Where should my kid go? Help :(

[Colleen27]

It is so hard to generalize about these decisions because it all hinges on the specific schools involved, and I don't know much about Florida public schools. Both gifted education/enrichment and academic support outside of diagnosed special needs are lackluster in my local public schools, so I had no doubts private was the way to go for us and only regret not finding the school my girls attended when my oldest was young enough to have benefitted too. But if we lived even one town over, that equation would have been completely different both because of a better public school program and a much worse nearby private school.

That said, I see red flags in your description of the school he's currently attending.

For me, the fact that the private school coordinator made it so clear that they can't/won't meet your son's needs would pretty much settle it. My kids, one of whom is gifted and one who struggled when she was young, went to private school. I have led dozens of tours for prospective families and if I had a family come in with a child in your son's situation, even as a parent volunteer I would have been able to give the Cliff Notes version of the accommodations we have available. Not just differentiation within the classroom but also classroom switching for specific subjects to challenge the student, dual enrollment with the high school for advanced middle schoolers, pull-out enrichment with our student success specialist, in-classroom enrichment with volunteer classroom aides, etc. The fact that they didn't present anything to you other than "we try to differentiate but..." tells me that not only do they not have structures in place to accommodate gifted students, they're likely not all that interested in trying to build them. which isn't unusual in parochial schools. So that would push me to look elsewhere, whether that means your local public school or (if you have them available - I'm in a small town so I know that isn't always the case) other private, magnet or charter schools in the area.

 

[kymom99]

I’m curious as to what prompted his testing by a school psychologist. Most private schools I’m familiar with wouldn’t have such a person available.

 

[MamaMermaid]

Thank you all for your thoughts!

 

[Frwinkley]

3rd grade teacher, so I have dealt with many gifted kids.

I would suggest that before you make a move to public school, ask specifically what the gifted program offers. Do they have a designated gifted teacher? How many times a week do gifted kids receive such services? Many schools says they have a gifted program, when in fact all they do is give the kids access to the library and let them play chess. Schools can be really good at making things look nice on paper, especially when it comes to any type of special education services.

 

[TwoMisfits]

Just to throw it out there...

I assume homeschooling is not an option? When a child is a square peg and the holes are round, sometimes it is best to help his advancement and development outside the system until he can "fit."

If homeschooling is not an option, a Montessori type schooling approach (possibly available in FL private schools), might really work.

 

[JLTraveling]

Yeah, a strange question to ask the internet but here we are.

My 5yo son starts kindergarten next year. He's currently at a private, religious preschool that has k-8. He loves it there, has friends, etc. Here's the problem: our son was tested for gifted. He scored high. Please, don't think this is bragging - it's relevant details. His IQ came back 146 (which is 99.9%). Again, not bragging, it's an important detail. The school psychologist said because he scored so high, he NEEDS gifted enrichment. Of course, the school he's at... doesn't have a gifted program. When speaking with the early ed. coordinator, she said "teachers try to differentiate but..." yeah... not promising that he will get the enrichment he needs.

He struggles with behavior in pre-k. His teacher says he gets bored and is frustrated when kids aren't on his level.

He could go to public school - there's a brand new one. I have a few friends with kids there that are happy. They have a gifted program that he could be in. But, I'm worried about all the state testing, hw, and safety.

So, weigh in DISboards... what are you doing? Sending him to public where he WILL get the gifted enrichment he needs but have to do lots of state testing? Or, leave him at the private school he loves where he won't get the enrichment. Important to note: the religious element doesn't matter to us. We're split and can't decide.

I have a documented IQ of 185, so I understand where your son is at. And honestly, neither of those is a good option. Here's why: Your son, like me, is profoundly gifted. That starts at 145, and is three standard deviations above the norm. At the opposite end of the spectrum, three standard deviations from the norm would be an IQ below 55. Your son needs every bit as much support as the child at the other end of the spectrum. And neither a private religious school nor a public school gifted enrichment program is equipped to handle profound giftedness. I was in one of those programs when I was in public school. It's better than nothing, most definitely. But they are designed for regular gifted, IQs of about 110 to 120. They don't even begin to support profound giftedness. Not their fault, according to the Davidson Institute only 13 in 10,000 people are profoundly gifted. So it wouldn't make sense for public schools to use their limited resources on programs for them.

Your son is going to need a highly individualized program tailored to his needs. He will likely experience asynchronous development (for example, I was reading at a 12th grade level by age 3, but my math skills were much slower to develop). He will likely have social issues due to being light-years ahead of his peers in cognitive skills....as his pre-K teacher has already noted. It's going to be a long journey, but it can be a successful one.

Where are you located? I would strongly suggest looking into college prep high schools in your area, and then looking into the feeder schools they typically draw from. And then you'll have to have individualized conversations with each feeder school and each high school to determine whether they're prepared to educate your son. Grade skipping is likely (I graduated at 14, and could have done so sooner if my parents had stumbled onto the right program). But again, asynchronous development may mean needing extra support in his weaker areas.

It's a lot, and I don't want to overwhelm you with a novel here. But please, start reading everything you can about profound giftedness. The Davidson Institute I linked to above is a good start, but there's a lot else out there as well. And I am happy to answer any questions you may have. So many people don't realize the incredible difference not just between average and gifted, but between gifted and profoundly gifted. They really are light years apart. Good luck!

 

[StephMK]

I teach elementary special ed and my son (now 20) is similarly gifted and identified in K. Is the private willing to work with you? Are you able to find resources for him that the school can use to help him? Are they more likely to let him show mastery without many repeated practice problems? If you are able and they are willing to work with you, I'd keep him at the private for now.

 

[barkley]

He will likely have social issues due to being light-years ahead of his peers in cognitive skills....as his pre-K teacher has already noted. It's going to be a long journey, but it can be a successful one.

i cannot stress how important it is to keep this in mind when making academic decisions for your son. there needs to be equal if not greater attention and consideration given to social vs. academic development. the consequences of failing to do so can be beyond devastating.

 

[JLTraveling]

i cannot stress how important it is to keep this in mind when making academic decisions for your son. there needs to be equal if not greater attention and consideration given to social vs. academic development. the consequences of failing to do so can be beyond devastating.

Fortunately though, the social development does NOT have to come from school. At all. My home away from home was the theater. For some profoundly gifted kids it's sports or space camp or whatever. Profoundly gifted tend to get along better with kids a few years older than them anyway, so being in classes with older kids isn't typically a problem. But having an outlet like sports or the arts or whatever, where they can be with a range of ages including both older and younger, is invaluable for social development.

 

[Living42Day]

What ever happened to kids just attending their local neighborhood school? It seems like no schools are ever good enough anymore. Myself and my sister went to neighborhood public schools (gasp!), and tracked through the Gifted and Talented program all through elementary and middle school. We then went on to take AP Honors classes all through high school. A school rated as a C-.... It's not the schools, it's the parent/s and home environment that fosters success. Both of us scored high on the SATs, went on to get into fantastic universities, are highly successful in our careers, with 4 advanced degrees between the both of us. All from attending the lowly public neighborhood school rated at a C-.

 

[JLTraveling]

I would like to see what sort of test they can give someone who is 5 yrs old to determine they are gifted.

Since they were able to record a score of 146, presumably the Stanford-Binet. Other IQ tests, such as the Wechsler (WISC) are more commonly given to young children, but they top out (become wildly inaccurate) at around 125 or so. If the school psychologist suspected that the child was highly or profoundly gifted, then choosing the Stanford-Binet would be the correct option. All of these tests focus on intelligence, not current knowledge. They have been highly validated/refined over many decades and are known for extreme accuracy.

I do agree with the rest of your post though. A variety of activities are essential for all kids, particularly the profoundly gifted.

The OP stated that he has a few behavior and gets frustrated with other students so skipping a grade would probably not be the best for this child.

My sister is incredibly smart and when we moved to a brand-new school when she was in 4th grade (I was in first), my mom told her teachers that my sister got bored easily because she found school so easy. The teachers rolled their eyes, probably like I did as a teacher when I had a parent tell me how gifted their child was in music. A few weeks after school started, they called my mom and asked if they could move my sister to 5th grade because my sister was GT and they felt it would be a better academic match. My mom said absolutely not. She told them that it was my sister's job to make sure she dug deeper into the subject and not the teachers' job to provide more or different work.

As a retired teacher, I highly suggest visiting your local public school so that you can see for yourself what they can provide educationally for your son. As others have said, at this young age it's not always about academics, but social skills as well. I actually believe the social aspect is more important than the academic because the academic skills can be obtained in a variety of environments. Social skills, not so much, especially when a person becomes easily frustrated by others when they don't move as quickly. This was one of the biggest frustration factors I saw in my GT students.

Respectfully, as a profoundly gifted person with a background in child psychology, I entirely disagree with your premise. Profoundly gifted children have behavior problems precisely because they are cognitively light years ahead of their peers. The problems invariably resolve themselves when the children are placed with cognitively-matched peers rather than same-age ones. As adults, we have friends of a wide variety of ages. Why do we force our children to socialize only with those who are the same age? And for the profoundly gifted, the academics are far more essential than the social aspect. It is just as tortuous to a profoundly gifted child to be forced to sit through years of repetition of concepts they learned in a day or two as it would be to force a high-achieving college student to take basic arithmetic again and again, every day for 12 years. The socialization is what can be achieved outside of the school grounds--sports, arts, science camps, etc. But profoundly gifted absorb information like sponges, and they need it like they need air to breathe. From my personal experience, I can tell you that when I was in a placement that held me back, I became extremely anxious, depressed, and eventually physically ill. As soon as I reached a more appropriate placement, all of those symptoms vanished.

 

[barkley]

The problems invariably resolve themselves when the children are placed with cognitively-matched peers rather than same-age ones. As adults, we have friends of a wide variety of ages. Why do we force our children to socialize only with those who are the same age?

i will respectfully disagree based on personal experiences and observations-one in particular with heartbreaking consequences that resulted in 2 separate families losing their sons at very young ages. as adults we may have friends of a wide variety of ages but generally do not engage with them in a manner that due to their age is wildly inappropriate leading up to entirely illegal. there are unfortunately predatory individuals who for a variety of reasons will prey on young people who do not, despite exceptional intellect, have the socialization skills and maturity to recognize and avoid dangerous and exploitative relationships.

 

[DisneyOma]

He struggles with behavior in pre-k. His teacher says he gets bored and is frustrated when kids aren't on his level.

How does he respond when he is disciplined about the behavior? Do you talk to him about it at home? My girls were told that when they were bored/finished with work at school that they needed to come up with a story in their heads or some other form of nonintrusive behavior; just because the work was easy for them didn't mean they could interrupt the learning process for others. I've had similar talks with the students I work with.

 

[bennifer]

Here's my 2 cents. My ODS is a gifted learner. Public school was his only option. Our district's elementary schools had a fantastic gifted program. They had a gifted learning teacher and the kids were pulled out of regular class a couple times a week to go to spend some time with the gifted learning teacher. HS is where I feel they dropped the ball for the gifted learners. The only option was AP classes. He didn't even know who his gifted coordinator was. They weren't even allowed to take some electives that the non gifted students could take, like creative writing. He also never had any problem with the standardized testing.

My advice is to talk to the public school and ask what their gifted program looks like. You will (should) get an IEP every year that is your child's individual learning plan that you and the school work on together. Don't worry about the standardized testing. And finally, if a child feels different it's important to have other peers that are different like them. They may not be best friends, but chances are they will make life long friends.

Good luck!

 

[JLTraveling]

i will respectfully disagree based on personal experiences and observations-one in particular with heartbreaking consequences that resulted in 2 separate families losing their sons at very young ages. as adults we may have friends of a wide variety of ages but generally do not engage with them in a manner that due to their age is wildly inappropriate leading up to entirely illegal. there are unfortunately predatory individuals who for a variety of reasons will prey on young people who do not, despite exceptional intellect, have the socialization skills and maturity to recognize and avoid dangerous and exploitative relationships.

I am extremely sorry for the things you have experienced and observed. Having worked in residential mental health care for kids, I have definitely observed far too much of what you are alluding to. However, it is entirely unfair and borderline abusive to punish profoundly gifted children for the sins of others. That's where it falls to the school officials to monitor what happens on the school grounds, and the parents to monitor what happens outside of school, to ensure that friendships/relationships do not cross into the inappropriate. But again, forcing profoundly gifted children to spend all day every day with same-age peers is torture to them.

Let's look at this a different way. Suppose we were talking about a teenager with reasonable/average cognitive skills, but severe social disabilities. Someone extremely naive and trusting, who does not have the maturity to recognize when they're being exploited. Would your suggestion for protecting that person be to stick them in a kindergarten classroom? Same thing.

 

[RoseGold]

All of these tests focus on intelligence, not current knowledge. They have been highly validated/refined over many decades and are known for extreme accuracy.

I mean let's not get crazy. There's a whole section of defining vocabulary words, which is a test of how good your English is, not your "intelligence."

Obviously, these tests a lot of limitations, but that isn't really OP's concern. OP knows if their kid is average or not.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

The problems invariably resolve themselves when the children are placed with cognitively-matched peers rather than same-age ones. As adults, we have friends of a wide variety of ages. Why do we force our children to socialize only with those who are the same age?

It's not same-age, it's about learning about the world and the various people who exist in it If you only surround yourself with like people...well we know that can have a whole host of problems.

There's an understanding a child has to come to that just because others around you are not at your same level you need to learn to embrace their differences just as they embrace yours. Shun others and well...

The OP had mentions their son gets frustrated at others that's not about fixing it by merely placing them with cognitively-matched peers because that is how someone views other people. At 5 that can be totally worked on, it wouldn't mean the child doesn't go to a school or be enrolled in a program with other children more up there more adjusting the perceptions around you about others.

Social skills whether you're highly gifted or not are part and parcel to many societies, if someone is okay with potentially having issues with that because of how they perceive others that is their choice, but this is a 5 year old, therefore that choice is up to their parents. I appreciated ThreeHearts description of how they handled it for their daughter.

 

[WEDcryoHEAD]

Like many who have responded, I have an IQ that is listed in the genius range and am a Mensa member. I also agree most likely your son will need individualized curriculum to keep him stimulated and challenged. Public will be better than private as some have said due to the emphasis on STEM curriculum.

Another suggestion I would offer and maybe you have already done this. I would have your son tested to see if he has an Autism Spectrum Disorder. Many children who show IQ's and advanced intelligence at such an early age have some form of ASD. The advanced intelligence and increased desire to learn and to show interest in educational interests instead of the normal childhood interests, is a sign. I speak from experience as I have ADHD and ASD. I too was a highly intelligent child, but got into behavioral issues due to boredom and ADHD.

I only bring this up because if you have him tested to see if he has any ASD it will help him in the long run when it comes to socialization. Kids with ASD, even very minor ASD have trouble with socialization and will often be socially awkward, withdrawn, solitary, etc. They tend to retreat into books or mathematics. Because of their decreased ability to recognize social cues, and to relate to others emotions it makes establishing friendships and peer groups very tough. Again I speak from personal experience.

Obviously you do not have to share if you have had this type of testing or have any feeling that your son could have ASD. I just want you to be aware that it may be present and that most States offer very good testing, programs and services now, that will not only nurture his thirst for knowledge and academic achievement; but will assist with socialization.

Good luck with whatever path you choose and I wish nothing but the best for you and your family.

 

[JLTraveling]

It's not same-age, it's about learning about the world and the various people who exist in it If you only surround yourself with like people...well we know that can have a whole host of problems.

There's an understanding a child has to come to that just because others around you are not at your same level you need to learn to embrace their differences just as they embrace yours. Shun others and well...

The OP had mentions their son gets frustrated at others that's not about fixing it by merely placing them with cognitively-matched peers because that is how someone views other people. At 5 that can be totally worked on, it wouldn't mean the child doesn't go to a school or be enrolled in a program with other children more up there more adjusting the perceptions around you about others.

Social skills whether you're highly gifted or not are part and parcel to many societies, if someone is okay with potentially having issues with that because of how they perceive others that is their choice, but this is a 5 year old, therefore that choice is up to their parents. I appreciated ThreeHearts description of how they handled it for their daughter.

As I've mentioned a couple of times now, I am all for socialization. I believe that profoundly gifted children should spend time in extracurricular activities with kids their own age, slightly older, and even slightly younger. I've suggested sports, the arts, science-based hobbies, etc. But unless you have been a profoundly gifted person (IQ 145 or above) or the parent of one, you honestly have no idea of the literal torture that it is to force these children to spend all day every day with same-age peers. There is a balance that must be met. And I can say with 100% certainty that if it had been forced on me for any longer than it was, I would be dead now. The other profoundly gifted people I know uniformly say the same. A huge part of the point of school is stretching your brain, in part by participating with others who challenge your thoughts and ideas and force you to think about things in a different way. When profoundly gifted children are kept in a same-age classroom, they have exactly zero ability to do that. And they very much want to. As an adult, how would you feel about having to do group work, in which others' performance affects your grade and your future, with kindergarteners? Would you be okay with that?

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

As I've mentioned a couple of times now, I am all for socialization. I believe that profoundly gifted children should spend time in extracurricular activities with kids their own age, slightly older, and even slightly younger. I've suggested sports, the arts, science-based hobbies, etc. But unless you have been a profoundly gifted person (IQ 145 or above) or the parent of one, you honestly have no idea of the literal torture that it is to force these children to spend all day every day with same-age peers. There is a balance that must be met. And I can say with 100% certainty that if it had been forced on me for any longer than it was, I would be dead now. The other profoundly gifted people I know uniformly say the same. A huge part of the point of school is stretching your brain, in part by participating with others who challenge your thoughts and ideas and force you to think about things in a different way. When profoundly gifted children are kept in a same-age classroom, they have exactly zero ability to do that. And they very much want to. As an adult, how would you feel about having to do group work, in which others' performance affects your grade and your future, with kindergarteners? Would you be okay with that?

I think the thing is you're talking to us like we don't get it. No I can't get being that profoundly intelligent. But I know how it was to be the sister of a person who ended up an elitist, someone who literally turned up their nose at those who she didn't perceive to be on her level (she did end up going to Ivy league purely due to academics cuz we sure didn't have the money lol). People her age were coming to me (I was 3 years younger) telling me how she treated others. How she treated me (she spent my freshman year, her senior year of high school calling me stupid or an idiot nearly every day despite the fact that her and I exceled at some overlapping things/getting awards). You have other posters discussing this as well with respects to how people can treat others.

The key part that people are picking up on isn't about how the son would feel about themselves but rather how they feel for others. Regardless of how tortured or not tortured you may feel you don't really want someone to interact with others as if they endlessly frustrate you because they aren't on your level. That isn't about solving boredom because if you do solve the boredom how do you approach the next time you're around others, in the grocery store, at the playground, then when you move on in schooling, then with any romantic relationships you have, or the workplace, etc.

I'm not saying the kid shouldn't be in programs that are more suited for them and I feel like you're trying to make that point, I'm talking about far more reaching and more basic. Realistically you cannot simply surround yourself with the profoundly gifted for the decades and decades and decades you may be alive, you also need to learn to how to interact with others who are not as "profoundly gifted" as you are, at least that is what some of us are mentioning.

As far as your last statement that is life in a nutshell. We all have had experiences in the world, in the workplace, school and relationships where things are directly related to the actions of others. Sometimes it's serious ramifications. sometimes not. And it sure doesn't take being profoundly gifted to be frustrated at that. But how we deal with that says a lot. Describing it like you're an adult and others are kindergartners is precisely what I'm talking about, it's rather presumptuous, rude, and unkind. I value a lot of different things about people, that viewpoint only getting stronger with my own experiences in college with my psychology degree and the various classes I took. Granted you have more educational experience as I only have a B.S. but we do approach things differently at times, this is one of them.