Advantages of local –

1) Obviously, if your child has good non-GT friends in the local
school it’s easier to maintain those friendships. They will see each
other at recess, on the bus, etc.
2) It’s very likely that a high percentage of the other Level IV GT
kids from your elementary school will stay at the local ES, again,
making maintaining friendships easier.
3) Depending on whether your child has strong attachments to the
school itself or is less adventurous, the local ES can be better.
4) Once a Level IV class opens up, the number of Center kids sent
from your ES may be very low. In our case, when our local class
opened, we went from sending 20+ to sending no more than 2 or 3. So,
depending on your kid, it could be very lonely at the Center, and
especially in the future (see 6).
5) Take a look at feeders, both ES-to-middle and middle-to-HS feeder
situation from the GT Center if you think your child might end up at
your local HS, rather than TJ. At ES-to-middle, your local GT class
will go into the MS Center. Depending on the feeders, the Center GT
kids may know a fair percentage of the other kids, but the local ES
class won’t. At middle-to-HS, the Centers get split up to the local
HS feeders. In our case, our most of our MS GT Center kids go to
other HSes, not to our local feeder. If your kid has been in the
local Level IV Class ES, they will probably know some kids outside of
the GT class, too.

Advantages of GT Center –
1) There are more classes/more kids so the kids are just kids instead
of the “special ones” and the GT teachers/classes tend to interact as
a group rather than GT with non-GT.
2) The programs are more central to the school since the kids make up
a higher percentage.
3) There tend to be more GT-type extracurriculars like chess, math
team, etc. than at the local ES.
4) They’ve seen more kids like yours. (This is especially important
for EG/PG kids and 2E kids (especially if also EG/PG))..
5) Depending on how GT your GT kid is, there may be more kids like
your kid at the Center since it’s a bigger pool to draw from. This
affects both academics and social issues. (Again especially important
for EG/PG kids and 2E kids (especially if also EG/PG) They may be the
only EG/PG or 2E kid in the class at the local ES).
6) The local ES will have one class from 3rd through 6th, Centers
several. If your kid happens to get along with the others in the one
ES class, it’s great. If not, it can be 4 years of not so great.
7) The local ES will have one teacher at each grade, Centers several.
If your kid gets along with that teacher, it’s great. If not, you
can’t move them.
8) Depending on your local ES, the “Level IV” class may be nearly
completely made up of non-Level IV kids. If, in the past, your ES
sent a large number of kids off to a Center, but now has a local one,
it’s fairly likely that most of the former Center kids will stay at
the local ES and it’ll be largely made up of Level IV kids. But, your
mileage may vary. (In our case, our ES used to send more than 20 kids
per year, with presumably some kids who opted to stay in regular
classes than go so our Level IV class is largely Center eligible
rather than principal selected teacher pleasers, other ESes have
averaged 2-4, so….)

Personal opinion – I wish they’d never invented the Local Level IV.
Even the ones made up of actual Center-eligible kids like ours end up
in the same class, with the same group of kids for 4 years in a row.
They end up being the “special” class, rather than just one of 3 or 4
classes their grade. However, now that FCPS has invented them, unless
your kid is EG/PG (or maybe 2E), (or your local ES “Level IV” is
really Level III+ at best…), they will probably get sufficient and
reasonably similar academics to the Center and (assuming they actually
have friends and don’t hate their local ES already for not teaching
them anything for 4 years…) they get to stay with their friends in a
place they are comfortable, and assuming they don’t go to TJ, will
probably know more kids when they arrive in HS. If your local ES
never had many Center kids. Unless your kid barely made it, send
yours. The class won’t be a Level IV class.