Tygrlily, Thanks very much for your perspective. We've actually already accomplished the testing and I think we lucked out with a tester. She was highly recommended by my ped, another counselor and a close friend whose teeange DDs were both tested by her several years ago. She worked very hard to find out what we were trying to accomplish with this testing. She also saw right through my perfectionist DD's responses of "I don't know" and encouraged her to make a best guess.
I don't have the results back yet - probably early next week she said, but my decision was definitely validated by the tester's comments to me at the end of testing. She immediately asked if we had investigated the gifted magnet in the adjacent school district. She indicated verbally that DD6 hit the ceiling on several of the subtests. The tester also said that the discrepancies I noted on the RIAS administered by the school were probably related to that test administrator stopping with the "I don't know" responses.
As far as the district policies - in my district I'm not sure I'm going to be able to convince my school to comply with their own policies without causing significant trouble. Acceleration is still on our radar and after some research I turned up a district policy that specifically allows acceleration for gifted ed. plans. So I know the option is supposed to be open, but actually getting it accomplished is another thing entirely.
We are located in a relatively small town. As with many things in a small town, decisions to rock the boat too far can have long-lasting consequences. Trying to figure out costs and benefits of pushing the envelope are my current challenge.
