Another option you might consider, that buys you time, is skipping into 1st mid year, pending testing results. If the scores are as out there as you suspect, that might be the ideal time to set that in motion. It IS disruptive to the school year, but this is not a problem for many kids. Same net result without the out of pocket $$$'s!
Glad to hear your meeting went well.
Funny you mention that option as I specifically asked about it. It has never occured in our district and recently a student was recently denied a mid-year promotion. That's okay. I understand our parameters better by asking question.
Maybe it'd be possible, but it might take a herculian (sp?) effort.
So the long and short of it is that we could choose to stay the course (start K). Or we could choose to skip K and start first. I bet that if we went to the district after the fact and asked to move back down ("looks like we made a mistake") that we could do that. If we start K we're probably commiting to K. If we start 1st, we could probably adjust downward if necessary.
The person we met with was very open and gave us a lot of information on our options (like skipping) even going so far as to tell us what her bias was. I was happy to see that level of professionalism. Even though she'd recommend going one way, she'd work with us if we go the other way to the point of telling us exactly what we need to do if we decide to skip.
JB