GT program as such? And I know nothing about Loudon's program.

I would recommend joining the FCAG Yahoo group. Read here...fcag.org

Haycock gets consistently good reviews as a top GT center. There is a very large concentration of GT kids, the program is large and has a strong and committed parent participation rate. All GT centers are not the same. I always hear good reviews about Haycock and Louise Archer. Unfortunately ours is considered somewhat mediocre, so I didn't consider it worth changing schools for at this point in time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't really know anything about the other districts. Just from talking to a friend, I think Falls Church has a GT push in (vs pull out). I didn't think Arlington had a formal GT program as such? And I know nothing about Loudon's program.

I would recommend joining the FCAG Yahoo group. Read here...fcag.org

Haycock gets consistently good reviews as a top GT center. There is a very large concentration of GT kids, the program is large and has a strong and committed parent participation rate. All GT centers are not the same. I always hear good reviews about Haycock and Louise Archer. Unfortunately ours is considered somewhat mediocre, so I didn't consider it worth changing schools for at this point in time.

Thank you so much! I will join that Yahoo group. Thanks again for taking the time to provide such great information!

[Anonymous]

My second grader just took the test at school in FFX Countty. Does anyone know when the results come out or we find out if he got in to AAP (or GT or whatever it's called these days)? I

[Anonymous]

Last year results from the NNAT came out in early December and for the CoGat just after winter break? It takes a few weeks. There will be a meeting after the winter break for parents who are applying/whose kids made the screening pool. The application is due around mid February.

[Anonymous]

To the PP that is looking for more information in Fairfax County -- I suggest attending the Advanced Academic Programs Advisory Committee meetings. They are held once a month at the Lacey Center. The meetings are open to the public, and they often have discussions about current budget situations and the like.

The dates for the meetings are posted on the FCPS web site:
http://www.fcps.edu/DIS/gt/aapac.html

[Anonymous]

(:46 here. Thanks for the info. I have no idea if DC will make it, although he said the test they just took was "easy" and "fun," so maybe (and I'm not sure how I feel about it anyway).

[Anonymous]

Fairfax county has pretty good information on their official websites - you can look up the various schools you're considering (Organized by pyramid) and read info about what types of G&T programming they offer.

[Anonymous]

What are the chances of our kid getting in GT program in FFCPS once we petition for a re-take? He scored 1 point shy of the 130 cutoff.

[Anonymous]

The kids in the gifted center at Haycock are socially weird. Not at all true with the kids at Louise Archer. But I guess a profoundly gifted kid would fit in better at Haycock.

[Anonymous]

What are the chances of our kid getting in GT program in FFCPS once we petition for a re-take? He scored 1 point shy of the 130 cutoff

I didn't know you could do a retest. Everyone on the board seems to have paid for a third party test and submitted those results on the appeal. That's what we did. Our sone was 2 points over the cuoff.

I think you might have a better chance if they had been just abouve the cutoff, but you never know. It seems like a good investment.($400) esp. if you get in as a result.