We tried a social preschool and it was definitely not a good fit, which led us to scramble and place DD in a Spanish Immersion program which is academic since they are two years ahead of the public schools. My DD is in the 3 yr old class but is already doing kindergarten work. We knew when we went this direction that the prospects of putting her in the public school program would not be advisable since she would already be taught 2nd grade work by then. The nice thing is the school will go through 5th grade and as long as DD is thriving we will plan to keep her there and then look to move her to another academic program.
Sounds like a good plan if she continues to enjoy and like where she is at. Just wanted to say though, that you never know with public school. It varies greatly on the school. I say this because we put our DS5 in a social/play-based preschool at 4 and it was a complete failure as well. We thought we were doing good because we knew no preschool could meet his academic needs. Then when that failed we put him in another play-based/slightly academic preschool (which did notice his needs and abilities) and he did much better there..but still wasn't learning anything. After that a Montessori school opened up and we put him there for the last 6 months of school and he did great! So after our failures at the play-based setting we weren't sure about public school, but with a full-grade skip and differentiation it really isn't at all the same as his social playbased setting. It is much more academic since they are giving him work that is over 4 years above his grade level...and his school only goes up to 2nd grade so they are definitely adjusting things for him. We were pleasantly surprised. Just wanted to say, that sometimes it can be done. And like the oposite of your story, ironically before having DS we moved to a neighborhood we liked that was in an average district. It wasn't in one of the upperclass areas all around us with better schools and more gifted kids. We debated, but I figured we would have an average kid and he doesn't need to be in the best of the best schools (there were other reasons too). But then we ended up with a child like ours. Kind of funny how things work. But I am still glad we aren't in one of the other districts because I doubt they would make the accomodations that our school district is. They would most likely just give him a little enrichment.
