I'd consider homeschooling, but we'd kill each other within the first week.
Wow! You school system has an all day gifted class? That's wonderful, if it would meet her needs (not a sure thing if she is YPS or near-YSP in her 'level of giftedness')
What about the Gifted Coordinator? There must be someone running the ship if your school has a pull out AND an all day program? Have you sat down with this person and asked about his/her impression of your DD, and show the test results?
BTW - Apply to YSP anyway, ok?
As for the homeschooling, ask yourself 'why' you are so sure that it wouldn't work, and turn that into a social/emotional need for the Gifted Coordinator and the Principal. Is she overly bossy because she spends all day with kids she can run intellectual circles around? Is she overly sensitive because she is facing the insecurity of spending hours and hours repeating work that is years behing where she is? Shape the letter so that you specifically ask for the rules to be bent to let your DD into the all day program.
(Ideally, you will spend an hour or two observing the all day program so you have an idea that it really will met her needs)
As for the 'she is happy' - it's very tricky with girls. Girls tend to have higher social skills, and therefore are better at figuring out what you want to hear and presenting that face to the world. Girls tend to be more athority accepting (at least at school) because they can notice what happens to the rebellious boys and learn by watching. Girls are much more likely to settle for interesting social interactions 'give up' on getting educated at school, and they often have the social skills so that it is really hard to tell by looking at them.
I wouldn't send a letter like that to a Congressman from a school system that has an all day pull out program - it just doesn't make sense. If you have observed the all day program and it seems truly worth your while, AND the gifted coordinator AND Principle aren't willing to bend the rules, THEN it is totally time to call the board and the newpapers and the congressman and complain about that specific problem. How many kids in the allday program really have scores within a half standard deviation of your DD's?
Best Wishes,
Grinity
