Reply to Best elementary school for a STEM gifted child?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Takoma Park ES is the lower elementary K-2 that puts half of their first grade into their science "magnet" (it's called a magnet because they leave 10 spots open for out-of- boundary students, but they are not eligible for future benefits.)  TPES feeds into Piney Branch ES where there is one 27-student class of fourth and fifth graders, respectively,  at aside for their local Center for Enriched Studies.  Then, about 25 PBES students are invited directly into the Takoma Park Middle School STEM magnet without the heavy competition the rest of the lower county.  If I knew what I was doing 15 years ap when we'd bought our house, we'd have moved into that school some. [/quote]

Lots of misinformation in this thread about TPES/PBES so let me address some things:

The TPES magnet curriculum happens starting in 1st grade, and if your child is above, say, the 80th percentile he'll be in it. MANY kids are in it at TPES - as far as I can tell there's no limit to who gets this. It's unremarkable, and frankly, it's just what parents who value education and have a brighter than average kid would expect out of regular school. This is for 1st and 2nd.

[b]When you move to PBES in 3rd nothing happens. Not even enriched math. [/b]For my child, a very bright, 99th percentile kid, it was an incredible boring year. We were disappointed with the curriculum but had a good teacher so it was fine.

In 4th you can attend the local CES. This year there are TWO classes of 4th graders (about 1/4 of the 4th grade). No idea if it will continue to be this large. Local CES is nice, and we are grateful for it, but it's not great for a truly super gifted kid for a few reasons. 1.) The local cohort, filled with lots of super smart and motivated kids, is watered down compared to the centers. 2.) It's just accelerated work and lots of it. It's not going to suit a kid who is truly off the charts exceptional (our kid is not this, and therefore does fine). Don't get me wrong - it's a good thing, but a kid who needs genius-level support is not going to be well suited to a local CES.

Middle School magnets of an accelerated academic (not interest-based) nature in MCPS are a crapshoot. Of all the qualified kids, only a fraction are permitted to attend through lottery. We're hoping to find another county to move to by that time so that we can have a smaller environment with more accessible paths to enrichment. [/quote]

That's not accurate. There are differentiated groupings that work on different things. For example, DC who is in 3rd at PBES recently finished long-division and is currently working multiplying fractions. I do not think this is standard for 2.0.[/quote]

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