mtgts,
You gotta love school systems. How does it make sense to start a child in Kindergarten, let him get settled in and THEN test to see if he has to move up? I hope it works out well for your son. I know that the public schools here are loathe to make any grade changes. My son is now in the public school system but it was actually a Catholic School that grade skipped him. He went to public Kindergarten and the teacher was very sweet but I kept getting called in because he was scribbling on his worksheets---coloring in the letter "V" and a picture of a van etc. I said well since he can read the newspaper he probably is not very motivated and they just didn't want to hear that. The next year we moved and the public school didn't have a great rep so we chose a very small Catholic school. After two weeks in first grade the first and second grade teachers and the principal came to me and all but insisted we move him up to second. So oddly the Catholic school was more progressive and less rigid. We moved again that year and the public school wanted to put him back into first without even screening him despite his grades from the other school or any testing. They are just so locked into keeping them at grade/age level and nothing else matters.
Sorry for rambling on. My point is that if the public school does not give you satisfaction then look to the parochial schools or private (Catholic school was much more affordable than local private). It is at least worth a talk with the principals of other schools and if you do it this summer you will feel like you have options if things don't work well for you son at the public school.
Also thanks for the reading suggestions. I am living on inter-library loan these days trying to gather info. and resources.
