An update: Met with our new superintendent. He basically told us. "Screw GATE. It's a field trip. What's most important is clustering with a teacher who is trained in depth and complexity." Since not a single student at my DD's school was admitted to GATE (suspicious in and of itself and definitely indicates that they've narrowed the testing too much), I don't see much point in advocating for her this year. What good would it do for her to be a group of one? What I have done is strongly advocate for her to be in the GATE-trained teacher's classroom, and will talk directly to him about providing the depth and rigor that he would to gifted students, whether or not they are GATE-identified. On another site in which I was discussing this same issue, several parents supported this approach, warning me to be careful what I advocated for b/c GATE often doesn't mean much. That certainly seems to be the case in my district.
