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This would be a red flag for me. What sorts of other schools do you have in the area? Does your state allow open enrollment (where you can cross district lines for school)? What do the local public schools have for GT programs? Most importantly, I would try to seek out a school that will be flexible, permitting subject acceleration if needed and differentiating and/or clustering. Yes, a skip would help, but if there is no differentiation with that skip, it may not be enough.

Have you ever considered homeschooling? Or partial homeschooling if allowed in your district? That can be a great option. Some areas have really strong GT homes homeschooling groups too.

Agree with OP. This school might not be a good fit at all. Any other options? I would just go ahead and bite the bullet and push them on this.You can't go on the way it is. Ask for a grade skip AND accelerated curriculum. If they won't do both I would push the subject acceleration instead of grade skip. Or better yet, find a school that is willing to work with you.

Do you think it MIGHT just be a poor teacher? Or is it the whole administration that is reluctant to do anything?

A skip isn't just about access to new material it is also about getting into a class with kids who are themselves further along in their development. Real abstract example:
If your kid is on average speaking in 10 word sentences and kis their age are typically speaking in 5 word sentences and kids a year older are speaking in 7 word sentences, then the year up is at least more compatible on language use.

Things like abstract reasoning, language sophistication, etc. advance as kids get older.

I'd be great if a grade skip was a panacea, but it's not. Acceleration addresses the placement issue, but the pacing will still be wrong no matter what placement is made. These kids learn at a rapid pace, not the glacial one preferred by most educators. So if you skip your kid ahead, it might be the right level... for now. You'll be right back where you started again shortly.

However, placing at the right level for a short time is still better than placing significantly lower. If that's all you can get, skipping is still least-worst.

Best-case is a situation that runs at your child's own pace.

My own DD8 was in a public school for 1st and the beginning of 2nd grade. She was offered a GT pull-out for 2 hours a day to work on math and language arts one year ahead. And it was a mess. We proposed skipping her ahead one year, forget about GT for now, then let her re-enter GT again once she started leaving the other kids behind again. No dice... the school had an institutional bias against acceleration. Plus, we have reason to suspect that they needed another warm body in the GT class, which has become something of a political football in the state.

So, homeschooling. DD was enrolled in homeschooling as a 3rd grader, so we effected the skip ourselves. DW had to identify and address all the gaps created by the sloppy mess of regular class/GT for the last 1+ year, then let DD progress at her own pace. And we recently found out that DD has already run ahead of the current 4th grade class in math.

Too bad for the school, as DD not only proved our approach to the problem was the right one, but now they don't have her as a warm body in that GT class, either.

Agreed-- the only reason why "public school" works at all for DD13 is that she has the option to do her various classes at HER pace-- now, to stay in synch with the class itself, she tends to do a week of Honors German on Mondays, and to do AP Physics only two or three times a week (not the smaller amounts of material every day).

Virtual schooling isn't perfect by any means, but it can allow for a flexibility in pacing that is still necessary even after multiple accelerations.

HG+ kids definitely follow a different CURVE entirely when it comes to their academic development and the pacing that results.

It's like trying to fit a polynomial expression with a linear model-- you might be able to follow it sort of acceptably well for a while... but then you'll need a new linear model when the polynomial starts to deviate from the linear model. KWIM?

I agree with Zen, my DS could use another skip or two but he's not going to get it where we are. The GT program is still valuable even though he could work faster and in more depth because of the other kids. The separation between him and the other kids is smaller than with ND kids making it easier for him to interact. It's not perfect but it's better than not having it.

DeHe

I felt like this at school too...

DS skipped K even though that was never going to be enough. Gr 1 is a better fit then K would have been. Now if only we can convince them he needs harder readers/books (sigh).

We chose to homeschool when we realised that the 1 grade skip offered would not be enough for long enough.

Our son would have been in a rage if he had gone through the process of learning to sit for longer, write more and for longer and do extra work (that he already mastered) and then figured out that it was nothing really new in terms of learning. I don't think I could have coped with the fallout.

In your situation if you cannot homeschool then approach the school and ask for appropriate placement testing, or start searching for a more understanding school.