ADDED NOTE: I spoke with a private diagnostician who says that the cutoff in our state for students with a diagnosed learning disability is 120 on the GAI, and my son scored a 119 with gifted scores on two of the subtests. She said one more point and he would have automatically qualified and that the diagnostician then could have advocated for qualification. UGH. She believes retesting is merited and said she is open to requests, etc. if I have specific thoughts towards testing. We won't test until summer so that he isn't trying to deal with school and testing at once.
I think I'd look for a tester (if possible) who you think might go to bat for arguing in favor of your ds' request if you run into a situation like this again. I haven't been through it with my kids, but I do know families in our district who had private neuropsychologists make a recommendation based on test scores being within the standard range of error for the test. I also know that in some cases, in attempting to qualify students for our school district's gifted program, on occasion the staff who do the testing will really want a child to be successful and they'll let kids in with slightly less than qualifying scores - you're not where we are, but I think that with anything, even if you end up with a not-quite-qualifying IQ score, if you can get a teacher recommendation or private rec, and you've also got a child who can clearly communicate motivation, then it's worth arguing like crazy to get him in
The one thing I've learned through the years of advocating for my kids is that chances are, there is always some totally loud obnoxious squeaky wheel parent out there who has already done the one thing the school staff is telling you just simply can't be done
Re what to request in testing - I would make a list of all the challenges you know your ds has, along with all his previous diagnoses (if he has any), and then ask the tester what tests he/she will perform. We've found that for the most part the private professionals we've seen have done a good job of figuring out which additional tests were needed to pinpoint our kids' areas of weakness. My one piece of advice would be to go through a nueropsych, particularly since you already know your ds has dysgraphia/dyslexia. That way you know that the person you're consulting with will have a broad range of assessment tools as well as the knowledge of who to refer you to for further assessments if they're needed.
One other thing you didn't mention but I'm guessing will be of value from this eval - the documentation your ds will need for accommodations on SAT (if he's within 3 years of taking it - I'm sorry, I don't remember what grade he's in).
Last thing - which is actually a question more than advice - your ds wants to move into the other class because it's more project-based learning rather than workbooks etc. Does your ds have a good set of accommodations in place at school and is he using them? It sounds like maybe it would be helpful to also rethink accommodations, regardless of what happens with the class placement.
Best wishes,
polarbear
