Mk13, have you gone to look? I would definitely not reject the SpEd preschool without serious consideration. The SpEd preschool by us is a dream school that does things regular preschools don't do (e.g. they have farmer-led gardening classes and horseback riding and a real gym teacher and art teacher).
Even if your kid is the brightest kid in the room, if he needs help learning to sit at circle, share, all of that, this sort of preschool can be a wonderful place to do that, with teachers who are specifically trained to not be frustrated or punitive with a child who's not naturally compliant. (As opposed to regular preschool, where they will not know what to do with such a child and are likely to throw up their hands in frustration.) They are likely to be able to work with both the food allergies and the potty training, which a regular preschool may not. Their teachers are likely to be far better trained than most preschool teachers. And you don't need academic content taught in preschool, anyway-- you need social skills, play skills, and classroom participation behaviors. Half days sound about right for this.
I would consider it far more important for long-term success to get the circle time behavior and that sort of thing in place before kindergarten, than to teach academic skills in preschool. He sounds like the kind of kid who will learn academics no matter where you put him. And sending a kid to kindergarten without that skill set makes everything harder.
DeeDee
