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This story was corrected on Sept. 2 and Sept. 7, 2010. An explanation of the correction follows the story.

It's not that easy being gifted.

Gifted children may be able to pull off straight As, but they can suffer from boredom and may never develop proper study skills, according to Robert Gold, who has co-founded the Feynman School in Darnestown catering to super-smart kids.

Montgomery County Public Schools offers several accelerated programs for gifted elementary school students. Some parents of gifted students have complained, however, that the public schools are not doing enough to challenge their children. Some want their offspring placed in separate classes with other gifted students.

A gifted child himself, Gold said he often landed in the principal's office or in a time-out box at the back of the classroom because he wasn't properly challenged and was bored. He entered engineering school at Cornell University without knowing how to properly take notes.

"School was a place that you had to be for a certain number of hours," he said. "The goal was to do as little as possible and still get straight As."

The private Feynman School fills a gap for students like himself, Gold said. The school opened Monday with eight preschool and kindergarten students enrolled. The curriculum emphasizes science and math, with partial immersion in Spanish.

Monique T. Felder, Montgomery County Public Schools director of Division of Accelerated and Enriched Education, said the school system's multiple programs are constantly being improved.

"Overall we do have programs and services in place to meet the needs of our students," she said. "Especially those whose needs are difficult to meet at the local school."

Regarding private schools, she said, "The one thing I would question would be equity because certain children don't have access to private schools because they can't afford them."

Some parents have argued the county's gifted and talented programs should be revamped because students who don't make the cut aren't as challenged academically and because data shows it consistently excludes black and Hispanic students.

The Montgomery County Board of Education is reviewing whether to drop the "gifted and talented" label — but not the programs — because of the negative effect it can have on the self-esteem of students who don't make it into the program. The school system tests second-graders every spring for accelerated programs. This year, 39 percent of the county's more than 55,000 second-graders were identified as talented and gifted. 

Separating students identified as gifted increases the achievement gap between those students and those who don't get the label, according to Evie Frankl, the executive director of the Montgomery County Education Forum, a group of parents, teachers, and community members who oppose grouping students by ability, a process they call "tracking."

"All children deserve an enriched educational experience," she said. "All children deserve science and critical-based thinking and deserve to be treated as though the teacher appreciated their gifts and talents."

That the Feynman School has any students enrolled suggests that some parents desire separate education for gifted students. The school fielded inquires from more than 150 parents but did not secure building space until May, likely resulting in the small number of students now enrolled, Gold said.

Gold said he expects to have at least 40 students enrolled for fall 2011. For now, the 3-, 4- and 5-year-old students will be taught by his wife, Susan, and another teacher fluent in Spanish.

The school plans to use a multi-lingual curriculum, starting with Spanish, then moving on to Chinese.  For math and science, Feynman will draw from the Great Explorations in Math and Science Program developed by the Lawrence Hall of Science at the University of California-Berkeley. The school has a student-to-teacher ratio of 14 to 2, according to its website.

This year, Feynman is opening the school to 3, 4 and 5 year olds. But the Golds plan to add one grade each year until they reach the eighth grade.

But the private education comes with a price tag. Yearly schooling at Feynman is about $13,000 for pre-kindergarteners and more than $14,000 for kindergarteners. Prospective kindergarten students will take a test designed to test intelligence and curiosity, Gold said. There are no tests for pre-kindergarten; their admission is based on parent interests.

One of the Feynman School's first students will be Gold's 4-year-old daughter, Madeline. He had worried she would encounter the same struggles he had.

"They need to know that it's OK to fail," Gold said. "You have to fail or you're not growing. They do have to be challenged and understand that it's okay to be wrong, it's okay to be confused."

Correction: A previous version of this story misidentified the Montgomery County Board of Education's actions regarding the "gifted and talented" label, incorrectly said there was more than one test and incorrectly stated the student-to-teacher ratio at Feynman School in Darnestown.