Email from principal indicates that decision was made at the district level, and none of the elementary staff have anything invested in the decisionDD trends to be anxious, and may choose in hate and repent at leisure. She was strongly in favor originally, but hugely relieved that it was a grown up decision.
So maybe that's your answer.
I remember talking to my DD9's teacher back in grade 2 about enrichment and she said "there's plenty of time for that later... let's deal with her anxiety first." I didn't totally agree, but I took a leap of faith and trusted this teacher.
We came up with a compromise and put DD(then 7, starting gr. 3) in the top grade of a 2/3 split so she'd be with younger kids (rather than always being the youngest), but also put her in the junior gifted math program. It worked. The teacher was right - that 2/3 split in grade 3 taught her some mentorship skills and confidence. (Of course then she went from a 2/3 split to a 4/5 split - big social shock! ...but she was ok eventually).
I think even with clever kids there can be "too much too soon." They can benefit from spreading things out a bit. It's a tough call, though, because there's the flip side of "lack of learned work ethic" and "enabled perfectionism" because things come so easily for them. Do we pace them or push them? Sometimes it's hard to know what the right thing to do is.
