Thanks everyone.

Ellipses, we all (husband, babysitter, and me) considered this. I would not put it past him! But I don't think that's what happened in this case. He sincerely wanted to go to the school. If anything he was trying to ingratiate himself to the teacher by playing the clown.

After sleeping on it I think I have a better handle on what happened. I think they have their own standard of "grade level" which is probably internally consistent, but simply doesn't line up with the real world. They may not even realize it (obviously they should).

Since this program requires kids to be in the 145-range on the Standford Binet V, my son was borderline in the first place. What I forgot to consider is that my son has already had a (sort of) grade skip. Going by his birthdate he should be in first grade. But he was in a flexible private school and it was obvious to everyone when he was four that he belonged in kindergarten. So he went ahead and started K and we never gave it another thought.

I think when this school evaluated him relative to kids one month to 11 months older with test scores as high or higher, he probably legitimately came up short. No, he is not "on grade level" - they are wrong. But how they are labeling him is not important. I think he probably got a fair shake.