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We need to know where you live to offer any suggestions. But I think you should consider transferring her to a school with a more advanced curriculum.
My third grader scored in the 98th percentile in standardized tests. I have him in a top-rated regular school. Almost all his classmates scored in the 90th percentile or higher.
What is your town? I thought public schools follow the same curriculum.
i went to a local catholic school in PA growing up. i was bored and got into trouble a lot in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade because the classes were not challenging. i think homeschooling is a bad option, and i'm not saying there are not more challenging schools out there, as I'm sure there are....but I went to a private "prep school" for high school that you had to test into.
what i'm saying is...it's grade school. chillax a bit,
Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptainNJ
public school is easy because they have to dumb it down for the least common denominator. but i would think its best to let your kid enjoy getting easy A's through school and try to add on hobbies and extra curricular stuff.
school is boring for every kid, you aren't going to make it interesting by making it more difficult. but it may be an opportunity to spend more time on other enriching activities.
I agree. OP, your kid is very young. I never thought it necessary for children in elementary school to be in private school unless public schools in the area are subpar. This is just my opinion, of course. Middle school and high school, specially high school, are different stories though. I'd wait until your child is older to worry about private schools for smarter kids. I like the extracurricular hobbies/sports idea.
I think children that young shouldn't worry about being overly challenged yet. I always excelled in elementary school. I never had trouble reading, writing, spelling, I struggled a bit with math but overall to be honest I'd say I was a smarter than my classmates. I watched most kids struggle with reading and spelling while it came so naturally to me. But my parents kept me in public school all my life, and at that point just let me be a kid no matter how smart I was.
If the 97% is representative in the long term and not a statistical fluke, she isn't going to be adequately challenged, and that's not really avoidable. Look to be in the best feasible district/school and apply to regional magnet schools and programs as she ages into them.
If you're renting, consider moving to a town with a solid public school system. A lot of the public schools (at least in Bergen County which I'm most familiar with) are stronger than the Catholic ones and the money you aren't spending on tuition should cover the marginal increase in housing cost. As to what specific town, no one here can give good advice without knowing even what part of the state you're in -- sure people can name the best districts in the state (Millburn, Tenafly, West Windsor, Princeton, etc.) but that isn't terribly useful if none of them are near where you want to live.
The only tests that matter are national tests like OLSAT, CogAT, Stanford Benet, Wechler, etc. Get your child to a child psychologist and test for IQ and OLSAT/CogAT and you'll know what you have. Based on those test scores, you can decide where to go - private or public.
State tests are meaningless. Catholic schools are grade inflationary.
There are lots of magnet schools down the line like Bergen County Academies, High Technology, etc. All of those kids test 130 and above on a standard IQ test.
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