Decisions, decisions.....
We went to a meeting last night about the EXCEL program for our school district. EXCEL is a program for gifted students that begins in second grade. They only take the top 5-7% of students in the district into this program, so there are about 45 spots available. These students are split between two schools (one a year round school and one a traditional calendar school).
Keithen's teacher will be nominating him for EXCEL for next year and we plan to fill out an application for it as well. We really feel that he needs the additional challenges that this kind of learning environment would provide for him. If he is chosen to attend an EXCEL classroom, he would be working on 3rd grade math and doing 3rd to 6th grade reading work. He would have much more challenging spelling words and a longer spelling list each week. They would do a lot more projects than in a regular 2nd grade classroom and a lot more writing. All the way around this looks like a perfect fit for him.
The big decision we need to make is which school do we apply to? He is currently in a year-round school. We plan to send Kaylee to that school for 1/2 day Kindergarten next year so that she will still be close to home.
If we send Keithen to the year-round EXCEL school, he will have a much longer bus ride to and from school each day. (We only live an 8 minute walk from his current school.) He would be about 5 minutes from Grandma and Grandpa's house, which would be good if he were to ever get sick or something while at school. His cousins used to go to this school and liked it very much. I have talked to the EXCEL teacher from the year-round classroom and I like her. She's a very experienced teacher and has been working with gifted kids for a long time. Her classroom sounds very exciting to me.
If we send him to the traditional calendar, he would be much closer to home so his bus ride wouldn't be so long. BUT then he and Kaylee would be on different schedules. (There is no guarantee that Kaylee could be sent to either of these other schools for Kindergarten since they are not our "home" school.) I haven't actually talked to the EXCEL teacher from this school, but I know she is younger than the year-round teacher. I *think* there might be more than one teacher in that classroom though.
I'm leaning towards keeping him on the year-round calendar that we are used to and the longer bus ride. What would you do?????
Keithen's teacher will be nominating him for EXCEL for next year and we plan to fill out an application for it as well. We really feel that he needs the additional challenges that this kind of learning environment would provide for him. If he is chosen to attend an EXCEL classroom, he would be working on 3rd grade math and doing 3rd to 6th grade reading work. He would have much more challenging spelling words and a longer spelling list each week. They would do a lot more projects than in a regular 2nd grade classroom and a lot more writing. All the way around this looks like a perfect fit for him.
The big decision we need to make is which school do we apply to? He is currently in a year-round school. We plan to send Kaylee to that school for 1/2 day Kindergarten next year so that she will still be close to home.
If we send Keithen to the year-round EXCEL school, he will have a much longer bus ride to and from school each day. (We only live an 8 minute walk from his current school.) He would be about 5 minutes from Grandma and Grandpa's house, which would be good if he were to ever get sick or something while at school. His cousins used to go to this school and liked it very much. I have talked to the EXCEL teacher from the year-round classroom and I like her. She's a very experienced teacher and has been working with gifted kids for a long time. Her classroom sounds very exciting to me.
If we send him to the traditional calendar, he would be much closer to home so his bus ride wouldn't be so long. BUT then he and Kaylee would be on different schedules. (There is no guarantee that Kaylee could be sent to either of these other schools for Kindergarten since they are not our "home" school.) I haven't actually talked to the EXCEL teacher from this school, but I know she is younger than the year-round teacher. I *think* there might be more than one teacher in that classroom though.
I'm leaning towards keeping him on the year-round calendar that we are used to and the longer bus ride. What would you do?????
posted by Carissa @ 9:21 AM
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