We successfully advocated for early entrance to first grade (skippng kindergarten).
We donated the Iowa Acceleration Scale Manual to the school, along with both volumes of A Nation Deceived. Also gave them numerous articles about meeting the emotional needs of gifted needs and the advantages to grade acceleration. But it was our private testing and the resulting scores that I think made them finally say that first grade would work for our son. That, and the fact that we just wouldn't back off! After all my research and our private testing, my husband and I were sure that our son needed to be in first grade. We were right. And so glad we skipped him.
The IAS is used as a collaborative tool, with the school staff, to put all the stuff you should consider in a grade skip into an objective, measurable perspective. I did it at home, filling in the parts I wasn't sure about with a range of numbers as possible. Then I came to the conclusion that his score on the IAS would be in the "good candidate" range at a minimum. That gave me more conviction to continue advocating. In the end, we didn't even use it at the school meetings.
I think above level testing is very helpful in demonstrating the need for a grade skip. I do believe that was more of an impact on the school staff than the IQ testing, since our son was already able to do some end of first grade stuff, on a test designed for high achieving first graders, before he had even started school!
Good luck. Hope our experience helps a little.
