Eastside private schools

[SouthSeasLifestyler]

We are in Lake Washington School district ... does Issaquah have the equivalent of Choice Schools here? Because it may be a way of making things more interesting while you wait to see how it goes with the gifted testing in your district.

The gifted testing in LWSD is something like 99th in the Cogat and separate achievement test requirements for Math and Language Levels somewhere in the 98th and 99th range (sorry, I can't remember exactly). I'm kinda amazed how high the bar is set, BUT having said that, every child who meets the criteria gets a spot (or they will make a spot). The percentiles are based on national performance, so they say that in this population, last year 10% of the kids got the required scores. Having said that ... I know lots of people whose kids aced the Cogat, but missed out on the achievement tests. I think you gotta take all this testing with a pinch of salt - kids are good at different things, the kids who read at a high level and are good at math will do well in these tests. But there are no tests that say, find out that your kindergartener can name every state on the map (without knowing how to read) or play any tune he hears by ear. I actually think a child who is gifted in other ways might not enjoy the gifted programme so much, nor would it draw out and develop their strengths quite as much.

[kaday]

Originally Posted by benleis

I don't think Issaquah is one of the districts that allows private testing in the appeal process. One other option is to do private school for a year and go through the public testing process and transfer back in in 3rd grade. That does entail an extra transition. (Full disclosure I have set in motion extra school transitions for my kids and they've always worked out but I realize most people are cagey about doing this) Another thought is to look into some kind of extra-curricular enrichment activity that maps to her interests in the meantime. Also sometimes you can get lucky and if you just talk about your concerns with the current teacher, you can improve the experience this year. I find it helps to have some concrete ideas about what you'd like done differently going into that process.
Good Luck

Wow that is really true about Issaquah with the appeals? So many 2E kids in this area. What a shame.