Sally Reis on Gifted Education

AdvicePlease
Tue, 30 Sep 2008 21:22:22 +0000

Both of my daughters were in the gifted program throughout their school careers. (My youngest is currently a senior.) I’m in a suburban school district outside of Philadelphia.

Truthfully I really didn’t see great benefits from the twice weekly pullout programs. We had an annual IEP meeting and updated a plan. I would have to say that the best benefit of the twice weekly pullout was the opportunity to interact with a gifted peer group. Both of my daughters met good friends in these classes.

Both of my kids are primarily math/science gifted but are strong in all areas. The best part of their educations was an accelerated math program that began in 4th grade. There were some internal classroom groupings prior to this but there was a very selective math program beginning in 4th grade. Most of the kids were “gifted” children with IEPs but some were not. Entrance into the class was based on some standardized test…not sure which one.

In high school the IEPs stopped because there was such a large selection of AP courses offered that there really was no need for a separate gifted program. I would say that many of the children that went on to succeed in the AP tests were gifted but others were not. There were definitely some of the gifted children who did not succeed in high school…why…who knows? I’m sure there are many reasons. A gifted student who does not work – for whatever reason…boredom or other…will be less likely to be successful. I can imagine that there is a large percentage of high school drop-outs that are gifted. My daughters were very bored in the early years…but had enough other things going on in their lives to stimulate their minds. Our school district offers enough challenging courses in the high school. If they did not I could definitely have seen my daughters becoming disinterested. As it is, however, my daughter will have completed 8 AP courses by the end of this year…she needed this challenge.

When my daughter started college I reminded her that it’s not enough to be blessed with a brilliant mind…the more important factors are going to class, doing your homework and asking questions.