Thank you all for this great advice! I think there is a bit of a lag from when I reply to when it gets posted on this site, so I'm responding to multiple posts here...
I should mention that he is already enrolled in #3- the private option. He started about 6 months ago because the traditional elementary public experience was so uninspiring and making him pretty depressed. The teacher refused to make any accommodations to accelerate until he put his name in the exact right place on the paper- no joke!
He is loving the private school, but mostly due to social reasons. Its a small class of 15ish kids, and they are really tight knit. He likes the teacher. She seems to be an inspiring teacher and have really cool teaching methods, but they also spent almost 3 months learning to calculate the circumference of a circle (with very little else the whole day). IMO this is a waste of time. I have tried advocating about a few things to the admin, and I've been shut down and/or completely ignored (no response to emails). I feel this is unreasonable since we are paying for it. I requested a meeting to learn more about the middle school acceleration options and curriculum and have had no response. I feel like this may be a red flag, but my son is now enamored with this community.
On the option #2-- a couple of replies above are helping me to clarify that this would not be a good fit. There would be no academic rigor or true peers. I am not sure that I have the capacity (time OR skills) to do intense after-schooling to supplement. And I'm sure that would be a constant fight with my kid.
On the "best" public school option-- aeh, your guess is correct. We can pay tuition to attend the public school. It is less than even the low cost private.
My son did NOT thrive in his public elementary school in that he was often bored and thus anxious/grumpy most of the time, yet he is very compliant, so did the work and did not make issues in class. However, the teachers and admin refused to make any additional accommodations at that school (at least not until his name was on the top left side and not top right-- for which he was graded down 20 points per math quiz), and would not budge from the "deeper not faster" philosophy (which in my research about giftedness I have learned is actually not supported by academic research). This makes me think the "best" public school could still be a good fit, even though it is a traditional school... they offer way more support for gifted kids than the prior elem. school.
While I do agree with all of the posters that suggested that I involve my child in the decision... I also know that if I ask him, he will choose to stay put, but that his decision will be based on his current crush and video gaming buddies, and not the academic part! Any ideas about how to navigate that -- how to involve him without letting him make a decision based on irrelevant/fleeting preteen impulses... would be appreciated!
