Technically we homeschool... but DD11 takes a full slate of classes at a local learning center specifically geared toward homeschool students. This is best for her because she's too social to learn alone at home.
The school allows her to accelerate as much as she likes. She'll be taking her first high school level classes next year and her first community college class the year after. Oh and she goes to Mathnasium because it's flexible and has a rigorous and complete curriculum through Pre-Alg. Then we can work with them to pick a good text and they can continue to tutor through the rest of high school math.
Here are some considerations:
Sports -- lots of club opportunities outside of the school system here, so this is not a problem. Besides, for an accelerated kid, you have to adjust your expectations around sports scholarships and sports in college anyway.
Testing -- state law requires that she take a nationally normed tests at certain grades based on age. So she'll be taking the 5th grade test next month -- I am not concerned. The learning center organizes it, but you can also arrange individually. They also arrange achievement testing (we'll probably do the 8th grade tests next year). As for college admissions testing, she can take the SAT and ACT at a local school when she's ready as a homeschooler too. No problem.
AP and/or IB classes -- if she wants these she'll have to take them through an online school (of which they are several). The learning center has a few APs, but not many.
Transcript and high school graduation -- no high school around here is going to let her join at twelve, and she's not interested in an online school. We're in this for the long haul. That means a homeschool transcript and homeschool admission to college. The fact that she has external teachers who can vouch for her will help.
College: We are not in a rush, but expect that she'll start college full time at least a year or two early. Starting college early will limit her options, but with dual highschool/community college credit and good test scores, I'm not particularly stressed about it. Her current career choice at least requires graduate school, so she'll be more mature when entering the work force. There are a couple of non-local options that can work and a couple of very good local options as well (living at home). The local options will accept her community college credit and not consider her a transfer -- best of both worlds.
It's only in the past few months that we've really come to terms with this (with the help of this board actually). We just had to accelerate our expectations and planning to be in step with her academic acceleration.
