I had previously heard that the school is open to skipping. However, we attended a school event recently and the principal (newish) said she is NOT open to it. So...bleh. I have no idea about the district.
The principal pretty much has to articulate this as a policy to keep folks from beating down the door. Skips are not routinely offered in our district, nobody says they exist; yet there IS a policy in place that permits it, and a clear process. And it happens, more routinely than anyone knows until they're in the process.
That is not to say you should absolutely skip him. Only that you might find it useful to schedule a conversation between the pre-K teacher who thinks your DS needs so much more, the principal at the new school, and you. Sort of a "get to know ya" deal. Do you have any evidence of work he's done to show?
Sometimes if it's just a mom they think "all moms think their kid is brilliant," but if it's the dad and/or another teacher saying so they believe it.
The tricky thing about skipping him in any case is that we do plan for him to go into the magnet at grade 2, and I'm not confident he could handle the workload/written work expectations in the magnet with a skip in place.
That makes sense. Is it clear to you that a subject acceleration would make a difference, or is there an area where differentiation would be fairly straightforward for this particular kid? If so, you could suggest those options. I will say (have said it before here) that it's really, really hard to get this kind of thing done in K-- they are trying to bring all kids up to the minimum, not really advance anyone past the baseline.
I asked his preschool teacher what she thought about a full skip. She said he was completely ready academically and physically, but was a little concerned about his perfectionism and occasional tendency to cry easily. I'm not thinking these things are going to go away with another year, but it's true that they exist, although to me they don't seem terribly major.
Doesn't sound major to me either.
Would there be any merit to putting him into 1 now, letting him do 2, and then undoing the skip in the transition to the gifted magnet? Does the curriculum work in such a way that this is possible?
DeeDee
