From what I understand from the meeting, the students will be grouped within the classroom by ability and there are various strategies the teacher will use, many of which are not student-choice, but assigned and led by the teacher. There are Independent Study elements, but they are one option of several that the teacher plans to use. For Math, students who get 4/5 of the most difficult questions correct on the homework will either get different Math homework or none for that day.
So that sounds better than nothing - and in the hands of a teacher who is a good fit, it can be terrific for a year. BUT, what you've said right here illustrates a problem that is potentially fixable. If your child is at about the same level as the kids in his grade who are able to get 4/5 of the hardest Math questions correct - optimally gifted, then clearly he's probably going to have a wonderful time. But what if the child is more like at the level of kids in one grade up who score 4/5 of the hardest Math questions correct?
For example, My son was a handful of reading levels above the rest of his 4th grade class. In fact, he was higher than they ever remembered a 4th grader being at that school. Did I want him in his own reading group or did I want him with the next highest level group? Neither. I wanted him in a reading group with other kids his own level, even if it meant leaving the room and going up to the next grade. That wasn't workable since at our school the next grade didn't use reading groups and worked as a whole class at a lower level than the top reading group of the lower grade. What the teacher ended up doing was keeping him with the top group, and bumping that group up 2 levels over the heads of the other kids. The look on her face when she explained led me to believe that the it wasn't easy for her to pull this off. It was still a handful of levels below my son's reading level.
So you may or may not have an inherent problem depending on the readiness levels of the other kids in your class. Sometimes the Universe is kind and no matter how high a readiness level your child is, there is another child who is 'in the ballpark.'
If you kid is really far more ready than the other kids in his class, a simple fix is to ask for cross grade grouping. If his this year's teacher and his next year's teacher bring their classes together and team teach some subjects for the two grades, you increase the odds that the kids who place out of the regular math will have a similar readiness level to your son, increase the odds that next year's teacher will be experienced in Winebrenner's approach, and increase the odds that next year's teacher can start to realize exactly where your child is. You also decrease the odds that there will be lots of repetition next year.
It's true that not having to make your child do meaningless Math homework is something to celebrate. But your child deserves to go to school and learn both new subject matter, and good work ethic, no matter what that child's readiness level happens to be.
Love and More Love,
Grinity
