I'll second chay's advice - and also have a question.
What type of testing is the school suggesting? Ability/achievement or anything else? The reason I ask about the testing is you mentioned that your ds has had trouble making friends and was "constantly getting into trouble." Your dh is also worried about labels... so I'm wondering if the school is thinking there's something more going on than just a high ability kid with a poor classroom fit?
If the testing recommended is simply for ability/achievement, I don't understand what your dh has to worry about in terms or a "label". In that instance, I'm guessing the "other school" is a magnet program for high ability students... which most likely would be a better fit than a standard classroom. The school district can't force you (as parents) to send your child to a school other than your neighborhood school, so before any decision was made to change schools, you can ask other parents whose children attend the school about their experiences, talk to parents who've chosen *not* to send their high ability students to the school, and ask questions of the district such as "will bus transportation be provided" etc. I would also consider that - you've mentioned your ds had difficulty making friends this past year - a move to a program where the kids are closer to being intellectual peers, as well as a chance to start with a new group of students could be very positive in terms of finding friends. My ds is much older than your ds now, but he had an extremely difficult time finding friends in early elementary, but we left him in the same school program for several years thinking it was best to try to work with the school. In hindsight it was a huge mistake - he transferred to a school with a higher level of classroom discussion and challenge as well as motivated and generally higher ability students when he entered middle school, and it was a HUGE improvement in the social/emotional side of his education and life. When it was time to move on to high school, he was very frank with us and let us know he only wanted to be in a program with high ability students - which fortunately our district has, and it's been a good fit socially. I did worry a bit when he was younger that if he was only in high-ability classrooms he wouldn't be experiencing the full spectrum of social experiences that are present in life-after-school, but I no longer worry about that. He's had lots of opportunities to be with a wide spectrum of students in other settings - electives at school, extra curricular activities etc. and he's not turned into an intellectual snob who's unable to understand and cope in a not-always-intellectual world
He has, however, benefited tremendously from being able to move at a faster pace and higher level of challenge in the classroom. When he first changed schools in middle school, he was very blunt with us (parents) in one of his reasons: he was tired of listening to kids ask questions that he already knew the answers to.
If you suspect there's more to the school's suggestion of testing or concern than simply high ability, read on - if not, you can skip this next part.
When my children were in early elementary, especially K-2, I did see kids who were acting out due to simply boredom in the classroom get singled out for testing by the school when a teacher was just unable to deal with the behavior. This did serve to identify intellectually gifted children, because ability and achievement testing were part of the package no matter what the school suspected was going on with a specific student. The school my children were in also had a tendency to suspect behaviors were tied to other issues, primarily ADHD or ASD, when the behaviors were significantly impacting the children's ability to cope in the classroom. I'm only mentioning this because it happened with our ds - in his case, he had an undiagnosed learning disability plus a poor classroom fit in terms of ability. I had no idea he had the learning disability at the time, and was fairly annoyed that his teacher thought he had ADHD, and was therefore very skeptical of the school offering testing. My dh and I chose private testing, which I am both very glad we chose, but on the other hand it came with a few pitfalls related to school. This really only applies if you happen to have more going on than just high ability being the issue, but if there's a chance your ds may have a 2e challenge, fwiw - private testing was invaluable to us in that the school testing (in our district) would have not been global and would most likely not have caught the true issue that was impacting our ds in the classroom. The downside - the school didn't want to accept an opinion from an outside evaluator. They did eventually acknowledge and accept the conclusions of the private neuropsych, but it took a *ton* of advocating on our part as parents and a lot of ability to not be intimidated into backing down when advocating for our ds' needs.
I hope some of that helps!
Best wishes,
polarbear
ps - just wanted to add - there's potentially a downside to not testing, no matter which scenario you're dealing with. Testing gives you data, which is something concrete you can advocate with. If you at some point attempt to get more challenge for a high ability student within his current school, it will be easier to advocate with solid data, especially with testing that the school accepts. If there's something else adding to the issues with behavior etc, having data that identifies the issue is critical to understanding how to deal with the challenge.
