So sorry for you and this awful meeting you had. My heart goes out to you! You already got some good advice and I would definitely talk with the gifted teacher more. Remember that even though this guidance counselor was saying awful things, she is not in charge of the school or the district choices by any means. I would suggest finding out who is in charge of things. For us we wrote a letter and attached testing to the district superintendent of curriculum and had our initial meeting with just him in the and principal. We did encounter people along the way that had many awful things to say, but after they got to know DS and meet him they knew he wouldn't work out in a regular classroom. I wonder if saying something to a principal such as "I know that you don't know him and haven't personally seen him in a classroom yet, but maybe you would be willing to meet him and have him come in to get to know where he may fit best" That may change things. Our school tried DS out in a couple different classrooms. Our district has only ever done one gradeskip before my DS's in their whole history as far as I know of. Meeting him helped things out. However, you are going to want more than just one skip probably (for us we need lots of additional acceleration) so they need to be on board with that as well. And they absolutely have to have some sort of end of year testing to see what kids are supposed to know for the next year. that is ridiculous for them to say that they don't have that sort of testing. They clearly should know standards to move to the next grade. Or they could take state assessments if they have that. My DS5 just took the 3rd grade state math assessments as part of the districts plan to see what level of Math to give him next year.

And the behavior thing is so annoying. Kids act out to tell you that something is wrong. Can you imagine the principal sitting in 5th grade class all day and being engaged and acting appropriately? All research shows that you meet the academic needs and then the behaviors after if they are even still an issue.

So frustrating. Feel free to PM if you have other questions about our advocacy efforts.