My son is currently enrolled in Kindergarten at the local public school but I suspect is not being challenged enough academically. In February, my spouse and I decided to pursue both a grade/subject acceleration in his current school for next year and, in parallel, apply to a close-by private school for the gifted. The public school is very reluctant to accelerate him, and after having met with the gifted coordinator, we have a meeting scheduled for next week to discuss our options for next year with the principal, the school psychologist, and his current teacher.
He was accepted by the private school last week. Unfortunately, our decision to enroll him there had to be made before this meeting we had previously scheduled with the public school officials (it was the earliest they could meet). After racking our brains over the decision, we decided to enroll him in the private school.
I'm really excited about the private school, because it seems like it is going to be an incredible environment and a great fit for my son (he's really excited about it, too). But there is a part of me that feels like a quitter... that I gave up too soon with the public school because he wasn't really suffering "enough" yet (school there hasn't been awesome, but it certainly hasn't been disastrous and my son at least enjoys the social aspects of being with his age peers). Then again, I suspect that there would have been years of uphill advocacy battles with the public school and that his happiness level would decrease dramatically next year. Also, as part of the private school's admission process, he had to take the WISC-IV, after which we were very surprised to learn that he scored in the HG+ range. Doing online research about the widespread inability of public schools to meet the needs of HG students hasn't given me any more confidence in his current school.
Anyways, I'm now trying to figure out the best way to cancel this meeting with the public school officials. I'm concerned that they will think that we simply gave up on what the public school had to offer without really giving them a chance. Do any of you have suggestions for how I can phrase this to them, especially considering I was the one who asked for this meeting in the first place? They do know that we were pursuing admission to the private school, and they do have his WISC-IV results.
