Thanks so much everyone for your input!
We had a very candid discussion over tea and cake while the kids played (well considering we've known one another less than a year it didn't feel quite appropriate to get into our families histories of puberty onset) and while friend7s mom said she needed to have a hear to heart with her husband that night, the teacher apparently had one argument that pretty much swayed her
Teacher apparently pointed out that the regular second grade classrooms next year will be dominated by the 27 kids who made up one big messy first grade classroom this year, and who are allegedly working light years behind the 10 first graders who were in the two split grade classrooms, even those for whom a grade skip isn't in the cards. So the prevailing need next year will be for the other kids to catch up, and the little group from the split grade classroom who is doing so well won't get much attention. We agreed that going to second grade under these circumstances might feel like being retained rather than be promoted.
Interestingly, the teacher apparently also said that if any parent made any negative comments to her face to simply refer them to her, which friend7s mom confessed herself very surprised about - why should anyone make snarky comments about a child's grade skip? Well, I've fielded them all in my life at one point or another, and I was fair and open enough to explain what she might have to deal with, and gave my own tips: be candid about your initial reluctance so no one feels the need to dump all their own negative opinions on grade skips to take you down a peg, put it all on the teacher (who in all fairness did push for both girls to skip) and the unusual split grade situation, which sort of tends to produce occasional grade skips as unintended by products.
We also talked about our children's sensitivities and anxieties and appropriate challenge versus being overwhelmed, and how being bored and unengaged in a second grade classroom wouldn't help.
I thought she'd more or less come around on her on already, and I was merely confirming from my own experience. And apparently, friend7 is the one pushing now, so unless dad gets in a veto, I expect both girls to be allowed to skip.
