Thank you all so much for sharing your experiences and ideas with me. I feel as if I have no one to talk to about her and I so appreciate hearing your thoughts. Well, I am hopeful after talking to both her current teacher/principal and the principal of the magnet school. Although her current class will not be moving her to first grade, they will be doing some end of 1st year assessments and pulling her out for reading and math (finally!!). But most importantly, the principal of the magnet school we applied for next year couldn't have been more excited to hear about her coming to the school and we discussed options of acceleration there for her. We are going to take one step at a time and see how she does in the 1st grade class (the magnet school is for gate and high achieving from 1 - 5), they will pull her out for her strong subjects, but most importantly, he told me that they will also give her the opportunity to do middle school classes should she reach that capability as she matures and moves up in grades at his school. I do wish she could start next as a 2nd grader as I know she knows all 1st grade material but at this point, we are going to work with the school and start off in a positive relationship. He also pointed out how he feels that the district gate coordinator just doesn't "get it", apparently she is new and he already has not seen eye to eye with her, so he wasn't surprised at her reaction.
At the moment, I think this is our best option. Most importantly, this principal of the magnet school is such a passionate, hands on and caring administrator. I have high hopes that they will do what they can to differentiate to meet her needs and we will be meeting soon to put together learning plan for her.
We actually just moved from the bay area, so it's interesting to hear what your experiences are. We lived in the highest performing school district, but I get the feeling we would have had a harder battle to fight there. I always felt the administration was wary of the parents, probably because so many of the kids there are pushed and pushed.
Thanks again!
