<p>Marite, From what you have written about your son on other posts, it is obvious that he is extremely advanced in math for his age. My son was not advanced to the same degree but was ahead enough that he was not at all challenged by our school's math curriculum. They do not start grouping the kids for math until eighth grade, when some are selected for Algebra 1 and others take a more slow paced intro to Algebra. We did ask about enrichment/acceleration for him several times when he was in elementary and middle school but I guess we weren't vociferous enough and/or we also weren't aware of the legal requirements for meeting the needs of gifted kids. Our highest class is AB Calculus, which is a senior class, while many school offer Calculus to juniors and teach up to BC level. I am aware that at many high schools, even some which are not known for academics (I am not referring to your school with that remark), it is possible to take classes at local colleges. I have never heard of anyone doing this at our school, and, perhaps it could be possible if someone asked, but it would be very difficult to schedule and I would guess that the student would not be able to take part in sports or other after school activities because of the scheduling problems. I guess a student could take the courses at night, but this would be on top of their high school courses, not instead of. I am glad everything is working out so well for your son - he obviously benefited greatly from the arrangements you and the school were able to make. I must say that I haven't heard any complaints from my son about classes being too easy for him at Stanford :) so I guess things evened out for him in the end!</p>
<p>MotherofTwo:
When my S took MVCalc at the Extension School, there were 10 other students from our hs who took it along with him. There were as well 12 other students from neighboring districts. As I mentioned, last year, there were 53 high schoolers out of a class of 83, mostly from neighboring districts.
Public schools, at least in our area, do allow for students to take advantage of proximity. But it is true that the classes are held in the evening (twice a week) and are on top of the regular classes. This is mostly a by-product of the "no study hall" policy enacted in 1993 by our state legislature. So, last year, my S ended up having 9 classes instead of the usual 7. The evening classes did not interfere with my S's ECs, but I could well imagine that for students having rehearsals until dinner time, there might be a conflict. My S did have some problems pursuing ECs because one class last spring and this past fall was scheduled in the late afternoon rather than in the evening. So far, he has not complained of too much homework.
As for acceleration in k-8, so much depends on serendipity. Some of my S's teachers were against "tracking" on egalitarian grounds, others were willing to accommodate him and were flexible enough to let him take a class at the high school. BUT, the elementary school was close to the high school, so he could walk there, together with another student taking 9th grade math. Last year, the school moved; it remains excellent, and my S's teachers are still there, but it is no longer possible to walk from it to the high school. I would not be surprised if the school sent the student to the high school by taxi if necessary!</p>
<p>Marite, It is great to hear that there are so many opportunities for acceleration in both the younger grades and the h.s. level in your district! Our school's philosophy is that the students would "run out of math courses" if they accelerate, and, as I said, there is no mechanism in place for taking college courses. My son was in three seasons of sports (soccer or xc, winter track, spring track) and often arrived home very late especially after away games/meets. All in all, as I said, things worked out fine for him and the sports involvement was very beneficial to him from both a socialization and physical fitness standpoint. And we have had a serendipitous experience in the case of my daughter (currently a h.s. senior). She is not a math/science person and is challenged sufficiently by her humanities APs, so she does not have the problems we have been discussing here. However, she has a strong interest in art and art history, and, by luck, a teacher who taught one of her AP history classes and is also the advisor of a school club in which my daughter is an officer also has a lot of knowledge and strong interest in art history. She agreed to supervise my daughter in an independent study to prepare for the AP Art History test. The teacher may possibly teach this on her own in the summer to interested students in the future, so it is beneficial to her as well as she is preparing her syllabus by doing the course as a "pilot" with my daughter. So far, my daughter has put more work into this than any of her other regular classes, and she is enjoying it very much. I think the teacher is enjoying it too, as they have visited museum galleries relevant to the topic currently being studied together on days off from school. All of this is totally outside of the official school curriculum - it will not appear on her transcript as our school does not provide for independent study. Sometimes you just get lucky and something really good like this happens where you least expect it to!</p>
<p>MotherofTwo:</p>
<p>Aren't some teachers absolutely terrific? My S was lucky with his elementary school teachers and principal. They really did bend over backward for him and for the other advanced kids. He's also been lucky with some of his hs teachers, including some who slapped his wrist for turning in sloppy work but realized he needed to be more challenged and let him work on his own projects.
I think what was needed in our case was not so much "advocacy" as sustained discussions to figure out how to make acceleration work, especially given scheduling constraints. My S's GC was wonderful in this respect, trying out one schedule after another to make my S's selection of courses work. Sometimes, public schools are not equipped to deal with students who are "out of the box" and sometimes they can be quite rigid; I've heard the argument about running out of math courses. But private schools can be just as rigid. BTW, our public school makes available scholarships for students who want to take the college classes. However, it puts roadblocks in the way of students who want to take humanities classes, arguing that students are unlikely to run out of such courses in the hs.</p>
<p>Martie:</p>
<p>Exeter went out of their way to help kids like Tiankai Liu in taking courses past Linear algebra and vector. Groton and Andover has done similarly in few other subjects. Prep school will also bend backwards if you need to take any courses beyond what they offer and you have an interest in it. One has to exhaust the most challenging courses offered in the subjects, before prep school offers you an alternative.</p>
<p>Some prep schools. Sometime. Some teachers. Having dealt with parochial, prep and public schools, rigidity is not the disease of type. I agree with Marite. But if you pick the school for availability of flexibiltiy in the area you want, you can make out. Usually in a good private school, there are teachers and administrators who want to give the student the most challenging program, but you can hit a sore spot with them at times. The best school in the world is not useful if it does not fulfil your kid's and your family's needs.</p>
<p>parentny:</p>
<p>Jamimom is absolutely right. It really depends on the school and the teachers--and location. We found that our schools were flexible enough to accommodate our S. So far, we've paid a little over $1k for my S's 9 college classes.</p>
<p>Lots of great posts - Cricket, Marite, MotherofTwo. I was actually trying to raise this as a general issue, not specific to my S. When I wrote my last post I was thinking of Marite's S and all the kids who are like him but aren't fortunate enough to live a stone's throw from Harvard. What happens to them?</p>
<p>We are actually fortunate to live in an urban area with a flexible school system and a number of nearby colleges willing to accommodate an advanced student. After much debate and weeks of testing, he was accelerated into advanced high school classes while still in elementary school. I was the taxi. The school system developed a long range plan which included college classes throughout high school. I had to do a lot of advocacy and leg work to make sure this continued over the years. Then there were the scheduling and transportation problems. The high school also let him double up on AP science classes which carried him through his senior year. Senior year was tough to fill up with a challenging curriculum, but it worked out when another local college offered a program that was mostly utilized by private schools in the area for their advanced kids. I had to call the college myself and tell them to send application information to my son's school, because they had never participated before.</p>
<p>One of my first thoughts when he got into Princeton was, "What a relief to not have to worry about what this kid is going to do for math/science next year!" But Im sure there are similar kids in other parts of the country that dont have those resources available.</p>
<p>parentny- Exeter also went out of their way to make sure Tiankai Liu was one of their students. My S went to his first national math meet when he was in the 7th grade. When he returned, I told him what a great accomplishment it was to just make the team as a 7th grader. He replied, Well the kid who won the whole thing was an 8th grader from California, and Exeter is giving him a full scholarship!</p>
<p>Cookiemom, It sounds like the flexibility and cooperation of your school district and your advocacy and hard work allowed your son to get an education within the public school system which is at least as good if not better than he would have received in a private school. I am glad everything worked out so well for him and you should be VERY proud of both him and YOURSELF!</p>
<br>
<blockquote> <p>I had to call the college myself and tell them to send application information to my son's school, because they had never participated before. >></p> </blockquote>
<br>
<p>Your son's experience probably paved the way for other students with similar needs. I know it was easier to advocate for my S to go to the high school for Physics because some 8th graders had gone for 9th grade math before. By taking daytime college classes, my S has probably set a precedent, not just vis-a-vis the school bureaucracy but also the students themselves. They'll know it can be done. The hard part was not convincing the school; it was reconciling two very disparate schedules, one rotating, the other not, and planning courses in the absence of available catalogs for the next year. I, too, am looking forward to my S being in college and not having to work out a feasible schedule for him.<br>
I'm not joking about the taxi. When discussing my S's case, one teacher told me about a blind student who had not gotten along with a particular teacher; the school paid for a taxi to take him to a nearby school district where there was a teacher with whom he got along better.</p>
<p>"Your son's experience probably paved the way for other students with similar needs."</p>
<p>I had tears in my eyes when I visited my S's elementary school a few years ago and was introduced to a group of "math kids" on their way to their "math enrichment class. When my S was there the teachers all used to say, "I don't know what to do with this kid." Eventually they structured independent study and later arranged for him to go to the high school for math class. </p>
<p>Now he gets dismissed from high school to go back to his elementary school to teach a weekly enrichment to mathematically gifted third graders. He's pulled out materials I had found for him when he was that age and he's using them to prepare the kids to learn algebra. The teachers are thrilled to have him back, and hes showing them how to challenge these kids.</p>
<p>My S has had similar experience in our "average" public school system. He took ALGEBRA in elem school, AP Calculus in ninth grade. From there, it was community college math which he finished, but it was too hard to take upper division univ math at our one university in town because of his ECs and scheduling conflicts. I also was the taxi driver to get him to the next level and that is always not possible. I wished that he could have gone to an excellent prep school (we have only "so so" privates) where he would have run out of math options anyway. We made a decision with him between the full high school experience vs just focusing on an academic passion. So he returns to his elem school to teach enrichment math, is captain of two sports teams, active in student govt as is already accepted to his top ivy. For us, in a relatively small town, life is about choices. Might as well learn that early rather than later.</p>
<p>smomb:</p>
<p>I'm curious about your S's experience. The high school was flexible in part because of the three years of math requirement; and it was not about to waive the requirement just because S had taken AP-Calc in 8th grade. What happened in your son's case since he took AP-Calc in 9th grade? I make it two more years of math required for graduation?</p>
<p>Marite:
He took 3 semesters of math past AP calculus at our community college, and took AP Statistics. His counselor also petitioned the district to allow one semester of post-Calculus math to count as a year's worth of high school math. The district agreed but we were not sure whether the UCs would also agree, hence the AP Stats class</p>
<p>smomb:</p>
<p>Thanks. Our hs does not offer AP-Stats, so some advanced students take Stats in the Extension School. The three years of math are a high school graduation requirement, not a college one.</p>