Just an FYI, I am also in Lee County and I can tell you from experience that you will have to stay on top of things and make sure they change his placement to full time gifted. Will he be in 2nd next year? If so then you need to have them change his placement to full time gifted now so he can switch to a school with a full time program next year.
Without having that full time placement there before he switches schools you have no guarantee that they will have a full time spot open when he transfers since he would transfer as a part time placement. That would mean he would be put in a regular class with a part time pull out program and then if he qualifies for full time placement he would be moved to the full time class if they have a spot open.
Once he's listed as full time gifted he'll get preference at the full time gifted schools when you fill out the school choice form. In fact you'll only have to rank the schools that offer full time programs and be able to skip the others completely. We went through this with our daughter last year and it was a huge headache.
Also, there are additional criteria that have to be met to qualify for full time placement that most people aren't aware of. He'll have to meet at least 4 of the following items.
133 or higher on the Gifted Characteristic Checklist
90th Percentile or higher or a Level 5 (FCAT or SAT10) on reading or math achievement testing
124 or higher intelligence quotient
90% average in all content areas
Very strong portfolio score
IMO the criteria is unnecessarily restrictive and I had to really fight to get my DD full time placement (her teacher who had no training at all in gifted scored her at a 76 on the gifted characteristics checklist and her portfolio was considered strong instead of very strong) despite her being a Davidson Scholar and clearly very gifted.
Best of luck to you and your son. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions!
