Who here has their kid(s) in a gifted magnet school? - Page 2

[TiredX2]

Originally Posted by loraxc

For those who have done this, I'm curious how your friends and family have reacted. I think my family will be negative to the switch and I worry that it will be awkward with local friends, too. I also cringe a bit when I imagine the "Where does your child go to school?" conversations (people will know this school is not our zoned one and will ask further). Not the biggest concern, but it is a concern.

Family--- doesn't matter too much. They are mostly in a different state and my kids have a few cousins who are also in gifted programs.

Friends--- generally supportive. Of course, we self-select so of my three best friends two have their kids in alternative programs (one in gifted, one in charter type).

The "Where does your child go to school?" is actually most awkward around aquantances--- people like parents from the soccer team, or neighbors, or... We sometimes get an odd reaction, but generally people just understand you do what you do for your kids. Since we live in a neighborhood with a GREAT school it's definately not something to be jealous of or anything My DD is young for her grade (skipped a year) and DS is old (repeated a year) and neither go to their local school so we often get questioned on it.

[emmaegbert]

Originally Posted by loraxc

For those who have done this, I'm curious how your friends and family have reacted. I think my family will be negative to the switch and I worry that it will be awkward with local friends, too. I also cringe a bit when I imagine the "Where does your child go to school?" conversations (people will know this school is not our zoned one and will ask further). Not the biggest concern, but it is a concern.

personally I just simply answer the question, and if you want to, you could say something like, "we think its a good fit for DD right now". Only go into it if people really want to talk (most people really don't want to hear THAT much about other peoples' kids, IME ) I've had people think it odd that we send DS to a Waldorf kindy when we lived in Cali (lots of people loved our zoned school but I did not think it would have been a good fit for our son AT ALL, but could hardly say much negative on the subject to my friends whose kids attended it). Now we're in NYC where people go to all different schools so its not too much an issue. I've had a few people sort of act funny about it (like its about me) but I don't engage and just say, "DS is thrilled and just loves going to school every day". Also, people here get that you don't have a lot to lose- the zoned school will always HAVE to take you and so its worth trying another option if it seems a better fit for your kid.

[ollyoxenfree]

Family - I don't recall it ever being an issue or even a topic of discussion. But then my family is fairly MYOB about things like this. I suspect one or two of them thought it wasn't a great idea, but I didn't hear any direct criticisms or comments.

Friends - I avoided talking a lot about school programs. Once in a while, I let someone know that it was available in case they wanted to explore the possibility for their own kids. If school was a topic of conversation, I tended to keep it on what interesting things their kids were doing. If someone asked, we generally just said that the kids were happy and the school was working out well.

I have had the funny awkward conversation where someone relatively unknown asks why my kids didn't attend the local school. I've simply responded that they attend a "special program", which can leave the impression that they are juvenile delinquents going to the behaviour program for problem kids or attending one of the classes for severe learning disabilities.

[eclipse]

In San Diego, magnet programs were (and probably still are) very popular. They weren't all about GATE - some were performing arts oriented, some were science and technology focused, etc. So not going to the neighborhood school wasn't really out of the ordinary. If anyone ever asked why I went to that particular school, my mom usually said I was in a program that focused on individually paced learning if she wanted to avoid people thinking she was bragging about how smart her kid was.

I wanted to add that, while my elementary school and my high school did a great job with an appropriately leveled education - my junior high was not so good about it. They were a lot more into integrating higher and lower performing students and it might have helped the lower performing students, but it was nothing but frustrating for me.

[loraxc]

Yes, I guess I was wondering if you use the words "gifted magnet" or avoid them when people press to know more. I can certainly see the point of avoiding it, but what if your child is standing right there? Do you think one runs the risk of communicating that the school is something not to be mentioned in polite company, or something embarrassing/wrong?

Although, given my DD, she would probably just correct me. I mean, that's assuming she knows that the school is a gifted magnet. We have never used the word "gifted" with her, but I guess if we switch her it would seem to make sense to introduce it...? The school openly goes by that name--there is no euphemism like GATE or "highly capable" or anything here.

[Freeman]

Originally Posted by eclipse

If anyone ever asked why I went to that particular school, my mom usually said I was in a program that focused on individually paced learning if she wanted to avoid people thinking she was bragging about how smart her kid was.

I would say something like this, if you don't feel comfortable calling it a "gifted magnet" school. The school actually has the word "gifted" in its name, or just the program within the school?

[savanaht]

GATE Magnet

My child Artemisia, in second grade, just transferred to a GATE Magnet school three weeks ago. The school is basically just as you described, with a reputation for having a student population that makes the teachers want to tear their hair out. It is also a Title I school, which means that the population has not met their Adequate Yearly Progress requirements for a few years. Not sure if that has something to do with how the school got the GATE funding?
In any case, the school is well-funded. The second grade GATE students are going on six field trips this year; there are 3 separate instructors for computers/tech, science lab, and music/choir/drama. These features used to come standard when I was in school. Now at the regular public schools, especially if they don't have their AYP, it is a sad state of affairs. There is no funding for this "extra" stuff, and the schools are only interested in standardized testing in Math and Reading. The state paid for the kids last year at the regular public school for the kids to have science books, but not until after year-end standardized testing did the teacher crack them open. It was the last week of school at that point; not too much time remained to get into things so the teacher told the kids that the best example of the gas phase was farts. Grrr! No wonder my kid starting acting up in the last couple months of first grade if that's the level on which they were working. But I digress...
Besides the scope of the curriculum, her new school gives the kids a lot more freedom even though it is accelerated. They are also given more responsibility. My daughter is responsible for pulling & copying down her own homework, and it is due daily. It is not really that much more work than she had before, but it is more thought-provoking. The standards by which the kids are tested are the same for the entire second grade. The biggest thing about this GATE program is that they demand parent involvement. There will be a research project and a science fair toward year's end; it will be a lot of work. I could tell that it was a good school when I met with the Dean and visited the campus. The teacher is a little overbearing but I think she is just the right one to deal with a class of gifted students! Just try to get a feel for the people who are running the place. I was worried about my child being antagonized by "bad" kids from the school but she had not been subjected to any feeling of segregation. The all eat lunch, go to recess, and have other activities together. The niceness may change as they get older, but at this point I think kids are kids and it is working out great.
It is a lot of extra work having a gifted kid anyway, so I figure it's worth working with these people from the school district if they are willing to help my little girl grow.
Give it some serious thought, and be ready to put in some extra work. There are costs and benefits. With the sorry state our schools are in these days, I did not really feel like it was an option to leave my kid in general instruction.
Good luck!

[domesticidyll]

I don't have anything useful for the initial question, but here are my two cents on what to say. We are homeschooling, partly out of loving the lifestyle but also substantially out of dissatisfaction with our other options. School choice comes up a lot in our community, and I usually just say, "We're homeschooling this year," and, if pressed, "It's a great fit for us." But, for the acquaintances who press, I have it exceptionally useful to say, "He's just a quirky learner." Honest, but usefully vague. And then ask about their kids

[Cavy]

Ah, what a timely thread to find.
I am awake at 3:30am because I became upset thinking too hard about what actually happened when I was 8yo and the first day I started at a Gifted magnet. Because my local multi-ethnic regular school in a run-down area where I was thriving academically and happy being taught bilingually (we are not a bilingual family) wasn't deemed good enough.

Something I said that first day caused the other children to hate me. Forever. I was bullied for 4 years. The school told my parents that my social problems were typical of Highly Gifted children (I wasn't bullied before or since). When my niece (labelled a genius by many, but also bullied) attended the same school 25 years later and was being picked on by her peers, her mother was told it wasn't bullying, but rather "a rite of passage".

Of course I did terrible academically those years and for several years afterwards. The actual extension programmes for those of us in the Mentally Gifted Minors program was quite paltry, just a few hours of different activities each week (1970s, hopefully much much better today).

Sorry I hit this thread on such a jaded note. Just don't let them make excuses like it seems acceptable to do at my San Diego school. Mine was in a prosperous area, by the way, full of doctors' and lawyers' kids (my dad was a lawyer, too).

Niece went on to briefly attend a private school for Gifted kids; academically she was fine but they couldn't cope with her emotionally; she was later diagnosed with ODD. Niece had a rather unstable childhood, mostly due to her unstable bipolar mother. Niece is now 20 and calls herself bipolar, too. No school could deal with her, I guess.