NSG -
8 hours of school per day? That is a long day!
Can you bring him home after lunch twice a week so he can 'really learn' a few times a week, and still keep trying to get school to work? You can make something up, like there has been a lot of stress/sick relative/music lessons/acting in commercials/whatever so you feel that 8 hours is too long of a day for him right now.
I do think that if he isn't flat out exhausted, then it's really important to have expectations of scheduled work at his own readiness level, so that he gets in the habit of working hard, even if it is 10 minutes a day.
Maybe he'd be better off in the self contained class for 2nd graders? Best way to know is to observe the various options yourself. There certianly is a range of giftedness, just like there is a range of normally developing kids - Assuming for this argument that you can really acuratly measure any child's IQ, would you expect a kid with a 85 IQ to need the same learning environment and output expectations as a kid with a 120 IQ?
So yeah, I would look into seeing what the 2nd graders are doing...
Good luck,
Grinity
