Trying to figure out Boca/North Broward Gifted elementary options (Sunrise: cliquey, lease)

[bocamom]

My son, who is entering 2nd grade, has tested out for gifted.

he is in Montessori now, and my lease is up, so I can move wherever he will get the best program.

I am accustomed to living on the beach, but would like to find a great neighborhood full of second grade boys and fun moms.

If there is a way to have him in a great public gifted program, around other kids at home, and still on the beach I would move there!

But as it is, it seems that getting into the area that sends gifted kids to Del Prado is the best bet, in Boca?

How is the Addison Mizner program?

We currently live in the Pompano Elementary school zone, but a block south is the McNab School Zone and I have heard that they have a gifted program too.

It is just the two of us, I am currently working from home, and we need to move anyway. Where is the best gifted program for a bright and active 7 year old boy who loves music and drama and science??????

thank you for any and all insights!

[Desdemona25]

I think I'm qualified to post here. My daughter just finished 3rd grade at Del Prado.

I don't know much about Broward's gifted program. The only thing I have heard is that it doesn't start until around 4th grade. Palm Beach's program starts at kindergarten.

As for the Boca schools, there are 3 that serve as gifted clusters. They are Del Prado, Addison Mizner and Waters Edge. Now for a few things about each school.

Del Prado: my daughter started the gifted program here in 2nd grade after being in an accelerated private program for kindergarten and 1st grade. Second grade was a bit shaky (DM me and I'll go into more details), but 3rd grade was WONDERFUL. We LOVED her teacher and wish we could take her to 4th grade with us. I've found that there is a nice community feel to the school. The PTA can be cliquey, but that's to be expected nearly everywhere. The school pulls together if one of their own needs help. Case in point, this past year a boy in 2nd grade was diagnosed with leukemia. The PTA had a family bingo night and all the proceeds went towards his medical bills. The learning style at the school is along the lines of enrichment learning. When my daughter was in 2nd grade, they were learning about the sea and coral reefs. One of their in-class activities was creating a coral reef in a kiddie pool. You don't have to be within Del Prado's boundaries to go there for gifted. Gifted students from the following home assigned schools go to Del Prado: Verde, Whispering Pines, Hammock Pointe, Coral Sunset (some, possibly all), Sandpiper Shores (possibly all, but not sure) and Sunrise Park (same deal as Sandpiper). Overall, we've been happy here.

Addison Mizner: it's an older school but seems to be nice. This is primarily the East Boca gifted cluster. I believe JC Mitchell and Boca Elementary have their gifted students here. The only one I'm not sure about is Calusa Elementary--it's considered to be East Boca, but it's on the north side of town so it might feed its gifted students into a Delray school. Other than that, I don't know too much about them.

Waters Edge: people seem to be very happy here, but from what I've heard they're very much a "teach to the test" type of school. One of the girls in my daughter's dance class goes to Waters Edge. Her mom was quite vocal about the place. She said the gifted kids could be put into 3 classes--A, the ones who are truly gifted and belong there; B, those that are on the line; C, the ones whose parents paid off the examiner for their kid to have the gifted label and don't belong in the program at all (I've also heard that Del Prado has this problem in places). In addition, their program is more of an accelerated learning style. Meaning, they just throw more work at you. As far as the schools that feed in, Waters Edge is closest to Sandpiper Shores, Coral Sunset and Sunrise Park. So I'm not sure how the boundaries work out for that.

If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

[bocamom]

Thank you for your answer. i wish I would have asked a long time ago, it took me a while to figure out how the feeder schools worked!

Now I am just trying to choose between Del Prado and Addison Mizner. I've never lived west of US1 so i have a hard time getting a feel for the neighborhoods west of 95 but i want the best school for him.

I have read about Del Prado and it sounds great to me.

I have been told by people that Del Prado is "big" and kids from little private schools can be overwhelmed and that there is so much homework that here is no time to play and still get a decent night's sleep. But I have also heard this from parents who have very different kids from mine. my kid loves learning, reading, studying and projects more than playground. . .

He is at a normal montessori and gets almost no science education there but he does get violin, chorus, drama, sports, etc. How is Del Prado at this type of enrichment? He got into Henderson and we lasted a day, they had nothing for music until fifth grade!

I have heard NOTHING about Addison Mizner's program and no one there has called me back. Does anyone have any info on that? Is there another place where i can find out more about local gifted programs?

I would love to DM you to find out more on Del Prado, but I am not as bright as my son I don't know how to!

thank you!!

[Desdemona25]

Originally Posted by bocamom

Thank you for your answer. i wish I would have asked a long time ago, it took me a while to figure out how the feeder schools worked!

Now I am just trying to choose between Del Prado and Addison Mizner. I've never lived west of US1 so i have a hard time getting a feel for the neighborhoods west of 95 but i want the best school for him.

I have read about Del Prado and it sounds great to me.

I have been told by people that Del Prado is "big" and kids from little private schools can be overwhelmed and that there is so much homework that here is no time to play and still get a decent night's sleep. But I have also heard this from parents who have very different kids from mine. my kid loves learning, reading, studying and projects more than playground. . .

He is at a normal montessori and gets almost no science education there but he does get violin, chorus, drama, sports, etc. How is Del Prado at this type of enrichment? He got into Henderson and we lasted a day, they had nothing for music until fifth grade!

I have heard NOTHING about Addison Mizner's program and no one there has called me back. Does anyone have any info on that? Is there another place where i can find out more about local gifted programs?

I would love to DM you to find out more on Del Prado, but I am not as bright as my son I don't know how to!

thank you!!

I'm impressed that he got into Henderson. It's pretty hard to get into there once you're above kindergarten age.

The levels of homework vary. There are times that my daughter has come home with it and has been done in 15 minutes. Other times she might be working on stuff for 2 hours. I guess it depends on the teachers too.

Yes, Del Prado is definitely big. They're adding on another set of concreteables that should be open for fall. Part of the issue is because they take the gifted kids from sooo many schools. Nearly 60% of the kids that attend Del Prado are in the gifted program.

I think they've done well with their science program. They don't have the FCAT science test officially until 5th grade, but they did a preliminary test on my daughter early in 3rd grade. She scored a 3 on it and that was only because she didn't do as well on the earth science section that she did on the others. And well, earth science is what they were learning a lot about in 3rd grade. Don't know how she'd do now, but probably quite well. Her first time out on the FCAT this year, she had a 5 on the math and a high 4/nearly 5 on reading. And she had her first straight A report card. Yes, I'm a proud mama.

Regarding the other stuff...music, chorus, sports, etc. They have what's called their "specials" rotation. Each class is on a set schedule and each day is assigned a letter--A, B, C and so on to like H. Specials are held the same time each day, but it's a different class each day. This would include: PE, music, media (2 days), computers and art. Media is always split into 2 days--media checkout and media instruction. Both this year and last my daughter had those back to back. Last year she had PE 2 days in a row and this year it was 3 days in a row. I think she might have had music 2 days in a row last year but can't remember for sure. They still have recess on the days they have PE (many schools don't) and will occasionally have an extra "special" during the day.

Sports are handled through their popular after-school club program. You can get A LOT of variety through the clubs. I've seen clubs for healthy living (her 3rd grade teacher did this one a few times), cooking (her 2nd grade math teacher does this one regularly), general sports, chess, building a robot, dance, art, yoga, Legos, SECME (a science club for 4th and 5th grade--they participate in competitions too) and others I can't think of at the moment. They don't have anything regarding instruments there. I won't be able to get the answer on this one right away, but one of the girls that will be in my Girl Scout troop next year currently takes violin lessons. I can ask where she goes.

The music program there seems to be pretty good. Haven't heard any complaints from my child. For a music class this year, my daughter watched Riverdance. She mentioned to the teacher that she takes tap and knew some of the Irish tap style. Next thing we knew, she was bringing her tap shoes to school and giving a demonstration of her recital routine. This was HUGE for her because she's not one to normally volunteer herself for something like that.

The PTA also schedules various cultural programs for the school. Sometimes an author will pay a visit and other times it can be a special musical program. If I could only find my daughter's 2nd grade yearbook, I'd almost want to say they had some sort of drumming thing last year. But don't quote me on that one!

Oh, and a warning...2nd grade was VERY heavy regarding projects. They had one at least once a month. We were SO happy to be done with that. Third grade had a few projects here and there, but it was nothing compared to the volume of 2nd grade. My daughter was overwhelmed at first too since she also came from a small private school. She had 12 kids in her kindergarten class and 8 in her 1st grade class. Then she went into a class of 24 in 2nd grade. At some point in the year, the class had 27 kids. I know...waaay beyond the class limit. But that's another day, another therapy session.

I'm not sure where Verde Elementary's eastern boundary is, but you might want to check into them. They're located the farthest east of all the schools that feed into Del Prado.

Have you tried checking out the website for Addison Mizner? Each school has its own site through the district website. Maybe that might give you a little bit more info.

I've always lived out west and despise the beach. So anything east of Powerline/Jog I'm totally out of my zone.

Good luck with whatever you decide!

[bocamom]

It was funny how much Henderson had changed since the last time I was there (late 80's). I have been told by several parents that I was being nuts when I pulled him out after a day, but they called and accepted him after three very successful weeks of first grade where he was, and I was so shocked at the wall of bureaucracy that I ran into trying to find out about the programs so I could decide to switch him. They were so rude about me asking questions as if it was unheard of to want to know about your school before choosing it. And it smelled like mold. And the teacher wore a crown and told them to call her queen, and when my son asked her a question she refused to acknowledge it until he actually started to cry, at which point she acted very rude to me, and told me it was my fault for asking to come in for a few minutes (they had introduced us to the wrong teacher during our tour and it turned out to be a different teacher, different room. son was five, but since he was already in first grade where he was and his test scores were golden they accepted him anyway. . but we turned THEM down.

WHen she barked at me, I took him and left and went right back to his other school with him. It was a no-brainer from where I was standing.

But other parents have told me that that is just what public school is like, and i may as well keep him in montessori for my own sanity.

i just think montessori isn't academically enough for him.

i found a nice house for rent a block from del prado, but i am hesitating. i wish the school were open and i could learn more about it. but they don't even answer the phone.

from east they bus to addison mizner, but their website doesn' t even mention the gifted program, and nothing i have heard was great. . .

[Marblemania]

Okay...gifted in Broward County starts in 2nd grade and they are in both Riverglades and Park Trails are self contained. The teachers have been amazing and my daughter is now in gifted in middle school. She was selected to take SAT in 7th grade based on test scores. There are good and bad teachers everywhere both in public and in private. Good luck.

[randi444]

As a resident of Broward whose preK child has tested gifted, I am amazed i have no place to send my child to a school where he can receive a gifted curriculum. The law says there must be gifted classes in KD but the Broward County school authority say "only "if there are enough students to fill a class. And according to them I have the only gifted child in the county so I'm out of luck. The best they can do is put him in a regular class and give him a different curriculum than all the other kids in the class. In addition, the teacher would not be a certified gifted teacher but would be overseen by one who visits once a week to review the curriculum and progress. The teacher would have to attend these "special" meetings and additional meetings with us as his parents to make sure his EP (educational plan) was acceptable. Im sure his teacher will love all this extra work for one student. While all the other kids are getting their lessons, our son would be forced to work alone with his gifted curriculum until the teacher had time to help him. We find this totally unacceptable as our boy would not be interactive with the class, he would be socially/academically isolated with a "spare time" teacher.
So if anyone out there has a gifted or very smart child going into a broward kindergarten this fall, lets get together with the school board and show them our children isnt the "only" gifted child in the county. I bet they say this to every parent who calls in for a gifted kd class just so they dont have to create a "real" gifted class.
According to the Pyscologists we've spoken to,starting a gifted program in 2nd or third grade is way to late as the child will have regressed for 2-3 years and be completely unchallenged and disengaged. Please stand up and demand a gifted program in Broward County starting with KD.
Otherwise we'll all be moving to Boca

[bretkevin]

Hi Randi, Would love to talk to you about this issue. Our son is Pre-K and we are contemplating having him tested for gifted. Where did you have your son tested? What elem school are you zoned for?

[randi444]

Scott Roseman Ph.D
2499 Glades Road
Suite 201
Boca Raton, Fl 33431
561-869-3311

He is a state licensed psychologist. The test take about 2 hours and will measure IQ and Academic Achievement Percentile. My son actually enjoyed the experience.
We are so frustrated with what has been offered to our child in the way of any full time gifted curriculum that we are actually considering private school even though affordability is the biggest obstacle. Its such a shame that based on zip code or county that one child should have a better educational opportunity than another. I can't imagine that all of Broward County has so few "gifted" kindergarteners that the DOE will looked the other way and let these kids that are just slip through the system. They are hoping that if they say no long enough, that we will go away and not demand the best for our kids. Well I don't know about you but I won't go away. can you tell I'm one angry mom?
I wish you well in your quest with your child. I hope this doctor can be of help to you. Stay in touch and let me know what progress you make. Alone, I'm weak, but with more moms fighting for their kids, we all get stronger.

Randi

[randi444]

And by the way, we are zoned for Deerfield Beach Elementary.