As usual, thank you ladies for the varied perspectives. I decided to stick with my usual approach. At the last minute, I did send an email to inquire as to the nature of the assessment (oral or written and year-end or readiness, etc.). However, I received a vague answer back mostly because the school administrator did not know. I simply told DS that he will have either an oral and/or written assessment to see how he is doing in math and to just do his best and not worry about it. He took it last week and it wasn't a big deal. There were only a few difficult/confusing questions out of more than 60. It was likely an algebra readiness type assessment. I haven't heard back but both his teacher and the school administrator previously indicated that DS should do great and that it should be a formality for him. We will see. What bothered me was that it came out of the blue and nobody said anything about a possible assessment. I still don't know if the 5th graders in the program had to take the assessment as well. This whole program is so "secretive" that nobody except a couple of people seem to know much of anything about it and the fact that DS is a 4th grader adds that extra twist.
Last edited by Quantum2003; 06/07/13 05:44 PM. Reason: typo