Report from the 'burbs- the "tutor gap" - First day in the "gifted program" - a demographic report
My daughter started the "Gifted" or "Advanced" program today. 4th grade.
My wife and I took her to school and went to the classroom.
17 kids made the program.
By my rough count 9/8 girls to boys.
1 child who is not white (happily a friend of our kid's from soccer)
At the end of the day the daycare pick-ups leave first. 2 kids, my daughter included, were not being picked up by a parent. One of those pick-ups is a good friend of ours who "works at home". I work for the same organization and she should not be picking up her kid at school unless she is doing it on her "lunch break". We also know that she takes some of her afternoon to directly tutor her kid - when she is supposed to working. We have a compact 2 1/2 - 3 hours with our daughter at home every night before bedtime.
15 out of 17 have a parent who can pick them up in the middle of the afternoon.
THIS is a huge advantage. Hey, good for them that they can afford it but we learned about the "tutor gap" several years ago.
Our daughter showed some talent in art. My wife has a minor in art/fashion design and saw her talent. So I went looking for a tutor. If it isn't between 2 - 5 in the afternoon you are not getting a tutor. I found this for a lot of other subjects. I just happened to email a local university and a now member of our family happened to walk into the office of the person I emailed and we have had an in-home after-work tutor for the last few years. We are lucky in many respect.
We are not aware of any "redshirting" in this class but my daughter told me that "some kids say..." that someone at her school skipped from 2nd to 4th grade. This is completely in reverse of the normal "redshirting" and since evaluations (yes, that) are only done in 3rd grade there is no chance that a kid skips from 2nd into the gifted program in 4th. Our daughter is the youngest kid in all of her school and sports activities.
It's not the kids. It's the available time.
We don't have grandparents nearby. We both moved here out of the blue to get our belated degrees.
Being able to personally teach material to a kid one-to-one, as in home schooling, or hiring someone in a reduced ratio to the classroom cannot be over stated.
= new reply since forum marked as read
and keep us informed!
