Gifted programs, options

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone have ideas for how to approach DCPS for providing FAPE for a profoundly gifted child? Our zoned school is not appropriate for our child’s academic needs. What can the school system provide in this case?

I'm not sure what DCPS can or is willing to do.

Coincedentally, I just had a meeting with a CTY alumni relations person, and she was intrigued by the idea that there is a huge opportunity in D.C. for parents of gifted children who want more for their kids since, unlike the surrounding districts, we don't have any gifted programming. She is going to think about how it might be possible to reach gifted kids within D.C. and funnel them into CTY programs.

I did CTY in the 90s and it was kind of life changing (more than the pull-out gifted program we had in school). I'm definitely going to try to get my own kids in, especially to the residential programs.

OMG I would love this for my kid

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hearst used to let advanced 4th graders take math with the 5th graders and advanced 5th graders take 6th grade math with the math specialist. They stopped it last year and I don’t know if they will bring it back. It will be a shame if they don’t.

Profoundly gifted students often need multiple grade levels of academic acceleration, not just one. For example, a profoundly gifted second grader might be ready for 6th grade math, which DCPS won't accommodate.

Some DCPSes will. It’s a school by school decision. My 2nd grader had a PK4er in her math class during the second half of the year two years ago.

[Anonymous]

Lots of kids in DC area already do CTY. Ritter as courses or residential summer camp.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hearst used to let advanced 4th graders take math with the 5th graders and advanced 5th graders take 6th grade math with the math specialist. They stopped it last year and I don’t know if they will bring it back. It will be a shame if they don’t.

Profoundly gifted students often need multiple grade levels of academic acceleration, not just one. For example, a profoundly gifted second grader might be ready for 6th grade math, which DCPS won't accommodate.

Some DCPSes will. It’s a school by school decision. My 2nd grader had a PK4er in her math class during the second half of the year two years ago.

Our school tried to do it (PK4 in 3rd grade for reading) but it was hard to make the schedules match up. And my kid (the PK4) didn't really have the attention span or maturity for it, and didn't have the ability to respond in writing. So we opted for 1:1 time with a reading specialist. I think she got more out of 15 minutes of that than she did out of 30 minutes with the 3rd grade.

[Anonymous]

I have a kid who has always been several grades ahead in both ELA and math, and is now in middle school. We try to advocate for acceleration at school (and sometimes get a well-meaning gesture in the form of extra homework) but have found that the only way to make up for blah schooling is to provide enrichment during the school year and summer. For ELA, there are writing workshops/camps, and for math, there is Beast Academy/Art of Problem Solving. We also provide challenge through private lessons in a musical instrument, foreign language tutoring, chess, robotics, etc. It's expensive and time-consuming, but less expensive than private school. And kid still has to sit through boring classes during the day. But I tell them (and myself) it's good for practicing resilience and delayed gratification. :-/

[Anonymous]

I was just told that the "smart kids" had to spread out among the grade so there wasn't too much of a concentration of kids in one class. This means my kids friend group is split up. And it also means there is no interest in pushing a high achieving cohort. this is our last year in a Title 1 school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hearst used to let advanced 4th graders take math with the 5th graders and advanced 5th graders take 6th grade math with the math specialist. They stopped it last year and I don’t know if they will bring it back. It will be a shame if they don’t.

Profoundly gifted students often need multiple grade levels of academic acceleration, not just one. For example, a profoundly gifted second grader might be ready for 6th grade math, which DCPS won't accommodate.

Some DCPSes will. It’s a school by school decision. My 2nd grader had a PK4er in her math class during the second half of the year two years ago.

Our school tried to do it (PK4 in 3rd grade for reading) but it was hard to make the schedules match up. And my kid (the PK4) didn't really have the attention span or maturity for it, and didn't have the ability to respond in writing. So we opted for 1:1 time with a reading specialist. I think she got more out of 15 minutes of that than she did out of 30 minutes with the 3rd grade.

I mean, it sounds like your school did it badly. A 3rd grade reading level obviously doesn’t mean a PK4er should be in 3rd grade English, especially if their writing isn’t up to par. That’s totally different than kids who are really good at math; obviously they need to be able to read the questions & have the proper attention span, but otherwise acceleration in math is pretty normal in some school districts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is no public school system (or even private) that would ever be able to adequately meet the needs of a profoundly gifted student. “Gifted” programs are typically only providing curriculum that is one year advanced and only meets the needs of high achievers. This is why most profoundly gifted students are homeschooled. Your best bet would be to put your child in a Montessori school.

Lolollollol Caltech grad and math PhD here:

The smartest kids in this country go down normal schooling paths and end up excelling at top colleges.

Homeschooled kids get weird social pathologies and/or Christian extremist ideas that make them unsuited to actually doing advanced work, and end up being adult weirdos. At best.

Ask me how I know: I was a dorm resident assistant for a long time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no public school system (or even private) that would ever be able to adequately meet the needs of a profoundly gifted student. “Gifted” programs are typically only providing curriculum that is one year advanced and only meets the needs of high achievers. This is why most profoundly gifted students are homeschooled. Your best bet would be to put your child in a Montessori school.

Lolollollol Caltech grad and math PhD here:

The smartest kids in this country go down normal schooling paths and end up excelling at top colleges.

Homeschooled kids get weird social pathologies and/or Christian extremist ideas that make them unsuited to actually doing advanced work, and end up being adult weirdos. At best.

Ask me how I know: I was a dorm resident assistant for a long time.

100% agree. Look at the USAMO qualifiers. Homeschool is very much the exception and not the norm.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no public school system (or even private) that would ever be able to adequately meet the needs of a profoundly gifted student. “Gifted” programs are typically only providing curriculum that is one year advanced and only meets the needs of high achievers. This is why most profoundly gifted students are homeschooled. Your best bet would be to put your child in a Montessori school.

Lolollollol Caltech grad and math PhD here:

The smartest kids in this country go down normal schooling paths and end up excelling at top colleges.

Homeschooled kids get weird social pathologies and/or Christian extremist ideas that make them unsuited to actually doing advanced work, and end up being adult weirdos. At best.

Ask me how I know: I was a dorm resident assistant for a long time.

Luke Robitaille and Ram Goel might beg to differ.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a kid who has always been several grades ahead in both ELA and math, and is now in middle school. We try to advocate for acceleration at school (and sometimes get a well-meaning gesture in the form of extra homework) but have found that the only way to make up for blah schooling is to provide enrichment during the school year and summer. For ELA, there are writing workshops/camps, and for math, there is Beast Academy/Art of Problem Solving. We also provide challenge through private lessons in a musical instrument, foreign language tutoring, chess, robotics, etc. It's expensive and time-consuming, but less expensive than private school. And kid still has to sit through boring classes during the day. But I tell them (and myself) it's good for practicing resilience and delayed gratification. :-/

This is true for my kids, although they only work around a grade level ahead in ELA and math. We'd be in a mess for math without Mathnasium. They've taught our youngest several grade levels worth of math in the last year, after she fell more than a grade level behind in ES math during the DCPS virtual learning phase and 4th grade (with a weak math teacher). We've sent our kids to a rigorous weekend heritage program in MoCo for years. Our DCPS ES didn't push advanced learners despite having few poor kids. We spend at least 8K per child to supplement academically each year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no public school system (or even private) that would ever be able to adequately meet the needs of a profoundly gifted student. “Gifted” programs are typically only providing curriculum that is one year advanced and only meets the needs of high achievers. This is why most profoundly gifted students are homeschooled. Your best bet would be to put your child in a Montessori school.

Lolollollol Caltech grad and math PhD here:

The smartest kids in this country go down normal schooling paths and end up excelling at top colleges.

Homeschooled kids get weird social pathologies and/or Christian extremist ideas that make them unsuited to actually doing advanced work, and end up being adult weirdos. At best.

Ask me how I know: I was a dorm resident assistant for a long time.

Luke Robitaille and Ram Goel might beg to differ.

You kind of validated this person’s point…there were 21 winners of this award (for Luke) so 20 of 21 were traditionally schooled.

All the Regeneron winners (really the most prestigious STEM contest) are traditionally schooled. Do some take college classes? Absolutely.

Now, the absolute reality is that only 1 in a million are truly profoundly gifted…everyone else is just getting accelerated (for what benefit?) and are smart or very smart.

I also think what you mean is not homeschooled in the sense your parents are teaching the kid vs non-traditional school where maybe a kid is taking college classes in some subjects and having tutors teach in others.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was just told that the "smart kids" had to spread out among the grade so there wasn't too much of a concentration of kids in one class. This means my kids friend group is split up. And it also means there is no interest in pushing a high achieving cohort. this is our last year in a Title 1 school.

Wow, that is terrible especially since there likely isn’t a large number of high achieving kids to begin with. I would definitely get out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no public school system (or even private) that would ever be able to adequately meet the needs of a profoundly gifted student. “Gifted” programs are typically only providing curriculum that is one year advanced and only meets the needs of high achievers. This is why most profoundly gifted students are homeschooled. Your best bet would be to put your child in a Montessori school.

Montessori is often disastrous for profoundly gifted kids.

Plenty of kids in this category do well in public or private school.

Lots of incorrect information. Montessori was great for my profoundly gifted child precisely because there are no boundaries to what they can learn. And the “gifted” programs in MCPS go much beyond one grade level ahead. The elementary CES program offers English/social science instruction and content that is largely 3-4 grades ahead. The middle school magnets accelerate the kids in math by 2-3 years by the end of middle school. The high school magnets are even more accelerated with kids taking precalculus in 9th grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I realize it’s frustrating, but there’s just no way any teacher, in any school system or independent school, can create 25 different customized curriculums for 25 different students. That’s not “school,” it’s private tutoring.

This is why (as noted at the top of this thread) profoundly gifted students are often homeschooled.

They can and do in Montessori. It’s why Montessori is so amazing for kids who are both ahead and behind academically.