I think there are plenty of DYS kids doing high school level work before middle school age, so I'm also confused at standards that no longer include options for younger than 6th grade. Maybe this is about the residential option which is likely to be more attractive to older students (or at least the parents of older students).
I'm impressed by the Explore test and lots of data on it from 1000s of kids taking it over the years, but the cuts are high and would involve time pressure. If you have to get just about every single question right, you'd have to finish the test.
For Zia's mom, please report back if you get any info from the DA.
