Here are our choices right now, as I see them. DS7 is in 2nd grade at a public school. He will go to a private school that starts in 5th grade.

A. Skip DS now to 3rd grade, attend school part time while we partially homeschool all academics
B. Keep DS in 2nd grade, attend school part time while we partially homeschool all academics. DS leaves this school next year at the end of 3rd grade and skips into the new school into 5th grade.

His current school goes to 8th grade.

Wanted to add: his current classroom teacher could care less how often he is in school. She is very sweet and kind to him. The aide stinks, but he wouldn't be around her too much for academics. The current 3rd grade teachers are not particularly nice and are openly unsupportive of gifted children.

Tough decision given that the 2nd grade teacher is cooperative. A couple of things that jumped out to me was that 1) He would have to go through the 3rd grade teachers anyway but next year when it would be even more boring for him. This year the work would be more challenging so less accommodation would be required. 2) I think it is better to skip earlier, especially if another skip might be necessary. My DD10 just skipped 5th and now I am just understanding how little she was actually learning in school at the younger ages. It seems to me a younger skip is an easier adjustment socially and academically, but I don't know what experts say.

Actually, for us, the issue is how many times do we disrupt his social circle in the next two years? If we skip him now, he will leave his school in a year and a half, and have to make new friends 2 times in 2 years. If we keep him where he is, he will only have 1 social disruption in 2 years when he goes to the new school. It's also important to note that when he goes to his new school, all children will be new at the same time since the school starts at 5th grade. I view this as an easier transition, obviously, because all children are in the same boat (save for the 1 or 2 kids who may have known each other at a previous school).

I would love to hear from more people. More feedback, please!

Of course, you are assuming that he won't have any difficulties maintaining friendships in an inappropriate educational environment.

If it makes you feel better - I attended a total of 8 different schools between K and 5th grade. I can't recall ever being particularly lonely or having difficulty making friends.

I attended 6 schools between K and the end of my secondary education. The timing stank academically but I can generally fit into a new social situation relatively smoothly and I put it down to that if that helps you to decide.

Can you leave him in 2nd this year (since you like his teacher and have a good situation where you can partially homeschool), then skip 3rd grade at his current school, complete 4th grade at the current school (this would be a way of working around the 3rd grade teacher issue), and then switch to the private?

Just thought I'd throw an entirely different idea out there

polarbear

I like polarbear's idea. It would allow him to keep doing what you are doing now with the good teacher, and then skip over the bad teachers. Would the school be willing to approve a skip for next year instead of for now? It would probably be easier on him to do the skip at the beginning of a school year anyway, rather than in the middle of this year.

However, if his current school is offering a skip and you are definitely wanting to do it as well (ie., it is just a matter of the timing), you should definitely do it before he switches schools just in case the new school wouldn't be willing to skip him on its own. This way, the skip will have happened and the new school would have no choice but to honor it because he will have already had at least a year in the higher grade.

Has the school offered a skip or are you just trying to figure out what would be ideal if they were to offer?

"However, if his current school is offering a skip and you are definitely wanting to do it as well (ie., it is just a matter of the timing), you should definitely do it before he switches schools just in case the new school wouldn't be willing to skip him on its own. This way, the skip will have happened and the new school would have no choice but to honor it because he will have already had at least a year in the higher grade."

The new school has already offered to have him go there now just for math - 5th or 6th grade (the timing of the particular class is awful). They are also happy to take him next year (which would make it a 2 year skip). Our tester actually recommended a 2 year skip. I am not ok with that, so we have to stick it out for another year. So, I'm not worried about the new school allowing a skip!

"Has the school offered a skip or are you just trying to figure out what would be ideal if they were to offer?"

Well, NOW they are offering a skip. Mainly because we have spent the past year advocating just for subject acceleration. They at first recommended a full year skip just because they didn't want to do the subject acceleration (which they totally botched up and made my son an anxious wreck apparently). Now that we've had him tested and fully evaluated, the tester recommends a double skip. I am so not ok doing that, so we will entertain a single skip.

Really, though, the single skip isn't going to scratch the surface, which is partly why I am hesitant. He only goes to school part time right now and he and I both think it's working well. The tester is under the impression that a skip may challenge him, but she really doesn't KNOW our school. Even with the single skip, we are still going to have to homeschool the academics.

Thank you! This is important for me to read.

This is a good idea.

Honestly, the entire public school experience has so totally turned me off to brick and mortar schools. I wish that we could just 100% homeschool.

Sigh - in the back of my mind, I am thinking about DD3 and what we are going to do with her too. She is doing the Kindergarten curriculum that we have laying around the house.

I was so naive to think that sending my DS to school would solve all of our "problems".

I digress....

Why don't you homeschool then?

DS is super duper social. I think that he would miss his friends and the fun parts of the day. He loves having lunch with his friends and running around at recess. He likes going to his specials with friends. But once recess ends, he is like a bat out of hell when I pick him up. (Most of the morning he has specials and most academic subjects are in the afternoon.)

Although I see that he is starting to develop an aversion to more aspects of brick and mortar school. Ex. the class has to recite an acronym and the associated words (like "R-E-S-P-E-C-T, R is for rules, we follow the rules of the classroom"). He was asking me the other day what the point of that was. I found it to be a little revolting too.

Here is what DH and I have decided:

*we are going to subject accelerate at school into 5th grade (where DS was supposed to be in the first place!)

*we are going to table the full skip until later in the year, with an eye on doing it at the start of next year

*we are going to homeschool all academic subjects for the rest of this year

Honestly, I am amazed at how much we are enjoying homeschooling. I know I've mentioned it before. But it's been so eye opening for me (and him). What I am offering him at home is so much better than he would get in B+M school. Oh and the principal let us know that if we skip him into 3rd grade now, no more partial homeschooling for us! So, that just kind of sealed the deal. How could I skip him into a grade: that still wouldn't be challenging, where they are spending the year preparing for state tests, where they never go into depth in any subject. What is the point of skipping a grade then? (And if anyone has a good answer to this, please respond!)

So you are going to subject accelerate him at home up to fifth grade and then ask for him to be skipped into fourth next year? Will you ask them to let him do academics at 6th grade level.

The fact that ds enjoys certain aspects of school now doesn't mean he would miss them terribly if you home schooled until he was ready for the gifted school. There are other ways he can play with kids his age.

At home we are doing 5th grade math, just started 3/4th grade language arts (reading and grammar are very strong, writing is very weak), science is somewhere in middle/high school, history is middle school. (You can see how a skip to 3rd grade now is not going to even scratch the surface.)

For next year - anything is possible. And even before then. If DS asked to return to school full time and skip to 3rd grade now, I would do it. I would do the same in 4 months from now. I think the plan is to see how this year goes and then take it from there. Maybe we will skip him next fall. Maybe he will decide he wants to homeschool full time. I think I would prefer to NOT skip him until he leaves this school (so he will skip from 3rd to 5th to his new private school). I did discuss this with his tester and she thought it would not be a bad idea to keep the social disruptions to a minimum. As long as we continue meeting his academic needs at home and he is happy to go to school part time, then we will keep him with agemates until he leaves the school.

somewhereonearth,

I don't know where you live, but where we live homeschool does not mean lack of social interaction. There are clubs for everything under the sun (robotics, science, legos, chess, art) field trips and homeschool PE. There are also coop classes that meet maybe twice a week and then you can decide what level you want to place your son. You might want to investigate different homeschool organizations in your area and see what is available.

Thank you drtrum. I will definitely check this out. Do you homeschool?

We just started this year with my DD8. So, its been almost 3 months. It has worked out great for us, much better than I even expected. DH and I trade off responsibilities. We do not do the coop classes, but she does an art class and chess is about to start. She spends quite a bit of time at gymnastics, with kids at church, and other sports. She and DH also do the field trips once a month. So, you see, there are many ways to socialize. Academically, it was definitely the best thing we could do. She is in 3rd grade and between the different subjects she is doing a range of 3rd -5th grade work and she has lots of time to explore areas outside of the basic subjects, like Spanish and computer programming games.