Hi Cathy,
I'm glad your admin is open. I would suggest that you take the skip now, since you have nothing to lose, and because this time of year is heading into the wasteland of preholidays, and then review in January.
What do I mean the wasteland of preholidays? I've always found that my DS's "adaptive" behavior ((Ha-Ha!)) was most likely to occur as the learning slowed down and the unstructured partying increased, in December and at the end of the school year.
I've read that for Normally Developing kids, ((NDs? I just made that up, it think, how do you like it?)) there needs to be considerable review in January and September because they lose so much over the holidays. That makes now a great time to skip, both from avoiding unneaded repetion in his current grade, and from catching the perhaps needed repetition in the new class.
Will there be downsides? Yes of course. Will they be worth it? Check Iowa Acceleration Scale Manual, and A Nation Decieved and decide for yourself. In our case yes. Little hint: If a child is gradeskipped they, and their families tend to blame everything that ever happens on the gradeskip. Be ready, and at least a bit skeptical. As I tell my friends, some problems can only be fixed by a timemachine, but thankfully I don't have access to one, because my life would be over, always going back and re-doing, and re-undoing, because things would never be as good as I seem to feel that they should be. Isn't there a bear who dropped his fish because he looked into the water and saw another fish? We here have to be very very careful of that type of behavior.
A single gradeskip maynot be enought, but each step in the right direction is a good step, in my book. Read Karen Roger's Re-Forming Gifted Education for hints as to what to ask for. I'd also had good luck with asking the school to suggest names of boys with which to set up playdates, at least at this age, when the kids are used to the Moms being very involved in playdate setup. Walking into a classroom for the first time is much much easier if the chld already feels comfortable with one other kid, or even two.
Best Wishes,
I do agree, that as behavior deteriorates, doors close, so get your foot in now. And it is normal for some children's behavior to "adaptivly" deteriorate in a poor fit classroom situation.
Trinity
