I'm mixing two questions, no doubt, but they're related so I thought it might paint a more complete picture.
On the SSA -- it can't meet his needs yet. Our district is very inflexible. You can't SSA until 2nd grade and you can only skip one year at a time and you can only test once a year on a specific date. Given that, you have to really plan ahead to try to meet the needs of your child. The SSA is the long term plan -- looking at the system as it is now I anticipate it finally lining up with his needs in 4th grade when he will take compressed 6th and 7th grade math via computer and go from there.
Given the above, the choice is do I skip him over 4th or 5th grade in school? In the end I anticipate his need will be to do one skip of those two years to end up in the same spot, so it may not matter.
I'm a little lost here because the kid that was begging for a skip last year seems basically indifferent this year. He doesn't care either way and is super happy with life, including math. I'm just doing a gut check I suppose if a school skip is really needed or if I should just wait until next year and skip him into that 6/7th grade class. Even if it's way below his level, if it's good socially and he's happy...? Eh, maybe leave it.
On AoPS he's driving it himself -- he's moving through the material and interested and AoPS will always (even at grade level) give him more than the standard school curriculum. I have no concerns with him doing after school math. I think actually the after school math may be meeting his needs well enough that he no longer cares if he's being challenged in school or not. If I take that away we may have behavior and attitude problems in school again around math, whereas now he's doing great.
On the AoPS it's almost the opposite -- he's flying ahead and I wonder if it's too fast in terms of getting the concepts. If he's doing well on the tests I guess it's fine and he understands the material.
