Ask:
Does your school have gifted programs?
We are looking to move and we want to move somewhere that has a gifted program since our school does not. My oldest son is very bright and spent most of his 2nd grade math and reading time last year in the hall way working on his own since he was so far ahead of the class. I don't really want that to happen again, but I don't want him to be bored.
Answer:
In our elementary schools they test the kids at the end of 1st grade. Then those kids who test into the program are pulled out for language arts & math for a few hours per day in the 2nd and 3rd grades. Then in 4th & 5th grades they're in a separate class all to themselves all day. My dd did this and I LOVED it!! The teacher was wonderful!!!!!!!! But I know some people didn't like it because they thought it made the kids separate and too "special". Then at the end of 5th grade they retest all the "challenge" kids (that's what they call the gifted program) and any other high functioning children or with teacher recommendation to see who can get into advanced math or language arts classes in Middle school. Some kids starts 1 year ahead in 6th grade in math, and some start two years ahead in math in the 6th grade (then of course there's just traditional 6th grade math). There's also honors language arts and when my dd was in 6th, all kids who got into honors language arts also got automatically placed into an honors social studies class. I think they've since done away with the soc. stud., and only have the 3 levels of math & 2 levels of language arts. My dd did this also, but I must admit I sometimes questioned if the teachers really understood gifted education. Some of them just seemed to give lots of extra "busy type" homework, which didn't seem appropriate really. Then when they get to high school (we have a 4000 student high school) they have a ZILLION AP classes starting in the freshman year and lots of honors...not just math & language arts, but also honors science in HS. My dd has taken quite a few honors classes and is now taking her 3rd & 4th AP classes this year. So I think that they do make accomodations to try to challenge those gifted children. HTH