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My kiddo is currently at a classical school. They love their school except for reading. They go through periods of times where they say they hate their school and are bored. I am wondering if we should test next year for RGC. They are starting 3rd grade this fall. They have autism and anxiety, so I am afraid an RGC might be too stressful. Can anyone describe their child’s experience/workload at an RGC?
Thanks!
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My child is at a newer RGC. My sense from touring a few of the RGCs is that they each have their own culture and acceleration level, to a certain extent. RGCs are aiming to accelerate between 1-2 years, but it is not prescriptive that they get to the 2 year acceleration. A couple of the RGCs I toured actually give kids the choice whether they want to opt in to single year algebra in 7th grade, and then do geometry in 8th (vs. two years of algebra in 7th and 8th). So that lessens the pressure when there is that choice. From tours, I have also seen RGCs with different homework policies per school (some leave it up to the teacher, some say no more than 5% of grade, etc.)
Realize it doesn’t help with your question as much, but I think you are going to need to assess each school individually. I would also guess some of the RGCs with the highest cut scores (Edison, Bell, and maybe Pritzker based on this year’s numbers) may have the opportunity to accelerate more based on their student population.
Best thing to do may be to test and then assess if you get an offer at a school that is a good cultural fit. Since you would be testing for a non-entry year (for 4th grade?) it can be hard to predict where you may get offers, etc.
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For diverse learners it’s a really different kettle of fish. Your kid’s experience may be more about the supports and services in their IEP than the particular school. If your school team is giving you a hard time with adding supports and services, it may be worth checking out others but you need to connect with the case manager and other diverse learners at each school. CPS doesn’t do a good job of supporting 2E kids either in selective enrollment or neighborhood schools, and anecdotally there seem to be a lot of them at SE schools that are not receiving the right supports
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I don’t have any experience with IEP’ or diverse learners. I have a rising 3rd grader in Bell’s RGC. For Math, Bell’s K class starts with Go Math Grade 1 and they just finished Go Math Grade 3 in 2nd grade. I’m not 100% sure what grade they are working at in literacy or else wear. In kindergarten and 2nd they had several spelling groups where they kids would either get 3rd/4th/5th grade spelling words. And they are just finishing Charlottes Web (reading and answering comprehension questions in class) for Homework, each year has been solely up to the teacher. They are kept busy, in a good way!
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PS, I believe they will have more acceleration in math down the road.
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How was second grade at Bell? We just ended 1st Grade and we are wondering if anything will be as good as this!
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@bell parent Well nothing is going to quite like 1st grade! Ha! The 2nd grade teacher is very different personality wise. My daughter liked her a lot. The expectations in 2nd grade are that the kids are much more independent, so you won’t get the communication home about what is due when, the kids are responsible to know on their own. Some think she is a little strict. I think she is warm and friendly. She just has behavior expectations for the classroom and some kids are going to struggle more than others with this. My daughter has the opinion of, Mrs C wouldn’t have to correct behavior if there wasn’t any issues with it! I hear Mrs C doesn’t like to repeat herself, so the kids have to learn to pay attention the first time. Kids that are good listeners and are ready for independence will do well in her class. Honestly though, the independence expectations seem to come at a good time. talking to other parents in the classroom, we all agree that our kids seem to be given these expectations right at the right time. I feel like they have gone though a maturity growth spurt this year. And my daughter has been able to handle herself well, and I don’t even have to ask her if she got her homework done, if she had any, what is due etc. We just didn’t even talk about homework at all. (My daughter does it in aftercare) I don’t think she could have handled that last year. Mrs C has them put together a big binder a certain way to mange everything. I think Mrs C style really got my daughter down this path of independence. Mrs C spends a lot of time on writing in her classroom. At the beginning of the year they had to do weekly book reports. There was a period of time where they did two book reports (fiction and non fiction) per week. Then those stopped, and they read the Chocolate Touch and Charlotte’s Web in class. And did some comprehension writing exercises after each chapter in class. They also have almost nightly math and literacy homework. They have weekly spelling words/tests. She will give them a pretest at the start of each week and they are in either the circle, diamond or square group and learn 3rd 4th or 5th grade words. Level can change weekly. My daughter has always done well with spelling, so she hasn’t needed to spend time working on them throughout the week. They do smaller more frequent projects than in first grade. Each one is followed by a small presentation in class on their project. Some examples are mythology, writing a little who would win book, and a passion project. I’m sure you are aware but the 3rd grade teacher just retired, and she had rave reviews. So looking forward to leaning who we are going to have next year.
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