In your place, I might try the foot-in-the-door approach:
"We have here three objective measurements which say he's an ideal candidate for the all-day gifted program. We have two subjective measurements which say he's not. These are, in essence, opinions... is it not possible that they are wrong? Could we perhaps agree on a trial in the all-day gifted class, of say, one grading period? This could provide the objective data we need to answer that question."
Wow, thank you so much for putting into words my frustrations with the subjective v. objective measures on the checklist. I thank everyone here for their feedback as well. I definitely felt defeated, angry, and sad yesterday. The bottom line is that it became an argument about full-time gifted qualifications, when all I really want is for full-time gifted to be an available option. Honestly, I'm not sure that even full-time would be the right fit. Sometimes those programs can be pressure cookers, and that's not what I want for him either. For right now, my husband and I are going to re-group and try to figure out what the right fit for him would actually be and then go looking to find that (whatever THAT is - lol).
For your amusement, I will share that the principal actually said to me, "WE'RE the educational PROFESSIONALS." I have a Masters in Educational Leadership, just like she does, and I taught gifted students in a different county in Florida. I wanted to say really rude things back to her, but I thought that might undermine my message. Instead I just looked at her and said, "As am I."
