Thank you for all the great information and advice, I definitely have more of an idea of which path to take and some alternatives. For instance, I'm not 100% sure if the para comes into her social studies class, but if so we can maybe request a trial without her to see how it goes for dd independently in that class. If I recall correctly her para is usually present in her math class and language arts class.
My greatest concern I think when it comes to having her take the social studies AP class is that her written output isn't that advanced (I looked over some of her answers in recent assignments). I think she expresses and explains herself much more eloquently in oral speech versus written. If dictating were available to her she would do much better.
I feel that this area of interest has always been her gift, starting at 3 years old when she preferred watching documentaries/history channel over cartoons. Another example was when we were on vacation in Europe touring Paris and all she kept wanting to talk about was WW II and current events with North Korea. It's nice that she finally has a class in school where she can discuss this global issues and world history. Her social and emotional intelligence is also very high in my opinion, and always has been.
Perhaps this school year can be spent proving her need of advanced placement in social studies and maybe we can try to get some more advanced independent work in this class.
This is the first time ever that she's mentioned something moving too slow for her and wanting more from a class so I think it's important to finally nuture her 'gift' the best way possible. Up until now she has always felt like the students who shined/smart were the ones who were strong writerst, readers, and mathematicians. I've always tried to teach her that her strengths would be more obvious once she'd be able to take deeper thinking classes that suited her interests.
