Clay: I feel like the decision we make now will have an impact on her HS classes. Our school is big on "tracks" that each student follows in each subject. Once you start on that road it is hard to jump off without repeating a class along the way. I want DD to feel successful since she is young and accelerated, not like she is overwhelmed. But she is ambitious and wants to do it, so I try to be supportive. She was the one that advocated for a harder math class without telling me about it.
Catalana: I am not sure about the teachers, but historically the accelerated tracks are taught by best and enthusiastic teachers. The same would be true to the honors classes. They might even have the same teacher.
As far as her ability to do the work, I don't think that was the issue. She pulled straight A's in math after a mid-year skip without missing a beat. She is not my mathy kid and on the finals (which included materials she missed) she got one of the best scores in the class. Because we got a former HS counselor, I think he is able to see what happens to "some" of the accelerated kids and he wanted us to be aware of it. Why have a GPA suffer when it's due to "unnecessary" acceleration? He gave us the choice in the end and DD was agreeable to our decision. Now that she has had the summer off and went to a science camp, maybe it's her enthusiasm for science that's driving this discussion?
