<p>MotherofTwo:</p>
<p>Aren't some teachers absolutely terrific? My S was lucky with his elementary school teachers and principal. They really did bend over backward for him and for the other advanced kids. He's also been lucky with some of his hs teachers, including some who slapped his wrist for turning in sloppy work but realized he needed to be more challenged and let him work on his own projects.
I think what was needed in our case was not so much "advocacy" as sustained discussions to figure out how to make acceleration work, especially given scheduling constraints. My S's GC was wonderful in this respect, trying out one schedule after another to make my S's selection of courses work. Sometimes, public schools are not equipped to deal with students who are "out of the box" and sometimes they can be quite rigid; I've heard the argument about running out of math courses. But private schools can be just as rigid. BTW, our public school makes available scholarships for students who want to take the college classes. However, it puts roadblocks in the way of students who want to take humanities classes, arguing that students are unlikely to run out of such courses in the hs.</p>