Need advice on elementary school for a gifted kid in the Flathead Valley. (Bozeman: school district, maintenance)

[mojomartha]

Hi folks,

My husband has just accepted a job with a company in Columbia Falls very near the FCA/Kalispell airport. We're getting ready to relocate, but I don't really know anything about the elementary schools in the area. I'm hoping someone with elementary school aged kids can help me.

My daughter is in second grade and highly gifted. She has the usual gifted kid problems -- hypersensitivity, perfectionism, social and emotional concerns and the host of problems that arise at school from asynchronous development. She needs a school with a good gifted program - or she'll have problems at school and be miserable.

SHE NEEDS:
1. a classroom environment where she feels accepted by her peers
2. a teacher who understands and "gets" gifted kids.
3. a flexible curriculum that allows the teacher to differentiate learning for children so she can be challenged, engaged and not perpetually bored.
4. a school with a culture that accepts non-conformity and prizes academic achievement.

So...we need a really great school.

Any advice? Any hope for finding that at all?

Thanks so much for your time.
-Martha

[historyfan]

You may be pleasantly surprised by the public K-12 school system in Columbia Falls. It is a well-run positive District.

[magoomafoo]

Originally Posted by mojomartha

Hi folks,

My husband has just accepted a job with a company in Columbia Falls very near the FCA/Kalispell airport. We're getting ready to relocate, but I don't really know anything about the elementary schools in the area. I'm hoping someone with elementary school aged kids can help me.

My daughter is in second grade and highly gifted. She has the usual gifted kid problems -- hypersensitivity, perfectionism, social and emotional concerns and the host of problems that arise at school from asynchronous development. She needs a school with a good gifted program - or she'll have problems at school and be miserable.

SHE NEEDS:
1. a classroom environment where she feels accepted by her peers
2. a teacher who understands and "gets" gifted kids.
3. a flexible curriculum that allows the teacher to differentiate learning for children so she can be challenged, engaged and not perpetually bored.
4. a school with a culture that accepts non-conformity and prizes academic achievement.

So...we need a really great school.

Any advice? Any hope for finding that at all?

Thanks so much for your time.
-Martha

Gosh, my kids aren't g/t but suffer from the same problems....hypersensitivity, perfectionism, social and emotional concerns ect....especially now that hunting season has arrived. Aside from that, if you are moving from a large city, you may find g/t a lot different here.

[mojomartha]

Thanks for the responses folks. Does anyone have an opinion on Muldown Elementary (that's the closest elementary school to the place my husband is staying at the moment). We're going to have our daughter finish this fall semester up in Washington before moving the entire family out.

magoomafoo -- any specifics on how G/T is different here? The elementary we are coming from in Camas isn't in a large town -- but it did have an exceptionally good school district.

[jasper12]

This is Montana....you get what you get. That being said, Montana gets a big bang for their buck as far as qualified teachers go...I have been impressed with the quality of education in Montana. My daughter went to school in Bozeman...and had exceptional teachers.

I am sure your daughter will do fine. I do suggest being polite and respectful...coming to a new school and expecting a lot of attention for your "gifted" child won't go over well. Request a meeting with the school psychologist and request testing for your child. Bring in the previous tests and work samples from your child. Let them do their own testing as well. Then, go over the results, and if they show your daughter as gifted...request how this is handled in this area. This is courtesy...and will go a long way in Montana.

If you come in the summer, see if the testing can be done prior to school starting.

[mojomartha]

Thanks Jasper -- That's solid advice anywhere really -- courtesy always goes a long way.

I don't need a lot of attention paid my kid at all -- just the right learning environment and a supportive and understanding teacher that is good with redirection and is relaxed about attention issues.

[jasper12]

Okay...cool. I thought you were one of those big city folks who wears pointy shoes and hose, and was gonna start being high maintenance about your "gifted " child...lots of city folks like to say their kids are gifted...and...that would not go over well here. But, requesting testing, and a meeting is fine. That will work much better. Best of luck to you and your child.

[mojomartha]

Nah -- I'm just a normal mom with socks and docs!

Testing is fine. It's good for everyone to know what they're dealing with and to get her exactly where she needs to be. I really don't want anything special for her -- I just want to be sure she's not mercilessly bullied for being a dorky egghead and that her teacher challenges and engages her and redirects her when she is bored or loses focus.

See...last year she had a 1st grade teacher that taught EVERYONE in class at the same level and my gal was bored bonkers -- academically she was back to doing stuff she'd done at the age of 3 or 4 -- she was miserable and so she spaced out a bit and lost focus. As a result the teacher was constantly punishing her for lack of focus with written "uh-oh's" verbal reprimands and loss of privileges like recess -- that led to social issues and enormous stress for my kid who was abjectly miserable as a result.

We were going to pull her out of the school but then we sort of won the lotto and got the best teacher in the district for her for 2nd grade....she's doing so much better now -- I just couldn't take it if we pulled her from that and sent her to somewhere where she was miserable again -- I think she'd lose interest in school altogether which would really be a shame.

So I want to be sure the school we send her to is a good one.

We don't need much -- just a challenging environment and teachers that understand that gifted doesn't mean "smart" or "model student" but "differently-wired brain that prefers complexity and a bigger picture to tiny steps and fundamentals" that's really the key for us.

We don't even need a gifted program per se... if she can get into a classroom where the teacher challenges and engages her and understands that she needs to be redirected and challenged not punished when she becomes bored -- then gifted program or not -- she'll be fine.

[mojomartha]

She's just too hypersensitive and...um...awkward to manage without a supportive teacher.

[alooknac]

I highly recommend the Kalispell Montessori Elementary School if you can possibly afford it. They have multi-age classrooms and are all about individualized instruction. Your husband could commute to the airport just as easily from Kalispell as from C Falls.

Kalispell public schools do not have a GT program and your daughter really needs that, from what you say. It is rare that a public school teacher, even if they want to, can individualize instruction for a gifted student.

I am not familiar with the C Falls schools but all our public schools are overstressed and many classrooms are at maximum size, even overenrolled.

Another possibility is St. Matthew's in Kalispell. Even parents who are not Catholic send their kids there for a quality education but the kids do have religious instruction and I think the milieu is fairly conservative, but not really sure. Something to check out if the religion doesn't put you off.

I think this is true everywhere, but I can tell you from a lot of first-hand experience, that the teachers have their hands full dealing with the "problem children" so the well-behaved, smart kids are left to fend for themselves and don't get their fair share of the teacher's attention. And it is a very rare teacher that "gets" giftedness, even as many of the responses here indicate people don't "get" it.

We used to be in the Polson school district which had only a minimal GT program but with a fabulous GT teacher, yet even there, the regular teachers didn't get it. It was a constant battle. However, having the minimal GT class was my daughter's salvation--the challenge, a place where it was OK to be smart, etc.