Yeah, you remember that old Simpsons episode, where Lisa is begging, "Judge me, judge me"? I worry a bit about that with gifted kids in general, that they become pretty dependent on the constant "judgement" of good grades and high scores on tests all the way through college so that when they enter the real world where no one cares what your GPA was, they can get a bit lost. Something along those lines happened to me; it was bewildering at first to be out of college, and I almost ran straight back to graduate school just because it was a system I understood. Several high-performing friends of mine from college went to law school within a couple years of college graduation, not because they particularly wanted to be lawyers, but because the big mean world was hard and law school offered a system they understood ... and, of course, they were able to get good LSAT scores. Some of them were wonderfully creative people, but fell back on the tried and true (standardized tests) when it came to getting creative in their actual, post-school lives.
Of course, parents can ameliorate that with activities like sports and 4-H and, later, some exposure to the actual world. (For instance, I plan on insisting that my kids get a minimum-wage, bottom-of-the-totem-pole job in HS, because I feel like that is an invaluable experience - if nothing else, it teaches you that working for minimum wage ain't much fun, which will hopefully expunge any later slacker tendencies they might be tempted to!)
As for our local school district, they have been pretty flexible, actually, but there are limits to what they are going to be able to do and, as we've learned the last couple years, it's going to be a new battle each and every year with a new teacher to try and arrange things, and here it is November, and they're only just barely starting to do some walk-to-math for DD (and not anything else, in any other subject). The local school district simply has other, more pressing priorities, such as bringing themselves into Title IV (? - I know it's one of those) compliance, and a student body that is ~60% free & reduced lunch, Common Core applications, etc. DD is never going to be a top priority and I think we just have to accept that. Our choice is either to fight the machine, or move on. I'm leaning towards the latter.
And, excellent point about being around other gifted kids being the "cure" for feelings of elitism. I wouldn't mind if DD stuck mainly with her fellow gifted kids on the playground or whatever, because in that case it'd at least be clear to her that there's a whole wider world out there where no one cares if you are gifted - it's all about whether you can kick the kickball and get on base (and, years down the road, whether you can them to sign on the line which is dotted, to quote Glenngarry Glennross).
