In our situation, we spent K-3 waiting for the school to get it together with differentiated curriculum. We even changed schools in the hopes of seeing it come about. In our case it did not. We are currently waiting to see if we get approval for a partial day because my daughter isn't "ahead" in writing and comprehending inferences and with her aspergers would benefit from some time with children closer to her age. We homeschool to meet her needs. At our recent IEP meeting the school has come out and said that they can't accomodate her needs appropriately.
I think you would really need to look at the school and see what they have successfully done with other students and talk to other parents that have kids in the GT range if you can. When we finally got test results and understood that our daughter was in fact GT I contacted a now defunked parents group that I found on our states dept. of education website. Once I did that our decisions became easier when we realized what other parents had tried to do with the school and their results. I would have done things differently had I had both sets of information a few years ago.
Best wishes with your decision. We were just there when the school was offering to move my DD up by a minimum of one year and maybe two like you are discussing. It is a hard one, for us I just couldn't see her in the middle school with the social problems of aspergers. That is not the case in your situation and like Dottie has said it does work for many kids. I still wonder if we are going the right route, but now I'm back to second guessing myself. Please stay out of hiding, it is always nice to share ideas with parents who have been in similar situations. Could your DS visit the classroom he would be moving into?
