Eibbed, you received one strong positive from the principal's response-- "Grade acceleration is something that could happen."
While I can't comment from personal experience on acceleration advocacy specifically, I do have a background in corporate negotiations, which can be equally challenging to navigate. I have a few thoughts, which I hope are useful.
As I see it, your argument will be framed from the following information:
A. Achievement quantification: securing evidence of ability
B. Evaluation of social readiness (neuropsych/parents)
C. Assessment of intellectual detriment of current environment
D. Assessment of social/emotional detriment of current environment
My first priority would be ensuring that reliable, measurable benchmarks supported by gifted assessment best-practices are used. Other folks wih experience in this area could probably point you in the right direction for those.
The principal has forwarded three positions:
1. Skipping is socially detrimental (general)
2. Testing should not account for ceiling effects (math)
3. Reading assessments are not formally tested
Points 2 and 3 can be undermined in reference to district policies and gifted assessment best practices. Both assertions are ridiculous.
Point 1 can be refuted by keeping the discussion specific to your child to undercut the generalizations the principal will be arguing from. The issue at hand isn't the principal's general, (presumably) untrained opinion. The real issue is the school's responsibility to teach each individual at his level, a responsibility that the school is eschewing with its current approach. View policy as 100% adaptable to individual needs.
In crafting your case re: point 1, I'd present as many concrete, dated examples as possible to show a trend of decline in your son in his current situation: cognitive, social, behavioural, and emotional. If your son is beginning to have any difficulty relating to peers, highlight the gap to undermine the principal's tack. Keep a record of instances of upset/boredom/conflict and graph frequency over time.
I'll be interested to follow along. I hope my lack of BTDT experience doesn't render these thoughts so general as to be useless!!
Best,
Aquinas
ETA: this post assumes you discover need for a skip and wish to implement it.
