Hi ABQmom,
A few thoughts, don't know if they're helpful or not:
I am struck by their exiting him from OT when he can't button his pants-- he's 10, right? By my lights that's a 5-year-old milestone. If you go to wrightslaw.com and look up "functional" in their search box you will see that the law requires schools to address not only academic, but also life-skills deficits. I wouldn't let them drop this, unless you are planning to really push this with private OT and you want him out of school OT for reasons of your own. They owe him the service, IMHO. Not being able to tie your shoes and do other functional tasks can be stigmatizing in middle school.
For the IQ testing, I think you need to know the district's and state's rules for identifying gifted kids in great detail to fight this one. Would they accept the Raven, or other alternative IQ testing, as identification for gifted placement? Is there reason to think if you had him tested privately he'd do differently? Where we live, the state sets the standard for IQ and achievement scores that identify a child as gifted and the district a slightly higher one for children who are "served"; there is no getting around those numbers. But your state and district may have different rules.
IQ test scores do tend to increase and become more coherent when you address LDs, so the 20 point increase looks very much in the right direction. I agree that it would be very frustrating to have to wait another few years until his dexterity catches up with his capacity otherwise. It does sound as though it will catch up.
We have found it useful to hire an educational advocate to help us wade through rules when we hit our own limit; sometimes we find the advocate can negotiate things for you with the school or the district that you can't on your own.
Good luck,
DeeDee
