GATE still alive and well in OC public schools?

[Charles]

Originally Posted by CAVA1990

Perhaps for staying out of jail but I doubt will have much impact on a kid's academic performance. Think about yourself. Didn't you have friends who were total slackers, trouble makers, or came from sketchy homes? I did. Did they have any influence on my own performance? Not really.

What matters most is your own family. Not your friends'.

This does happen to be true for me. I grew up in a blue collar neighborhood in Canoga Park; most of my neighborhood pals dropped out of high school, some got into drugs more serious than pot. I attended a college prep with some wealthier/famous kids (Vin Scully's late son Mike was in my class) and (still hung out with the goof off partiers) but I still graduated high school and attended college.

[albertinamel]

I hear it's a bit watered-down compared to when I was in it (late 70s and 80s), but my GATE program in HBCSD was phenomenal. I was in full-time GATE, and we were working about two grade levels ahead of all our peers and did amazing projects, including class plays where we had to have all our lines memorized (and many of them). We did long division and long multiplication with decimals in the third grade. I remember, when I was in third-grade, the fifth-grade GATE class performed Macbeth (albeit modified) for the school in an assembly. I also remember we learned all the major bones in the body in third grade, and we always did in-depth literature and social studies units continuing through eighth grade. Plus, we always seemed to get the best teachers. My eighth-grade GATE language arts teacher taught us grammar extremely well. We were the only kids going into foreign language classes who already knew what the present & past progressive, present perfect, past perfect, conditional, conditional perfect, future, and future perfect tenses were. Overall, it was a fantastic program!

I am currently faced w/the possibility of moving back to OC from out of state, and if the GATE program in HBCSD is anywhere near as good as it used to be, it would heavily influence my decision to buy in the district, as my daughter is currently in a GATE program in our district in WA state.

[wegotworms]

Both of my children have been placed into the GATE program in the SVUSD. One is in third grade and the other in 6th. We moved here last year and were offered the opportunity midway through the year for our 5th grader to go into it, but we didn't want to disrupt him any more as he had already moved across the country! Plus, the teacher he had was phenomenal.

As other posters have mentioned, you have the option of choosing a cluster program at your home school (basically a group of GATE children in a classroom with other "typical" children) or choosing the GATE school where there should be a full classroom of all GATE children doing all GATE things.

We have chosen to keep our children at their home school and in 4-6 grade (at least at our school), the GATE classrooms in our regular school are completely full of GATE children. The children have to be identified by one of a number of factors - testing they do at school (our district uses the Otis Lennon test), outside IQ testing, or some other factor. Once the kids are in middle school, they are put in honors classes. If your child wasn't in the GATE program already, they have to have A's in their regular classes and then will be asked to do honors.

In third grade, our GATE student basically does the regular work and then the other GATE students in his class are given "deeper" assignments. There is a volunteer mom who comes and takes the kids out for advanced mathematics (more creative problem solving and logic) and instead of reading the regular texts with the other children, the GATE students are given their own novels at a higher level. The district states that the GATE program is only a Language Arts program, which is why there is a volunteer who comes to do mathematics. However, we have seen/found that in 4-6 grades (at least at our school), the teachers delve deeper into subject matter in the GATE classes across all subjects.

In our 6th grader's classroom, the children read To Kill a Mockingbird recently (which I remember as being more on a 9th grade level), are doing interesting science experiments, and are completing pre-Algebra so they can be in Algebra in 7th grade (need to take a test to be placed in that class as well). They are writing persuasive essays and really getting a great education. I was also told that in the GATE classes they do a lot more plays and hands-on activities than in the other classes.

Again, I'm sure it changes from school to school and even from grade to grade or teacher to teacher. We have been lucky to have superb teachers all through and are very happy with the GATE program here.

[mrwumpus]

GATE programs vary widely by school, teacher and by principal. Schools rotate principals so GATE programs can live or die depending upon the principal. We actually moved our 3rd grader to a new school for that very reason: the new school's new principal embraced GATE and the home school's principal neglected it.

We had no idea how bad our child had it until they were actually put in a GATE class with genuine challenges and differentiation. They had never before been challenged or learned how to face and overcome challenges and pay attention to details. They were just floating by as the smart kid. We look back on 2nd grade as a lost year because our child had no GATE acceleration or challenges.

It's well worth doing your homework, drilling teachers and principals, and especially finding parents with children in a particular GATE class to find out what's best.

[Coldjensens]

We hated it. I cannot remember why. We took our kids out of the program and then when we were told the next year that they HAD to go into gate, we put them in a different school. (That may have been when and why we switched some ofthem to private school). I will have to ask my wife the reasons, I cannto remember, but I do remember that it was important enough to us to get them out of the GATE program that we changed schools.

[JoLynnI]

I grew up in Orange County GATE, my son has been identified as gifted in Prince William County, which neighbors Fairfax, Va. They don't identify or foster the "T" in GATE. It's all about stem in elementary. We do have a performing arts High School, but no elementary orchestra or choir, art is a "special" every 7th day, and drama is completely ignored...not even a kindergarten pageant with kids playing teeth or ducks. I far preferred Garden Grove's pioneering MGM program that put the gifted kids in a dedicated wing with cooperative projects.