We had another round of discussions with the school this morning. They seem to have come to the same decision: the math skills need to be advanced in order to keep up with the science. They are proposing that DS should have curriculum compacting in math, so that he would cover 4th and 5th this year, and 6th and 7th next year. I'm am still a little uncertain how this curriculum compacting would be accomplished since DH was the one discussing it with the school. (Anyone who knows DH would say that he is an absurdly optimistic person who always sees the silver lining in a storm cloud.) But it sounded from DH like the school would pull DS out of his regular 4th grade math class for individual math instruction with the gifted teacher. Could this be too good to be true?
So it looks like we are proceeding with the radical acceleration to 7th grade in science. DS will either go up to the Jr. High today or on Monday for a trial run. If all goes well, we will make next Wednesday his first official day in 7th grade science. The school wants to wait for few weeks before beginning the math compacting in order to not completely overwhelm him. But hopefully by the end of Sept., DS will have a special math tutor at his school.
Wow. And all of this happened in a matter of 24 hours?
I think the school understands the need to watch this carefully and make sure that it is a happy fit for DS. They are planning to monitor the acceleration carefully, and are willing to step in and pull him back if things do not work out.
I just need to think about it one day at a time. Let's see what DS thinks of the new class, and what the teacher thinks of DS (his writing skills and maturity). Then we will proceed from there. I like the suggestion of asking for sample homeworks or lab reports. Hopefully I will get a better feel for if DS will be in over his head or not.
