Iucounu -
Remember that fine line between clever and stupid? I'm guessing that you keep that line around to remind yourself not to go nuts over thinking things.
You have come a long long way already!
In this game, one can't know how a child will react to a given situation until they get there. So give the cluster group and the full acceleration a chance to do what they were intended to do, and then see how your child is reacting and expect this to be a 'work in progress.'
You want your child to enjoy school, to enjoy his classmates, and to learn good work ethic. There are 100 reasonable 'least-worst' paths to that goal. Once the school recognizes that your child is different, getting more needed accomidation does get easier.
So, I wouldn't suggest EPGY for math until it's clear that your son needs more.
You may need to re-evaluate in the Fall after the new MAP, but you don't win anything by bringing that up now.
As for your wife's idea - I think it's better to hire a tutor for homeuse, or volunteer to go into the school and work with the Math Cluster as a group, or hire a tutor to go into the school and work with the Math Cluster group. If your wife is so set on asking, then try and steer her to ask the Principle to work with the math cluster, that way the decision maker gets a chance to see first hand about how issues of pace and depth are going.
Similarly - Spelling can be left as is, or used for handwriting practice, or he can create his own wordlist from his reading, or you can privately work it out with the teacher that after he's spend 5 minutes then a parent markes how far he got and signs it and sends it back in.
No, I wouldn't teach him wrong math, but I might transcribe a book where he 'makes up' his own version of wrong math. Can you hold back on the math over the summer without causing great stress? If you can find something else to work on - such as 'nature' or a second language that doesn't further seperate him from his classmates, that seems like a wise choice - just don't be too suprised when he leaps ahead anyway.
Anyway - it takes time, flexibility, waiting and -yuck- growing inside.
Srry
Grinity
