grinity,
I tried the university route and it got us no where. The people I contacted about our son reading when he was 2 either never got back to me or told me to go to my school district.
His Ped. also said to wait for him to go to school, although she also has gifted kids, so she had specialize experience with people in our area. Which worked out great for us.
This is the problem- there is nothing standardize in NYS. Not that standardization works great with gifted kids, but there should be something when you have a kids who is way ahead. For us is was very scary, we had no idea why our son was reading already and were lost as to what to do and where to go. We were told over and over, "Oh don't worry, he's just ahead of the game."
Even now in school it's haphazard and "make it up as you go". He's not the only kid in his class, his school, our district, our county, our state, that is like this. Why isn't NYS doing something for these kids?
Of course I have heard the line,"What are you worried about? He gets A's" Well, yes, he gets A's.... but I don't send him to school to "get A's" I send him to school to get an education to prepare him for life, so he can become a positive contributor for the common good.
