I'm typing on my phone so I'll be brief, but I did want to offer a longer term perspective (my girls are 14 & 12 now). When dd14 was younger, I so desperately wanted a gifted magnet or something similar for her b/c, like your ds, her needs were so much not being met in ps even with a GT pull out or other options they had like subject acceleration.
Over time, like HowlerKarma mentioned in my thread on group ability tests vs IQ tests, I've come to realize that she is far enough from mean of the kids even in gifted schools (which would have required a 45 min commute and sometimes tuition anyway), that they really wouldn't have been the trick to making things work for her.
I was hoping that we could just get her into a school like that and be done with the annual advocacy, finding the right teachers, etc. Unfortunately, it never was that simple. When I toured some of these schools, had dd do extracurriculars or social things with the kids who went there, etc., it still wasn't a fit. The only right fit we've ever had for her is for her to be much younger and among HG people. Her best friends right now are all between 17-18 and heading into their senior year of hs or off to college while she'll be a junior in the fall. The kids in her grade are about 18 months older than she and she does pretty well with them too in terms of not feeling hugely out of step especially with the more HG ones, but she really needs more than programming and social stuff aimed at HG kids who are her chronological age; she needs programming and social options that are aimed at gifted kids who are years older than she.
I guess that I mention this with the suggestion that you think outside of the box as well. If this school doesn't work out as it may not, what else can you try? Will the Montessori place him in an older classroom or could you take a second look at the public schools that don't have the programs he needs and see if they would be more willing to try grade or subject acceleration or something else? We wound up trying three elementary schools, every GT option each had, a grade skip, further subject acceleration, and are driving dds to schools that are "choice" for them rather than the assigned schools.
Eta: not brief after all!
Last edited by Cricket2; 05/27/13 03:03 PM.
