Yes, ACS, I agree 100% that ruling any educational option out without careful consideration is foolish. Especially a free one!
For us, one of the benefits to the lousy school system in our area (!) is that there exists a large homeschooling community consisting of people from a diverse social, economic, and racial background and a diverse range of belief systems. If the group were homogeneous, I'm not sure it would have been such a good choice for us. But the homeschooling group we belong to is actually FAR more diverse than the lily-white and almost wholly middle class suburban classroom he was in at the start of the year.
And I should add that our public school kindergarten year was wonderful for DS6. I think that was due to two factors: 1) K was only a half-day class, so DS mainly got social time there and had time to work on his projects at home, and more importantly 2) a FANTASTIC teacher who was warm and caring and who was excited by DS's gifts rather than threatened or annoyed by them. I can't say enough about how important the teacher is for a gifted child! A good one can make an intolerable situation work beautifully; a bad one can make even the best accomodations fail miserably.
I think our ideal situation would be half-day public school and half-day homeschooling, since that would take the pressure off me--an introvert!--to find social situations for my introverted child. But our school is not known for being cooperative with such individuated solutions. We'll see...
Either way, best of luck to you, Allison!
