We have an answer, 2nd grade it is.....

We'll this whole summer we have not known which grade Austin was going to be placed in. Going back to Last November we started talking to his school about putting him directly into 1st grade when we moved and they couldn't because they didn't have enough information that supported the move. They were suppose to be monitoring him to re-evaluate him for skipping 1st grade and going right to 2nd grade, and it turns out they weren't. At the end of the year his teacher agreed with us recommended he skip a grade which apparently caught the Principal by surprise. She normally tests and monitors for a couple months to gather the backup data to support the move so we were in a pickle. Long story short we ended up scheduling a meeting with her today at 3:30 to discuss it and meet with the TAG (talented and gifted) teacher. We'll the TAG teacher met us and the principal was in a district meeting so she wasn't available. We went to a conference room and talked for a while and she explained how they look at many factors other than academics, which we were aware of. Then she flipped over a three page test to see how strong he was in mathematics. The test had questions that ranged from 1st grade through the end of 2nd grade level. He systematically picked off the questions and out of all three pages he wasn't able to answer just a few. An example of a question was 80-43 and he got it right. Another was a crap load of little blocks stacked, and he had to count the vertical and horizontal quantities and multiply. He got it right, it was 213. Very cool. Remember that he just finished kindergarten. He was doing the problems in his head and the TAG teacher was very impressed with that. Before we left she said she supports Austin skipping a grade and going right to 2nd grade. She talked it over with the principal and the school called us around dinner time to tell us that the Principal approved him going right to 2nd grade.

I'm very proud of my little dude and am looking forward to this year of school.

Go Austin.....