Just a quick suggestion re above level testing for aptitude - do you have any local homeschool groups? We found an inexpensive test resource (retired SPED teacher) through our ped who primarily works with our local homeschool community. Parents in the homeschool community need to test their children, so there's most likely someone out there somewhere providing end-of-year curriculum testing to the homeschool community who might be able to provide the same to you. Another way around it might be to go to a place like Sylvan and use achievement testing (they give a test up front to determine placement). For math, you could either pay for a one month subscription to Alex or sign up for a 48-hour trial and have your ds take the assessments for each progressive grade level until he reaches an abundance of material he hasn't mastered yet. The Aleks report can be printed out referencing each state's specific curriculum, so it's an easy piece of data to advocate with.
I also wonder if you had to, would you be able to find a test you could administer yourself at home? While it might not be seen as a viable test by the school (since it wasn't professionally administered), having the results would at least (maybe) put them in the position of having to administer their own test.
If you know students have been accelerated previously - do you know any of the families? Do you know the details of how their accelerations happened? I'd bring up specific details (not names, but circumstances) when you hear a comment about "this is new, we need to move slow" etc as examples that it's not new. This may be indicating that the district is in need of a policy because more families will come along and ask for acceleration, but it doesn't mean they have to slow down your ds just because they don't have a policy at the moment.
Has the neuropscyh testing already happened? The WJ-III report will give a "grade equivalent" which doesn't really mean the same thing as "grade achievement" and shouldn't be used for placement, but it will help with showing how far out your ds is.
Best wishes,
polarbear
