So it finally came down to decision time. Where would Joey go next year in KD? The fact that he is accelerated by one year (in school) - and by four years overall - limited our options to private schools for KD (see this post) because public school around here won't budge about cut-off dates. The fact that we wanted him homeschooled part-days limited our options even further. The Montessori school we were initially considering flatly said that they couldn't meet his needs and that they couldn't accelerate him into the next group (so he would essentially be back with his age peers). I still can't understand why, since the premise of this school is to individualize each child's experience as much as possible. Also, they wouldn't do part-days and wanted 'minimal' input regarding how the education of our son was going to go... so the verdict was definitely 'no'.
The mainstream Jewish school definitely wanted Joey there. He really aced the first screening, in part by drawing this picture to the left when the school director (that's right, they definitely gave him 'special attention'...) asked him to 'draw a triangle", and he ended up drawing this complicated contraption (there is a triangle in there) with belts and pulleys, pawl and ratchets, etc. She was amazed at his creativity and at what she called his spacial visual skills because when she presented him with letter flashcards upside down, he could put them back the right way. Parents of other kids like mine reading this will no doubt chuckle too. Unfortunately, she wouldn't budge on the part-day thing, and that was really too bad because in many respects this school would have been perfect for us. Or would it? The way she tried to convince us that Joey should go full time was by insisting that the other children would reject him because they would see him as 'different' due to his part-day attendance was a red flag. Pointing out that maybe they should be working on these kids instead of on Joey's attendance, and that regardless of whether Joey attended full- or part-time, he would always be 'different', seemed kind of pointless, although we tried. No deal either.
Then the solution (at least I hope it is) appeared out of nowhere. A friend of mine recommended I check out one of the very orthodox Jewish school nearby. And to their credit, they didn't even try to pretend they could accelerate Joey to the level needed to be challenged, and the part-day option was brought up immediately. So, lo and behold, Joey will be going to this school. It will be a challenge socially (we are definitely not orthodox), and it may create issues for Joey in the long run, but we are committed to giving it a try. As I mentioned before, the local program for the highly/exceptionally gifted does not accept children until the 1st grade (and whether they will accept Joey a year early is still unclear, if we apply for next year). To be continued.
What would we have done if the school above had not come through? Full-time homeschooling is definitely still an option, but I think I would have to hire a tutor to teach part of it, in place of our nanny, because being with Joey all day long can be a little intense. I am still intrigued at the idea of having all this extra-time to pursue a sport seriously, for instance (I believe Joey could do really well as a swimmer), since homeschooling a full-time program does not take all day.
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