I'm a wimp, but we put off telling everyone we could until they found out through the grapevine. Dd#1 skipped 5th this past school year. Like other posters have mentioned, it felt like a big deal at the time and we did have some judgement early on, but as we got into the year we heard a lot less about it. I don't know if people are still judging it, but we hear very little about it anymore even from family members who were vocal critics.
We, too, took the "this is what the school is recommending" approach and it was true. I didn't suggest the grade skip. The school suggested it to us. It has worked well thus far both socially and academically and dd continues to be a straight A student but at least one who had to do a little work to get some of those As.
