I agree with the previous posters, and have a few additional thoughts.
We have been back and forth trying to subject accelerate or grade skip DS6 all year. It's been nuts really. DS is supposed to be grade skipped, but at the moment they don't want to do that.
I wasn't sure what you meant by "supposed to be" grade skipped, so I read back through your posts to refresh my memory of your ds' situation. If I understand, what's up is you have asked that he be accelerated and so far the school staff hasn't agreed to do so. He also wasn't admitted into a district gifted program (?). It seems that at this point, you need to decide what your goals are for your ds - are you going to want to ultimately pull him out completely and home school him or do you want to try to work with the school? It's always important to be aware of how you present yourself to the school staff (as in, how they will perceive your intentions) - but it's doubly important when you're in the position of having to fight an uphill battle, which is where you are right now.
We are a tiny school district - no gifted mandates or policies.
This confuses me a little bit, because in a previous post you mentioned your ds wasn't accepted into a gifted program (please forgive me if I misunderstood). A school district that has a gifted program option or that has at least talked to you about potentially accelerating most likely has some kind of *idea* of practices and policies for recognizing and accomodating gifted students. It's not necessarily mandated, might not be well documented, and might not be reasonable policy, but there's something there - and it's important to understand what the school staff is looking for, and also how they will react to alternative ideas you come up with.
Would it be too obnoxious to just pull my son out of school during math and science and send him back when it's over.
JMO, but I think you're very close to easily landing on a "Yes" re the obnoxious perception here. I do think if you approach it from what are the regulations for homeschool in your district that's the way to go about this if it's your goal to subject accelerate in math and english at home. I know families in our district who have homeschooled for part of the day, and it's allowed. The key thing is it's something you *CAN* do potentially without coming across as obnoxious - you just don't want to approach it as "I'm doing this because you aren't offering my son what he needs" - that can come across as obnoxious. I'll also add that the families I've known here who've gone the route of part-day homeschooling did eventually run into pressure from their school administrators to bring their kids back into full-time students because of scheduling issues and because it was perceived their children didn't fit in as part of the class "group" as well when they were only at school half-day. To be honest, the parents I knew felt some of the same concerns.
One other thing I'd think through before actually doing it - what is going to happen in a few grades up if you want him to return to school full-time - is the school going to be able to accommodate advanced learning needs then? I think many of us here have found that upper elementary grades in particular are tough for subject-acceleration because of lack of access to classes at an appropriate level.
He CANNOT sit through those 2 classes in particular, if they are not accelerated by 2 years at least. He will go nuts!
Are you absolutely positive he'll go nuts? What are you basing your thoughts on? Please note I'm not questioning your feelings at all - just wondering what specifically it is about your ds that makes you feel he needs 2+ years subject acceleration. Is it based on his performance in class so far? Work he's done at home? Based against your state curriculum guidelines? Based on test results (achievement or ability)? Those are the types of things you need to think through and have answers plus documentation for before talking to the school - I don't think it works typically (and I do think it can come across as obnoxious) simply to go in and say "my ds will go nuts if he's stuck if he's not accelerated" and only offer up a high IQ as the reason for the need. Please note - I'm not saying AT ALL that the high IQ alone isn't a good reason for the acceleration! Just saying that perception is important
Gotta run, hope that made sense!
polarbear
