Ricks Center For Gifted Children

Good during early childhood years, but downhill after that. My child started at Ricks at the age of 4. His experience through second grade was wonderful. They catered to his style of learning, they taught him to think creatively, they taught him to be a self-advocate. He loved school so much he would make me drive by it in the summer, just to look at it. Things changed from third grade on. Teachers were hit or miss. The curriculum was uncoordinated, and depending on what teacher you had you might miss learning some basic elementary school skills. For example, my son's teachers were not as interested in teaching long division, or certain aspects of fractions or geometry, so he just never really learned that. We only realized it when, in 5th grade, he began interviewing at other private schools and was asked specifically about these types of math skills. Many parents at Ricks hire tutors in upper elementary and middle school to make sure their children are up to speed with national standards, but to me, given the amount of tuition we are paying, that seems to be an unnecessary cost. Socially, Ricks is a very small school after 2nd or third grade. This can lead to a very small social pool, particularly among boys, who seem to leave the school in droves in upper elementary/middle school. In my son's class, at the time of his departure, there were only 3 boys who intended to remain for the following year (Parents of girls may have different experiences, as more girls tend to stay on at Ricks ). Bullying is also rampant, and is compounded by the fact that there are not many other kids to drown out the influence of the bully. As for the administration, it has changed over four times since my son has attended the school. That type of instability in leadership has created an atmosphere of constant uncertainty, both among parents and teachers. Hopefully this is something that will stabilize eventually in upcoming years. Overall, I would say this is an excellent learning environment for early childhood years, but I would strongly recommend against spending the money to be here after 2nd grade or so. There are many other schools in the Denver metro area (both public and private) where your child can learn both creativity and innovation AND learn the basic skills needed to excel in high school and college (like long division, etc).

It is painful to see a school this poorly run. There is absolutely no accountability, no partnering with parents, and the administrators ignore the running of the school to focus on their own academic careers at DU and nationally. Teachers use rhetoric about how "differently" gifted kids learn to cover up a lack of preparation, lack of subject-matter knowledge, limited pedagogical techniques and sometimes just plain laziness. The methodology they claim to follow is fantastic but the execution of it is so poor that it doesn't really matter. "Thoughtless" and "unprofessional" are the words that repeatedly come to mind when I interact with 80% of teachers and staff. The good news is that parents are always pulling their kids out of this school so there are always spaces available for newcomers!