An update, in case it is ever of interest to someone regarding the twists and turns of this particular advocacy:
DS7's school this year has been largely uneventful so far. Apparently there was a rash of requests by other parents for subject accelerations after word got around, but no adjustment problems for DS7. Our educational consultant is being paid for by the school, which is nice, and is slated to meet with his teachers and do some classroom observations in the next few weeks. We had a brief meeting with his two classroom teachers and the principal, which went mostly well. This was prompted by an email from me, after "curriculum night", expressing concern that DS probably had already mastered the fourth-grade curriculum.
The math teacher said at the meeting that she had decided to give him the fourth-grade end of year test starting that morning, and that he had gotten one out of twenty wrong on the first half due to a simple error, something along the lines of misreading an operation symbol as another (ETA: she actually lost his test before he had a chance to finish checking his work, so adjusted his score to 100%). I asked whether DS would be able to take the end-of-year test for fifth grade if he did well on the second half too, and the principal agreed.
We discussed for a while concerns over DS's progress. The principal said that according to his reading, the research suggests that acceleration is not all it's cracked up to be, but that they were already doing their best to make sufficient use of both grade and subject acceleration strategies. (At the end of last year he promised to do whatever was necessary to make sure that DS actually learns new concepts this year, though, so I chalk this up to the same old worries about maturity and not a refusal to provide the right level of work, in whatever context that might need to happen. This school has always been of the mindset that it's best to keep children with their age-mates, and we're in a relatively anti-skip district to start with. The principal did also say however that our case was causing them to re-evaluate their policies, which is nice.)
The principal agreed that if DS shows mastery of an entire year's curriculum, he must be given new concepts to learn, and that it's not sufficient to pad his time with problem solving practice at a lower level. DS's fourth grade teacher said that she plans to do her best to differentiate within the classroom using a menu approach, under which DS will be able to pick from a grid of choices whatever enrichment activity strikes his fancy, including some types of projects that weren't defined in the meeting. I asked if she had worries about giving him the right level of material if he's completely past the planned curriculum, and she agreed that she did.
I asked how he'd be exposed to new concepts, then, and the idea was voiced that he might be exposed to new concepts in the course of enrichment projects. This naturally prompted a question from me about how he would receive instruction on the new concepts, instead of being left to his own devices and essentially teaching himself. There wasn't really any answer.
It seems to me that if he encounters new concepts and needs a quick lesson, we parents can give it to him at home. However, we would need enough information to be able to do that as necessary; the new concepts wouldn't necessarily be introduced in a good progression or in such a way as to build a strong conceptual foundation, as they would be in a curriculum; and as a result this would essentially be winding up with what we've requested before, partial afterschooling, except with a poorer instructional model.
I really want to avoid another year of ineffectual approaches and busywork, or it's back to afterschooling-- but this time with a vengeance, and I'll tell DS to simply ignore the math schoolwork while I reconsider legal measures. I really want to avoid that, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the school honors its promise to do what's necessary, and that our consultant can exert some useful pressure.
