Anonymous
Post 01/27/2026 16:07     Subject: Re:Does G&T or advanced classes still exist at public elementary schools?
We’re in CA now & the gifted and talented program really varies not just by district but by school. Our school district is UMC with very competitive parents & while school enrollment is overall down, the G&T classes are always maxed out. It starts in 3rd grade and depending on the school, it’s either a completely separate G&T class or a G&T group within a regular class. My older kid is in a G&T class and they get a lot more schoolwork and advanced material in both language arts & math. Starting in jr high, there’s English & Math Honors 1 and Honors 2 classes. G&T isn’t a prerequisite, but it gives you better preparation to test into these. English Honors 2 is the same as AP English; you can take the AP English test at the end of 8th grade & have your score count for college admissions…!

I don’t like how intense the G&T class is, but at the same time, thankful for it as my kid thrives in it. She used to be in the regular class and while the teacher was great, she was not challenged in it. Part of me had wanted her to stay in the regular class because there’s a lot more diversity in it, and not just racial, but she’s much happier in the G&T class AND learning much more.
Anonymous
Post 01/27/2026 15:32     Subject: Does G&T or advanced classes still exist at public elementary schools?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:In our Midwest district there is a lot for gifted and not much for 1-2 grade levels behind it seems. I have 2 gifted kids aged 12 and 14 - they go to gifted school once a week for the whole day in elementary school then have gifted programming every other day in middle school. Middle school also starts offering honors classes and different math tracks, plus there are all sorts of enriching clubs.

Frustratingly, my 6 yo in 1st grade, who is already 1+ grade levels behind, does not get any in school pull outs or push in- just gets his iready lessons. His class does not have an aide. He has a tutor, we work with him, but I feel like he’s just been abandoned.


That’s just wrong. I don’t know if it’s a lack of money issue but it will only get harder for your first grader. He has the right via federal law to be tested for any learning issues and plan needs to be made on how to work on these issues.

I wonder if they put a program together for the students who perform the best and call it a gifted program when it’s really a way to teach the smartest students to score way higher than average on these national tests. How does a middle school do a gifted program every other day? I can’t imagine that.

Based on you stating that they don’t use aids in classes which is standard in good elementary school and no programs for kids struggling I’d bet you’re state doesn’t compare well with the top states that score well on testing.


We are in a very good district (college town) albeit in a red state. The gifted program requires a minimum wisc of 130 so it is pretty selective. In middle school, they just have gifted class for an hour every other day - it’s not a full day thing anymore. It’s a great program and my older kids have been challenged and love school. I also have a non gifted dc who never did tutoring or enrichment and scored in the 99th percentile in Iowa test in 6th grade - I credit her strong math instruction.

As for my youngest son- he gets about 35%ile on nationally normed tests and has about 95 iq per his neuropsych. He has an IEP for speech only. But his scores are not low enough to merit IEP pull outs - just test accoms (which are silly bc he has no tests yet). I always thought there would be so much for him based on my older kids’ experience - and there’s not. I also always thought the narrative was reversed, but my son has no behaviors (they do have behavior aides but not for every class) or intellectual disability, so he is just kind of stuck.


He’s within normal limits of testing and IQ so that’s good. But the school would be better off focusing to bring students like your son up to what they are truly capable of. If he’s capable of 35% then he’s capable of 50% and above with better resources.
Anonymous
Post 01/27/2026 12:42     Subject: Does G&T or advanced classes still exist at public elementary schools?
PG county starts it in 1st grade I thini
Anonymous
Post 01/27/2026 12:39     Subject: Does G&T or advanced classes still exist at public elementary schools?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:What grade does your program start and what does that realistically look like? DD is in 3rd grade and we've yet to see any leveling. No pull outs for kids who are on track, and no work sent home. I know there are many pull outs for kids who are performing under grade level.


There are people all over the country on this forum. This post is useless if you don't state where you live.


Why? Can't speak for everyone here, but I'm interested in hearing about experiences all over the country. I've only lived in two regions and found the public school systems and expectations to be wildly different.


I am in Michigan. I grew up in CA and PA with one year in MCPS in between.

I was in the "gifted program" in all 3 school districts in the 3 states. MCPS gifted was hard to transfer into, and set me back because I wasn't ready for 7th grade MCPS pre-algebra. I don't remember it fondly. That's why I later moved away from MoCo to start a family.

Where I live now in Michigan, G&T has become rare. There is no G&T program in my district. The education industry believes it is inequitable. I was told by my younger son's 3rd grade teacher that maybe he should go to private school. But I felt truly that was a non-solution. When you grow up and go to work...no more gifted program, lol. You have to deal with the normies, and use all the EQ you can muster. I do believe that public school teaches this.

You will hear the mantra of "differentiated instruction" regularly these days. In my opinion, teachers are stretched too thin and the advanced kids are not appropriately challenged in classrooms with a large range of ability levels. There is a workaround where I live...if your kid can perform at two grades above then they technically should have an IEP or special provisions to ensure they also get a year's worth of learning growth during a year of school. I didn't realize this until after it was too late to be useful. It wasn't publicized. The few students like this in my school district are among the few that spend part of their high school at community college (this is quite rare in our district).

My district does do math tracking starting in 6th grade. Then in 9th grade, there is one AP possible. Then two more are common in 10th grade. AP's become the defacto high school gifted program through self-election. 11th and 12th grade have both IB and AP courses so that is where school finally becomes fully appropriate for advanced learners.

From what I hear, none of the public schools in the high-quality districts in our vicinity do things much better. And I'm committed to public school. I did send my kids for afterschool math tutoring. That's the only supplementing I've done. I wish I started it earlier. I began during the late pandemic when my kids were tweens/teens.

In general, I'm less concerned about the disappearance of G&T programs than I am about the lip service to the idea that teachers can be all things to all students at all levels. I think even just allowing more leveling and "walk to" classrooms in elementary would help.

There are significant issues in education today and I sympathize with teachers. My best advice is to supplement and patch the gaps you see as best you can. Our society is not very kid-friendly and it's getting worse. In any event, on average, children of educated, involved parents do tend to end up just fine in the end. So there's some comfort in that.


Another Michigan poster here, but in a different district. There is a magnet program for 3rd and 4th grade, it's very hard to get into. But then, other than math, you're back with everyone else in 5th. DS is now in 7th and I'm very glad he had the opportunity in ES, but frustrated there isn't much more. He will be in the district for all of his schooling and the application and requirements for magnet done in 2nd grade will be the most challenging thing he have had to do. He's in honors math and ELA now, but ELA is a combined class with an "honors designation." I have yet to see any differences. In HS no APs in 9th, I think 2 in 10th and then a ton in 11th and 12th. No IB. For both honors and AP in high school anyone can sign up as long as they have the prerequisite classes. We will see how that goes!
Anonymous
Post 01/27/2026 10:57     Subject: Does G&T or advanced classes still exist at public elementary schools?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:depends on state/county. not in DC.


MCPS (Maryland) does a lot of differentiation starting in grade 4--some kids with high MAP-R scores are pulled out to a separate program called CES. Other kids remain at home school and do math Gr4+a big chunk of math Gr5 in a single year.


This is not “a lot” compared to what I got in the 1980s.


We didn’t have that much differentiating growing up in a well funded, college oriented suburb in the 80s and 90s
Anonymous
Post 01/27/2026 05:04     Subject: Does G&T or advanced classes still exist at public elementary schools?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:depends on state/county. not in DC.


MCPS (Maryland) does a lot of differentiation starting in grade 4--some kids with high MAP-R scores are pulled out to a separate program called CES. Other kids remain at home school and do math Gr4+a big chunk of math Gr5 in a single year.


This is not “a lot” compared to what I got in the 1980s.


People think they know so much about education based just on their lives experiences
Anonymous
Post 01/26/2026 20:05     Subject: Does G&T or advanced classes still exist at public elementary schools?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:depends on state/county. not in DC.


MCPS (Maryland) does a lot of differentiation starting in grade 4--some kids with high MAP-R scores are pulled out to a separate program called CES. Other kids remain at home school and do math Gr4+a big chunk of math Gr5 in a single year.


This is not “a lot” compared to what I got in the 1980s.
Anonymous
Post 01/26/2026 16:20     Subject: Does G&T or advanced classes still exist at public elementary schools?
It’s been phased out where we live … so much for all the bs about “every child” getting the education they need.
Anonymous
Post 01/26/2026 14:42     Subject: Does G&T or advanced classes still exist at public elementary schools?
I live in the South and we have a weird system here. Our district is large, and has a magnet lottery, except it's not really magnet, more like school choice. There are essentially no barriers to these programs.

For "gifted" there is Talent Development/Learning Immersion. As I said, absolutely no barriers at all, so anyone can submit a lottery application starting in Kindergarten through second.

Students who are not in a TD/LI school yet achieve a certain score on the CogAT in second grade can apply via lottery for a third grade seat at those schools. But there are never enough seats, and students who entered TD/LI schools prior to third grade can remain at the school regardless of how they did on CogAT. These TD/LI schools, except for one, are only partial magnets--these programs are placed there in hopes of attracting high-performing kids that will boost overall test scores.

In some neighborhood schools (and possibly non TD/LI magnet, but I have no experience with those), students are identified for in-house TD/LI supplementation. K-2 this is done by the teachers, 3rd grade and up is by CogAT. Our experience in K-2 was this happens once a week for 30 minutes for reading/ELA and 30 minutes for math, and your child might only be identified for one of those. I have heard some schools offer no TD/LI supplements and don't have a TD/LI coordinator--typically those are schools with very low test scores.

Even if you get a lottery seat in TD/LI it's not really accelerated. Deeper rather than faster, and not all that deep at the end of the day. I was not impressed, and wasn't thrilled with having to play the lottery, so that combined with some other things we were not happy about meant we decided to go the private route for DC starting in 3rd.

There really isn't a gifted program in middle. TD/LI students are supposed to have automatic rights to their closest International Baccalaureate middle school. But once again, there's not barrier to entry, so anyone can try to lottery into IB for middle school. And there are more IB middle school 6th grade seats than there are TD/IB 5th graders, so you absolutely get lots of kids that are in IB and not able to work at that level (the test scores make this really clear).
Anonymous
Post 01/26/2026 12:28     Subject: Does G&T or advanced classes still exist at public elementary schools?
Anonymous wrote:Our Maryland county does


Howard County?
Anonymous
Post 01/26/2026 08:47     Subject: Does G&T or advanced classes still exist at public elementary schools?
Our Maryland county does
Anonymous
Post 01/25/2026 23:32     Subject: Does G&T or advanced classes still exist at public elementary schools?
Our district has pretty much nothing for k-5, “honors” math and English for 6th, then in 7-8 there is a special program they can test into that is extremely accelerated for math and English, but they have to leave their home school to attend 1-2 times per week. They teach 2-4 yrs accelerated at about twice the pace. It’s truly only for the smartest of kids that also have very high executive function to be able to manage the work load, expectations, and pace.
Anonymous
Post 01/25/2026 23:16     Subject: Does G&T or advanced classes still exist at public elementary schools?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:What grade does your program start and what does that realistically look like? DD is in 3rd grade and we've yet to see any leveling. No pull outs for kids who are on track, and no work sent home. I know there are many pull outs for kids who are performing under grade level.


There are people all over the country on this forum. This post is useless if you don't state where you live.


Why? Can't speak for everyone here, but I'm interested in hearing about experiences all over the country. I've only lived in two regions and found the public school systems and expectations to be wildly different.


I am in Michigan. I grew up in CA and PA with one year in MCPS in between.

I was in the "gifted program" in all 3 school districts in the 3 states. MCPS gifted was hard to transfer into, and set me back because I wasn't ready for 7th grade MCPS pre-algebra. I don't remember it fondly. That's why I later moved away from MoCo to start a family.

Where I live now in Michigan, G&T has become rare. There is no G&T program in my district. The education industry believes it is inequitable. I was told by my younger son's 3rd grade teacher that maybe he should go to private school. But I felt truly that was a non-solution. When you grow up and go to work...no more gifted program, lol. You have to deal with the normies, and use all the EQ you can muster. I do believe that public school teaches this.

You will hear the mantra of "differentiated instruction" regularly these days. In my opinion, teachers are stretched too thin and the advanced kids are not appropriately challenged in classrooms with a large range of ability levels. There is a workaround where I live...if your kid can perform at two grades above then they technically should have an IEP or special provisions to ensure they also get a year's worth of learning growth during a year of school. I didn't realize this until after it was too late to be useful. It wasn't publicized. The few students like this in my school district are among the few that spend part of their high school at community college (this is quite rare in our district).

My district does do math tracking starting in 6th grade. Then in 9th grade, there is one AP possible. Then two more are common in 10th grade. AP's become the defacto high school gifted program through self-election. 11th and 12th grade have both IB and AP courses so that is where school finally becomes fully appropriate for advanced learners.

From what I hear, none of the public schools in the high-quality districts in our vicinity do things much better. And I'm committed to public school. I did send my kids for afterschool math tutoring. That's the only supplementing I've done. I wish I started it earlier. I began during the late pandemic when my kids were tweens/teens.

In general, I'm less concerned about the disappearance of G&T programs than I am about the lip service to the idea that teachers can be all things to all students at all levels. I think even just allowing more leveling and "walk to" classrooms in elementary would help.

There are significant issues in education today and I sympathize with teachers. My best advice is to supplement and patch the gaps you see as best you can. Our society is not very kid-friendly and it's getting worse. In any event, on average, children of educated, involved parents do tend to end up just fine in the end. So there's some comfort in that.
Anonymous
Post 01/25/2026 22:59     Subject: Does G&T or advanced classes still exist at public elementary schools?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:In our Midwest district there is a lot for gifted and not much for 1-2 grade levels behind it seems. I have 2 gifted kids aged 12 and 14 - they go to gifted school once a week for the whole day in elementary school then have gifted programming every other day in middle school. Middle school also starts offering honors classes and different math tracks, plus there are all sorts of enriching clubs.

Frustratingly, my 6 yo in 1st grade, who is already 1+ grade levels behind, does not get any in school pull outs or push in- just gets his iready lessons. His class does not have an aide. He has a tutor, we work with him, but I feel like he’s just been abandoned.


That’s just wrong. I don’t know if it’s a lack of money issue but it will only get harder for your first grader. He has the right via federal law to be tested for any learning issues and plan needs to be made on how to work on these issues.

I wonder if they put a program together for the students who perform the best and call it a gifted program when it’s really a way to teach the smartest students to score way higher than average on these national tests. How does a middle school do a gifted program every other day? I can’t imagine that.

Based on you stating that they don’t use aids in classes which is standard in good elementary school and no programs for kids struggling I’d bet you’re state doesn’t compare well with the top states that score well on testing.


We are in a very good district (college town) albeit in a red state. The gifted program requires a minimum wisc of 130 so it is pretty selective. In middle school, they just have gifted class for an hour every other day - it’s not a full day thing anymore. It’s a great program and my older kids have been challenged and love school. I also have a non gifted dc who never did tutoring or enrichment and scored in the 99th percentile in Iowa test in 6th grade - I credit her strong math instruction.

As for my youngest son- he gets about 35%ile on nationally normed tests and has about 95 iq per his neuropsych. He has an IEP for speech only. But his scores are not low enough to merit IEP pull outs - just test accoms (which are silly bc he has no tests yet). I always thought there would be so much for him based on my older kids’ experience - and there’s not. I also always thought the narrative was reversed, but my son has no behaviors (they do have behavior aides but not for every class) or intellectual disability, so he is just kind of stuck.
Anonymous
Post 01/25/2026 22:39     Subject: Does G&T or advanced classes still exist at public elementary schools?
Anonymous wrote:In our Midwest district there is a lot for gifted and not much for 1-2 grade levels behind it seems. I have 2 gifted kids aged 12 and 14 - they go to gifted school once a week for the whole day in elementary school then have gifted programming every other day in middle school. Middle school also starts offering honors classes and different math tracks, plus there are all sorts of enriching clubs.

Frustratingly, my 6 yo in 1st grade, who is already 1+ grade levels behind, does not get any in school pull outs or push in- just gets his iready lessons. His class does not have an aide. He has a tutor, we work with him, but I feel like he’s just been abandoned.


That’s just wrong. I don’t know if it’s a lack of money issue but it will only get harder for your first grader. He has the right via federal law to be tested for any learning issues and plan needs to be made on how to work on these issues.

I wonder if they put a program together for the students who perform the best and call it a gifted program when it’s really a way to teach the smartest students to score way higher than average on these national tests. How does a middle school do a gifted program every other day? I can’t imagine that.

Based on you stating that they don’t use aids in classes which is standard in good elementary school and no programs for kids struggling I’d bet you’re state doesn’t compare well with the top states that score well on testing.