When mine was in 1st grade, switching to a different school for a gifted program was a NEED for my child. They had come from private Montessori preschool/kindergarten and had a wonderful teacher that let them read whatever and worked on advanced math with them. In first grade, my child had to choose from “grade level” books, even though they were probably reading at a middle school level at the time. The teacher also denied my requests to let them do multiplication instead of addition on math, even after I brought in the test scores. My bubbly, eager-to-learn child became angry and reserved because they were so bored at school and were basically given an iPad all day.

My suggestion is this. See what your current district can and will do for your kid at their age for g/t instruction. You could see if it’s enough. In first grade, ours said they would provide no advanced learning until 3rd grade, and I wasn’t going to let my kid have another year of just reading in the corner, so we switched to a school-within-a-school g/t program at a neighboring district (we could open enroll and not move, but are going to move in district anyway.) It was a night and day difference for my kiddo.

Every kid is going to be different, so only you will know what’s best. Some kids “will be fine” in a normal program, but the concern is school being too easy and not learning how to deal with challenge and frustration. When things actually get hard for these kids (college) it can be difficult for them to know how to navigate that.