We're moving to Chicago in Fall 2014 from a New York-area school where the cutoff is Dec 31 for kindergarten. So my son, born 9/2/2008, will complete kindergarten at our local gifted school (he tested in to the gifted program).

According to CPS, he cannot go directly into 1st grade because he only meets 3 of the 4 requirements for a transfer kid coming in with a fall birthday - he's missing the requirement that complete both pre-K and K at the same school. Therefore we can only apply to kindergarten in CPS. I spoke at length to someone in the CPS Selective office; he said that no principal would want to hold back a kid who's clearly ready to advance, but that we'd have to take up our case with the principal at the school our son gets in to.

Has anyone had experiences with applying to kindergarten (including gifted/classical as well as magnet) and then asking the principal to move him into 1st grade? He's a pretty bright kid and very well-adjusted, socially, and while I'm a bit nervous about him being the absolute youngest kid in the class, I'm far more concerned with him being bored and tuning out of school.

Thanks!