You asked for our personal experiences, so here's mine for my 6yo son. Though I don't know how helpful this will be...
Our state has a mandate to ID GT kids, but no services required.
My son was IDd as GT using the CogAT and the WJ3 after his kindergarten teacher IDd him for testing. (Normally GT testing isn't administered until 3rd grade unless requested for a specific student by a teacher or parent. I didn't know this, or I would have requested testing. Not publicized...)
After being IDd, he got only one pull-out session with the GT specialist and a packet of worksheets we could choose to do with him at home for "fun" (bleah!), but the kindergarten classroom teacher did far better than average with differentiation and it was only a half-day class, so my son did fine that year. Since the school sends out no test scores to parents--just a "he's in" letter--I didn't realize just *how* GT he was. I didn't go to the school to find out his scores, which showed him to be PG instead of MG as I had supposed, until he began having some boredom-related behavioral problems in 1st grade with a full-day class and a teacher who *didn't* differentiate. At all.
Ultimately, when faced with a school system that hates grade skipping, does no clustering, and has no GT service until 3rd grade (and then once a week in math only!), we chose to homeschool for the year rather than to try to swim upstream.
If you use testing to ID, I think *scores* should be sent to parents, and there should be an invitation to come in to speak with the GT coordinator (or principal or whomever is in charge of GT-related issues) so that the situation can be assessed.
But if you can do things other than testing to ID, then more power to you. Tests are certainly not the be-all-end-all of GT assessment...
I think it's possible--although not necessarily ideal--to adequately serve even HG+ kids in public school with some combination of grade skips, subject acceleration, clustering, and differentiation...provided the administration is supportive and the classroom teacher is on board. It sounds like you may have both those going for you! That would be good!
On a personal note, thank you for caring so much! You're clearly one of the good guys, and it's so nice that you're out there taking your time to do this right and really help these kids.
You rock!
