Will Pre-Ap classes be too much?

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My son is 11 and entering middle school next year. He is pretty unorganized with his desk and school work. His daily grades are all over the place. It really depends how close attention he is paying as often he doesn't follow the instructions. His report cards are A's and B's, with an occasional C this year. His scores on the state test last year were pretty good. He got advanced in the Language Arts section and halfway between passing and advanced in the Math section. Considering we have to stand over him and force him to do math on paper and not in his head, I was pretty happy and am fairly certain he made some small mental math errors or would have scored higher.

My husband and I think he can do Pre-AP Math and Pre-AP LA next year. He is on board with Pre-Ap LA, but not the Math. He thinks he isn't any good at math. However, he keeps saying he wants to study chemistry, so we keep telling him he has to know the math. Plus, I have heard through the mommy grapevine (so I don't know if it is true) that the kids that don't care and cause problems mostly take the standard math in our middle school. I don't want his peers to be the kids that will most likely pick on him.

FYI - We haven't had his IEP for next year yet, but all 6th graders have to take a Study Hall/Technology course that alternate days, so I hope that will help him keep up. Plus, I have talked to one of his friend's moms whose daughter has ADHD and is in the 6th grade this year. This girl had more trouble in elementary school than my son. They gave her all types of accommodations in 6th grade like periodic locker checks to organize and make sure there was no missing schoolwork, and each teacher had to write down her homework in her organizer. This middle school also has everything online, so I can check and see if assignments are missing. They also keep the 6th grade classes in one hall, to ease the kids into middle school. I am hoping these supports will help him next year and he will adjust without too many problems.

He also plans to take band and play the french horn. He already plays piano, so I think it shouldn't give him too much trouble since he can already read music.

For those of you that have older kids or have AS, do you think the adjustment to middle school and Pre-AP classes will be too much stress?

In our district, we have intermediate school in 5th and 6th grade then middle school. All the kids in GT automatically go into preAP classes in intermediate, then choose which ones in middle school. 5th grade and all the changing classes, new school, loss of support, high writing demand, lockers, no recess, no friends led to severe meltdowns lasting most of the day every day. In spite of this, he was still making a's and b's mostly. The evaluation done by the school said he was spending 60 - 80% of the day off task, mostly crying, complaining, or hiding. At that time we were still trying to figure out what was going on. He changed schools, was placed in a self-contained classroom, and continued doing AP work. I think it was the one thing he liked.

I guess I would have loved the support you are talking about. For my son it was the executive skills not the complexity/depth of AP that made it difficult. I believe that regular classes would have just bored him and made it worse.

As for next year, in 7th grade, he chose preAP math and science. He is not doing the preAP social studies and English because of the writing demands. I too worry about letting him meet the challenges vs overwhelming him. I don't want to underestimate his capabilities, but rather provide the scaffolds he needs to succeed. At the same time, I don't want to over stress him and cause the meltdowns to return.