I can imagine situations in which homeschooling would be so appealing if there was no assistance from the schools. In PA, the mandate is a nice place to fall back on, but you are still reliant on the good will of administrators because there isn't any real teeth in the law. Luckily, we found good will.

As someone who interviewed all over the country in the last year with HG schooling high on my priority list, there seemed to be massive differences in how states approach this. I interviewed multiple places in a state with separate, self-contained, HG programming in every place I looked. This state has a mandate with funding and clearly some commitment to GT kids, at least in theory. I looked at another state with a great education record in general and all I got was "all our kids are gifted." I looked at multiple districts in PA and some had programs worth having and some had "all our kids are gifted." There are states who seem committed to this, some states who seem indifferent who have districts committed to effective GT programming, and some areas I looked at who seemed to find the whole thing elitist and offensive.

What angered me about looking at various locations was how easy it seems to create decent programs in any medium sized city or above. I've seen small suburb locations with decent self-contained options for HG kids and massive school districts for major cities with nothing of any value. I don't believe that any fairly decent sized city can't run a self-contained HG classroom at little cost to the district, but there aren't that many of them in my research.

Whether the HG program we're moving to delivers or not is yet to be determined . . . . . , but I'm hoping and hoping . . . .

Our school has one Certified Gifted Teacher who is shared between 3 Districts. Better than nothing, I suppose.

Our District is also piloting Renzulli for 5th and 6th. Not sure what to think about that. At least it's something even if they're just pawning the brightest kids off to a glorified search engine. It's always going to be something like that for TaG kids; higher level books, magazines and games or a trumped up computer program. I shouldn't expect much actual meaningful human to kid contact at this point. That's why we're in the school doing what we do.

I hope to get an Odyssey of the Mind Team approved and funded. The problem with doing after school programs for SNAP [Student Needs Assessment Profile with a resultant SLP] is everyone wants in! It was an issue with Lego Engineering this past spring. A parent of a non-SNAP kid wanted her DS in. She told Admin she was putting her kid in the group and they could call the police to have him removed if they wanted to. She did and they didn't. It was an uncomfortable situation.

That's how desperate folks are for meaningful programs beyond teaching to the No Child Left Behind standard. No Child Left Behind and Gifted Kids Leveled Downward is more accurate. Pfft!

So is SNAP for gifted needs or others with needs as well? What was the objection for a non-SNAP child participating in Lego Engineering? I kind of have the mindset that if a child really wants to participate in an after-school extra curricular like that, why not? Personally, I wouldn't count out a kid who has the drive and desire to learn something new even if they miss the GT profile.
In this area we have several gifted programs through local colleges. All of them require evidence of giftedness. One in particular has a director who doesn't turn anyone away, even if the parent hasn't concretely established that the child is gifted. Her philosophy is that the child and/or parent will ultimately realize if the child is misplaced in the program. I think this is a fair way to handle admissions given that some people don't have the resources for testing and some teachers aren't fully competent at recognizing and referring gifted students within the school system.

SNAP is only for flagged, tested and gifted with an SLP in place. There were only 12 slots for Lego. We have so few SNAP kids that there was the need to backfill. That's fine.

However, we had twin autistic kids in Lego and they could =NOT= do the projects, not even close. As the builds became more difficult DH found that he had to spend the entire time with them instead of giving attention to the rest. The kids not only couldn't do the builds they were extremely disruptive and defiant. They would run out of the building into the parking lot. It was a scene. Misplacing kids in programs like this just burns out your volunteers. We're not willing to handle serious maladaptive behaviors. That is a task for a professional.

True, that is a pretty difficult situation. Not sure what else you could do with that one.

We didn't have any say in the criteria for choosing students for Lego. If we do it again we'll be SURE to set down a concrete framework for appropriate skills and behaviors.

I guess I didn't answer your question about the issue with having non-SNAP kids. There isn't an issue as long as the SNAP kids get their first and fair shot at attending. Without going into too many details - the parent who said that security will have to drag them out is one of those squeaky wheel parents. I told Admin that I didn't want any problems and that I'd make the room for the child but Admin said no to this individual. There's nothing I can do about that.

At or Chess Club we never turn anyone away because our supplies aren't as limited and specific as with Lego. We have 30 chess sets. If more than 60 kids show up they'll just hang out until a board opens up - hasn't happened yet. We usually get around 50 kids.

At =our= Chess Club, rather.