gone

Yeah, I don't see how skipping to 1st grade helps a kid whose lowest level of achievement is 5th. And skipping to 5th probably would be a non-starter, not only because of the usual prejudices and the extremity of the skip, but also because she'd have missed a huge swath of social studies and science exposure.

I honestly don't see any institution having anything to offer her, though there may be places I'm not aware of that can. Homeschooling, on the other hand...

Wow. I just had a quick reread of your first post and while I know there's hope that changing environments might change her behaviour pattern, I would be very concerned that she's gong to run rings around everyone in a positive fashion ( like the Spanish school assessment day), and quickly develove to negative behaviours when she realizes just how far out of synch she is and just how slow everything moves. I am sure there are exceptions but I think that early elementary is worse for many gifted kids than preschool (unless it was very academic preschool). In a K classroom where she is supposed to be "learning" and free play is less of an option she is going to be forced to sit through hours of torture. And the older she gets the wider her gap is getting because of how fast she will be moving. Starting K is likely to highlight her difference even more than starting preschool. Um. And now I feel like I need to apologise for not having anything cheerful to say.

can you re-apply to the gifted school again and show them the latest assessment?

moomin - I was going to suggest that the gifted school probably don't want a kid that far out there, they may have just enough of a clue about how different she is to know she doesn't fit their program. Which is a plus, in a weird sort of way. It's better than being convinced that they know exactly what she's like and see it everyday....

Our DD is not remotely as advanced as yours, but when we were changing schools we ended up going with the school where the principle said "Wow, I've never seen a report like that before, we've got no kids like her, we have no gifted program.... this is what we do for kids who are struggling, I guess we do something similar for her, in the other direction." It wasn't that reassuring, it hasn't worked brilliantly - but it was direct and honest and the school is working out far better for us so far than the high end private that thought they knew everything about gifted and yet had my then 5yr old DD curled up in a foetal position sobbing and begging not to go...

Have you read about the education of Terrance Tao?

You mentioned homeschooling -- does that mean it's a viable option for you?

If so, I would urge you to strongly consider it. It doesn't sound like anything else would remotely serve her needs (unless some other school in your area pops out of the woodwork that's really different).

Homeschooling could be really wonderful for your daughter, if you can make it work.

I'd probably go the homeschooling route too. While you as parents were able to get through public school without too many issues, the school system then and now were far too different to take the risk and hope that your daughter will be ok as well.

Personally, I look at where will my kids be HAPPY. If your daughter isn't enjoying school and gets in trouble and it's just not a good scenario overall how would things be if you were homeschooling and she could explore whatever interest she may have since she obviously won't have problems with the grade standards?

Now, I admit I am a little biased because I am seriously considering homeschooling our boys (4.5 and 3) K and 1st (if not longer). Though our reasons are a bit different. Aside from the need to up the academics for them, 4.5 will do better at home given his health issues and with the 3 year old we're tackling high functioning autism with giftedness and my hopes with homeschooling is get him to function well socially while at the same time be able to skip if needed. The way things are now he'd be held back and that just wouldn't work for him.

So, as long as it is a possibility for you, I'd really look into homeschooling.

The reason I was suggesting reading about Terrance Tao's education is that his parents seemed to find an incredibly flexible path through what was an extremely "anti-elitist" schooling culture (he was educated in my city a few years before me, I can vouch for how many times my parents or I were told, in horrified tones, that I couldn't possibly do x,y,z because that would be elitist, bad and wrong). It's been a few years since I read the article, but I remember being struck that the success seemed to come down partly to the skills and manner of the parents and partly to finding the right primary school principle - who helped set in place a process that just kept going once it had started. I could be way off base there in my description.

And I think we all struggle with feeling we are more concerned with our 5yr old having a normal happy childhood than their blazing an academic trailpath... But she is who she is and that is not sounding ( from what you have said here) like a child who is going to achieve a normal and happy childhood plonked in a standard K classroom - though you could luck out.

Just in case you're feeling that this shows your DD's IQ is significantly lower than yours and your wife's, I want to check that you know the way IQ is assessed has changed greatly since I was a child, and maybe since you were too (though I think if you're young parents this may not apply!). You can read the full details at Davidson or elsewhere I'm sure, but in a nutshell, at some point it changed from an attempt to be a true ratio (so an IQ of 200 meant the child had an "intellectual age" twice their chronological age) to being a normal distribution with SD 15. The effect is that high scores now are much rarer than they were then; the new test have ceilings lower than quite a few people scored back than.

Moomin, its probably also worth considering that she may score higher on an iq test for older children like the WISC, particularly given the achievement data.

Moomin
Is there any way to expand your school search area? If you aren't sure about the immediate schools or homeschooling it might be worth seeing what a longer commute gets you. We moved and made one of our commutes much longer to get DS better accommodations - they don't really meet his needs but it's better than the zoned options we had before moving. And best because its a gifted school the kids are closer in interests and skill sets across DSs - he still stands out, but not so far that they have a hard time accommodating some of his needs, like in reading and math where every kid reads at their evaluated level.

For us homeschooling was not possible so we had to find something to make it work. Not sure how long this will last but we found a school will to work with us, so it might work awhile.

DeHe

There are so many variables, though, that it's difficult to compare your educational experience with your child's. First, there's personality. For example, I was grossly under-served in elementary, but my reaction to that was very different from my DD's. I protested; she hid. I found other entertainments, and if the teacher had to put my name on the board for talking too much, as long as it didn't escalate into actual punishments, who cares? My DD bottled up all her energy and frustration, then let it explode at home, because being a good citizen was important to her for reasons I don't think I'll ever fully understand.

Furthermore, the different changes in public schools, between NCLB one one hand and SENG/Davidson-type consciousness-raising on the other, have combined in my DD's school to create a uniquely ridiculous mish-mash that I'm not sure can serve ANYBODY, much less my DD. Schools are doing spiraling curriculum these days... that's guaranteed to make a high-IQ kid angry. My DD's school was teaching things out of order, like having the kids solve perimeter and area of a rectangle before they'd learned multiplication... this turns something simple into something tedious, counting squares and angering high-IQ kids.

This sounds so much like my DS.

If you homeschool, you can work at your DD's pace, interests, needs, etc. It might be the least-worst scenario. Of course, if you can find another school that could work, then perhaps this is a moot point.

By all means you could try a public or private school and see what happens, but I'd be prepared to withdraw DD if it doesn't work out. I didn't set out to homeschool and there are days when I want to pull my hair out, but so far it's been working out and a better solution than any formal school at the moment. I'm trying to take things one day at a time and see the homeschooling as a long-term temporary situation that may change eventually with time. There are more opportunities, for instance, high school+ level, especially online, that possibly opens more doors.

My eg/pg DS7 was in two private gifted schools for pre-k and k; I'm homeschooling him today because neither school could accommodate/accelerate him. At the first school, he rapidly accelerated through the pre-k/k/1st grade curriculum within 2 1/2 months and the headmaster refused to bump him up to the 2nd/3rd grade class even for math, which he was his strong suit. The second school was a bit better in being less structured and classroom-driven, but DS7 still faced issues with not going ahead in math because he hadn't mastered his addition facts properly yet, which was ridiculous to me. He was in kindergarten. Of course, the cost for these private schools became a reason for homeschooling. At least with homeschooling this year, I've got a much better grasp on what DS7's cognitive abilities are rather than relying on what little his former teachers said.

There's a lot of variables with schools from the teachers to the curriculum to the other students that most neurotypical parents don't have to face. Between NCLB and the emphasis on standards, most teachers devote their energies to the ones struggling in class and to learn rather than the ones who have already mastered the material or are bored due to the lack of academic opportunities. I wish you luck.