Thanks for your responses. All interesting and helpful.
I'm happy to say that DS is no longer bored in school. The public school takes a much more active hands-on approach to learning, which DS finds fun. He also likes all of his teachers for the first time (you're right about that one, Dottie), and they don't see him as the enemy. His old school was very rigid and traditional. They pretty much sat in their desks all day the way I did many, many years ago.
Because he was so unhappy in his old school, we haven't pushed at all. Now, however, I'm concerned because the public school seems to be at least a year behind the area private schools in math (and who knows what else - I'm not as well informed as I used to be). I don't want him to be basically repeating a year. What happens next year, or the year after, when he is finally challenged? I wonder, though, if he would have been happier in a higher grade originally, although around here, no one would ever suggest it (this is red-shirt central, after all).
And there's no doubt that he'd love to be home-schooled. Maybe I can look into supplementing his academics through home-schooling. Fact is he does most of his learning on his own outside of school, so in essence, he's already being home-schooled. I just never knew it was an option. I suppose it would be a good use of my time to read up on home schooling. If there were other children like him being home schooled in the area, it could be very interesting (although difficult for me to do). And I like the idea of looking for a home schooling science class he could join - thanks for that idea, Incog. Meanwhile, we do a lot of reading and web surfing (and trips) on our own.
As for the LD, Kriston, the public school defines the discrepancy between his IQ and achievement scores as a LD (which is actually very helpful for us in such a huge school - 1200 kids in grade k-2!). And they have been great at helping him with his weaknesses (he also receives OT for fine motor skills and sensory issues). But his strengths have been ignored - completely. And that's my quandary. Do we keep him in public school where it's easy and he's supported, or do we move him to a different private school with top academics and more children like him where he'll find friends, but may suffer again if his basic academic skills aren't up to par by September? (The big issue on this one is the early January application deadline.) And if we don't accelerate him, are we doing him a disservice (i.e., is acceleration always the answer)? Not the same conundrum you have, Mia, but difficult nonetheless.
Happy Holidays, everyone!
