My son, now 13, was a trainwreck in the public preK in our town. The parapro working on her masters at the time pulled me aside around january of the school year and said "have you had him IQ tested? he finishes his worksheets in 5 minutes and it takes the others up to 20 and so he spends the remaining 15 minutes running around the room touching everything, including the other kids which they don't really appreciate." i had him privately IQ tested that same week and it was clear that a mainstream program was not a good fit for him.
After researching three alternative schools, we found a wonderful school, The Roeper School in Bloomfield Hills, MI, that is designed for, and built around, providing a comprehensive education for gifted kids. The public schools in Royal Oak, where we live, don't even test or provide options for any gifted kids until 8th grade. We had him go through Roeper's evaluation for admission and it became clear that he was an excellent fit and he's been attending there since kindergarten, he's now in 7th grade.
It's a private, tuition based school so we work very hard and make sacrifices to give him this education but I believe it's worth every penny. He's thriving, he's understood, he's given the tools he needs to make the most of this environment.
Giftedness goes beyond just a high IQ. It manifests in clusters of related aspects, some very positive and some that can be very challenging....perfectionism is one example. We found the book Parenting Gifted Kids by James Delisle, PhD very useful in understanding the whole of his experience, over and above the intellectual/academic side of it.
I'll say one thing about having your son IQ tested. The test doesn't just churn out a number, the subtests that go into that aggregate are super useful when it comes to understanding how he processes things and how he approaches problem solving. This is so very useful when it comes to understanding his learning style and his perception of his world. Examples:: is he a concrete thinker or an abstract thinker? Is his thinking linear or does he percieve things as a gestalt before he can sort things out. I have found it to be a wonderful tool in communicating with his teachers and helping them to understand if/when an approach is not working with my DS.
If they don't move him to the gifted program there are other gifted resources out there to challenge him and get him socializing with some peers. Start by googling mensa for kids. I know there's a lot if information here but we've had a long and adventurous road with him so far and look forward to our next chapters.
It saddens me that we live in an area that has seemingling endless resources for the children on the left side of the bell curve but, if the kids are on the right side of that curve, private tuition based school is really the only functional option. By no means do I believe resources are poorly spent on helping those with learing disabilities or autism and the like. I just find it frustrating that the same isn't true for their counterparts. I guess the bottom line is that we made him and now we get to take care of him.
I applaude you for advocating for him and for taking him seriously in his effort to advocate for himself. That shows real maturity and courage and not all kids, especially in the 3rd grade, can do that.
Best of all to you and yours, I hope you found this helpful. :-) S.