Well, I'm late to the party today but I see all but one question has been answered and that question is, "Has anyone got the Explore results yet?"
GS10's results on grade level testing seem to be a bit sporadic. But I've seen him work. On grade level work he skips questions. I think his mind on something else and he's a bit haphazard with testing when things are easy. Get him involved with something harder and he stays focused on the task at hand.
Ohio accepts achievement testing as a means to ID as gifted, but it has to be on a nationally normed test. I think the Explore was just accepted in the last year. Our school does testing with the Stanford at 2nd, 5th, & 7th grades to ID gifted. In between those grades, for referals, they use the ITBS.
There are a lot of pros & cons about using AT, I think the biggest pro is it is very inexpensive to purchase achievement tests and any teacher is qualified to administer it. I think that pro outweighs all other reasons for or against AT as an ID.
