To their credit, I could name a ton of parents in our district who would happily push their child when the child wasn't ready and the rest be d**ned, just to be able to say their kid was ahead by X amount. Coming to terms with that concern in my own district helped a lot, because it helped me understand that they had my DS's interests at heart. What I had to help them get was that he was miserable in the current situation. I pretty much had to take full responsibilty for the accel. and we called it experimental and agreed that if it didn't go well DS would drop back to 4th (so only up 1 year instead of 2) if things didn't go well - and this was after everyone agreed he was ready for 5th grade math without any issues. Surprise, surprise, he got 100% on his first math test, and as I said, the older kids are great with him, so now there are not any concerns any longer.
But, it took a long time to get them to see that I wasn't just pushy and that this really was in DS's best interests. I think they almost believe it now... almost.
I think a big piece of it is they want you to accept responsibility for the decision - that was clearly the case at our school.
Cat
