Colleen27
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2007
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.
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.