Wonder how much of it has to do with common core standards and the school going with a one-size-fits all approach so that everyone gets the same standards. That's the feeling I get from our own district. They are very worried about accelerating kids or giving them anything above grade-level because then they might not master all the standards.
Sounds like an extremely annoying situation and I think your best bet is to band up with parents going to the school board meeting. The parents in my district (many years ago) got a gifted magnet that way. The district had been doing NOTHING for gifted kids, then all of a sudden this magnet was set up for grade 4-6. They simply take the top performing kids (kids in the top 2-3 percentile--a lot of families turn down the offer) from each elementary school and stick them all together in a school-within-a-school environment. Those kids would need teachers and classrooms anyway so there's no extra cost involved. They are just shuffling them around. In fact, I think the district saves money because parents have to provide transportation.
