Our pow-wow @ the school is scheduled for today -- it ought to be very interesting at least.
After speaking with the GT-coordinator and a private psych w/GT specialty, the working plan will be to aim towards a mid-year skip from 4th to 5th by sending DS to 5th grade class for the subjects that really don't lend themselves to in-class differentiation (reading, language arts, writing, etc.).
The GT-person is very well versed in HG/PG and has been working with the school to bring them up to speed on the special needs of these kids.
Having DS spend portions of each day in 5th will give us all a chance to evaluate his performance w/the older class without committing him to a complete skip. This will make it much, much easier to unwind things if necessary -- without affixing any failure labels.
We completed the Iowa Acceleration Scale and it reflects that DS is a good candidate for the full skip. He fell short of the "excellent candidate" threshold because of his age/size.
I've got a good outline of what I hope to have discussed today, but suspect it is a bit on the ambitious side. I gotta aim for the proverbial stars, right?
In the end, I can't give enough credit to the awesome people here. The litany of BTDT advice and all the thoughtful discussion have been invaluable!
And, of course, a special shout-out to Dottie for the superb "Dottie-Fu" applied to the test results and related consternation.
