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Treecritter,

Well, if it was me, I would start with a two pronged attack.

1. Gather intelligence. Talk to the parents of the little girl, they may be able to give you a wealth of information. Check out your district's policy (you may have to do some digging). I was initially told subject acceleration "wasn't done" but it actually had been done in the past (full skips were done). The principal we dealt with def. wasn't completely forthcoming with information initially (I'd like to think we have now reformed her, we shall see).

2. If you are sure a full skip is what you want, start drafting a letter with that as a formal request. I wouldn't wait too long, as the school year is starting to wind down, but I would wait long enough to do some of the intelligence gathering in #1. When you send it, send it to your principal, but also to the superintendent and anyone else in the chain of command between the two, or who might need to give input.

If you want to look rational, you can refer to the IAS and not actually request the skip, but request evaluation by the district using the IAS to determine the appropriateness of the skip (of course, you will already know that he qualifies easily for the skip on the IAS I assume). Make sure you toss in things like "in order to insure that my child receives an appropriate education, I request that he be evaluated for promotion from first grade directly to third grade. I expect that you will use the Iowa Acceleration Scale, an instrument created by the University of Iowa and validated in several studies as an effective tool in determining whether a student should be full grade skipped. I look forward to hearing from the district within ten days as to when such an evaluation can take place. We look forward to working with you to make sure our child is placed in the classroom that will provide the best educational fit for his academic skills."

Quick story. A friend's daughter started K reading chapter books and definitely ready for 1st grade math. She asked the Principal repeatedly to move her to 1st grade, and the Principal kept putting up barriers. Finally, about 5 weeks into the school year, and very frustrated, she emailed the Super. and basically demanded the skip. Within 2 days her daughter was in the 1st grade (they claim they tested her, but we haven't quite figured out how or when, and her daughter says no one ever asked her any questions...). She is now a 3rd grader and doing very well.