These responses are giving me a lot to think about. I should have added, that in a year and a half, we will have the option to send DS to a local private school. So if the homeschooling thing doesn't work out, we could end it and have another good option.

DS has close friends from our religious community. We have been a part of it since before his birth. Also he has a lot of neighborhood friends. We live in an urban community where you can easily have 20 kids in the same apartment building who go to 10 different schools. We literally have friends at our doorstep who go to a different school than DS.