MurphysMom, Those seem like very reasonable reasons to me. If you have about 10% of your class as peers, you should be in good enough company that school can be made to work well enough.
In the instance of our dd who we accelerated, I think that the GT coordinator who proposed it was right: it would have been very, very hard to come close to meeting her needs w/out the skip. I may be in the minority, but I consider a major intervention like a grade skip when other options aren't close to good enough. I.e. -- it isn't my first resort.
Re jack's mom's comment above, my grade skipped kiddo is not depressed and it was a good choice for her. We've had a tough year with a high school that has maybe five hours of homework/night and a poor kid who got stuck with some of the least liked teachers in the school in multiple subjects, but I don't expect that she would have loved this year anymore had she been a young 14 y/o rather than a young 13 y/o.
The three years prior were very good and, if next year turns out to be another one where quantity is the focus over quality, we're going to come up with something different. On the table include considerations that would essentially be more acceleration such as homeschooling with courses taken at college or an early entrance college program. We're trying to get past busy work and on to substance.
