OK, the Columbo approach got pretty much what I wanted.
I was not altogether surprised to find out that the left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing, meaning the school counselor was not aware GS8 was accepted into the gifted program, and the gifted teacher was not aware of GS8's background.
The counselor I spoke with has known GS8 for 3 years, but has not worked with him much. She has overseen the student counselors who have worked with him the last 2 years. We have graduate students from the local university doing internships(?) as counselors at the local schools. The official school counselor oversees their work.
Luckily the student counselor who has been seeing GS8 this year stopped by and we had a nice talk. The school counselor asked if he would be able to administer an IQ test. He was pretty excited about doing that. I think what he lacks in experience will be compensated by his knowlege of GS and his excitement about administering the test. He talked about how GS will really enjoy taking the test(I agree!), and how he'll plan it to work around GS's teachers schedule so he won't miss anything important in class, and how he'll break it up over a couple days. He commented favorably about GS's eagerness & drive to learn.
So, I got a little more insight on how disconnected the various services are. If nothing else, that just made me feel better about taking an active role in his education & school environment. Notice I split 'education' & 'school environment' apart. I've come to conclude very little education happens in the school environment for the children who are outside the 'norm'. We'll get IQ tests done at no cost to us. And we'll have a better idea of his strengths & weaknesses.
