can someone find one for me?

[liz_gregory]

I'd like to find an Austin-area school with a GT program like this one that I grew up in.  I'd be perfectly happy to send Peter to public school where the GT program didn't suck quite so badly as Austin ISD's. *sigh*

yes, cifarelli , this is all your fault.

Comments

[cifarelli]

The magnet schools for middle and high school at least used to be good. But I don't know anything at all about GT at the elementary school level. When I was there (LONG AGO IN A GALAXY FAR FAR AWAY) we just had more advanced reading groups, etc. I was bored silly in kindergarten. I remember doing LOMS (involved reading simple words like 'cat' off an easel-sized flip-book) in class and I always raised my hand because I always knew the answer, but the teacher wouldn't call on me because she knew I knew the answer and she wanted the other kids to learn. I remember giving the other kids a hard time when we would play school and one of the other kids was playing the teacher and 'reading' the class a book. They would just make up a story to go along with the pictures, and I kept correcting them and telling them they weren't really reading and tell them what the page actually said. Didn't make me very popular. I also remember my mom had to request special permission for me (I don't remember from whom...I think it had to go over the librarian's head) to check out books from the YA section of the library that year because that was ordinarily against the rules. But I was already well beyond the picture books in the JUV collection.

Sorry...I'm sure none of this is comforting. But my parents felt it was important for me to be with my age-group socially, so I never got to skip any grades (even though I probably could have skipped more than one and still been successful academically).

1st grade was much better because I was (special case) allowed to switch classes to be in the most advanced reading group with about 6 other kids who were on about the same level as me. And I was always in the honors/advanced classes after that.

I really really hate the philosophy of mixing ability levels all the time, though (they didn't do that when I was in school, thank goodness!). I needed to be with other kids who could keep up with me. I always hated the occasions when I had to work in a group with the slower kids because I ended up doing most of the work and they'd all get my grade even though they hadn't contributed much.

End ramble.

[liz_gregory]

If you check out the Spring ISD page, they keep everyone with their age-level peers. That's the amazingly wonderful part about the Tier IV program. There are ~20-40 kids in each grade for either math or language arts (some in both) who are in those classes with only each other and are taught at their social and emotional level on material that is at their cognitive level. Science and Social Studies are mixed with the rest of the grade level, so you aren't with the same small group of kids all the time. I WANTS this, my preciousssss!