Mag, this might not help with your current situation, but fwiw! Our ds' elementary school refused to accelerate him in math even, but rather than give up all together we decided to supplement math at home so that when he had an opportunity to move ahead in middle school he could do so. We used Aleks and it worked out great for us. DS learned most of the concepts on his own reading the Aleks explanations; when he didn't understand he asked us (parents) to explain and we'd offer up a few different ways of looking at the concept. (Both my husband and I are strong in math, this might not work as well for a child who doesn't have a source to ask when they have a question). I liked that I could create quizzes in Aleks so that I could customize them for our record keeping, and it helped us tremendously that Aleks provides a table tying their concepts to each state's standards at each grade level. When we were in a position (different school for middle school) to advocate for accelerating ds in math, we provided copies of his quizzes, the Aleks report tying master concepts to state standards, and his previous achievement testing (through the schools) plus his ability testing - and that got him appropriately placed in math in 6th grade.
One note on how to use Aleks at school, if the IT department isn't willing to download the plug-in. Would you be able to send a personal laptop to school with your ds and would the IT department let him access the school wifi network? I'd also first research whether or not your school district already has an Aleks license - because if they *do* they clearly don't have an issue with downloading the plugin
You might also discuss with your IT department the fact that (I think, our district is one) that many school districts have evaluated and used Aleks as a supplemental aide - chances are good nothing horrific will happen if they download the plugin.
Another approach that a parent at our elementary school took (which only works if you have the interest and time) - was to serve as the "gifted math helper" in her ds' 2nd grade classroom - when she asked that her ds be accelerated in math she was told it wasn't possible to send him to a higher level classroom due to scheduling challenges. So instead, she came into the class during the time the 2nd grade class did their regular math and pulled out a group of the 5 highest achieving "math kids" in that classroom and worked with them as a group to expose them to higher level concepts. She combined this (for her ds) with outside tutoring through Kumon, and was able to successfully advocate for a higher math placement in 5th grade (she was clearly a more effective advocator than I was, since I had to wait until 6th grade and a different school!).
Best wishes,
polarbear
ps - you can trial Aleks for free, I think for one week, can't remember for sure.
pps - this probably is also too school-specific, but our school offers after-school tutoring for kids who underperformed on the state NCLB tests. It's all online and self-paced with one teacher overseeing questions and progress. Last year our first grader saw that happening and wanted to do it too, even though she's a high IQ kid who's totally a math geek - she didn't realize it was kids who were at risk, just thought it looked like a lot of fun. The teacher overseeing it let her sit in and work at her pace too and that worked great - but - it wouldn't have worked if she'd been a few grades older and/or realized the other kids were struggling math types. However - maybe there might be an opportunity for you to convince the school to supplement with an after-school math club using an online program.
