We went to the end-of-May meeting, where it was decided to skip DS5 to first for the rest of the year, and follow up with a final meeting this coming Friday to make sure everything was copasetic. The decision was made only after some discussion of possibly have him do a month of split 1st/2nd at the beginning of next year, over worries about him being able to keep up with the physical writing.
In addition they said they were worried about his performance on something called the end of year "writing prompt", since apparently he was choosing in class to write fewer words but taking forever to make sure he formed each letter perfectly. After the meeting, the wife and I told DS5 to speed it up and make sure he put as much detail as possible in each sentence for a while.
Apparently they had the writing prompt today. When asked how it went, DS told us that he thought it went all right. We asked what it was like, and he gave an example of one of the questions, along the lines of "What invention would you like to make?" His answer: a terraforming machine, which he would use to terraform Mars, etc. so humans could live there. Hopefully that is up to first grade standards.
The plan for next year is for him to be in a classroom and grouped with the brightest second graders, and to get special problem-solving enrichment for math, and some sort of enrichment for writing, details still to be determined. We have worries about him being bored, but are keeping our fingers crossed that things will work out fine. And it's undeniably better for him than winding up in first next year, learning further how to add single digit numbers.
