> Your anecdote doesn't apply here so it isn't a counterpoint.
Sure it does. When I was 16, despite knowing what I wanted to do, I succumbed to pressure from my parents and other family to 'try different things', which held me back.
> She won't be attending High School as her parents have withdrawn her.
Read, don't skim. She will attend classes to focus on development, while completing high school requirements online.
> Mostly with people much older than her.
So? My brother went to trade school and learned how to fix cars with people much older. My sister went to trade school and learned to be a hair stylist with people much older.
Like it or not, with industry looking to automate away the vast majority of blue collar work, software development skills will become a basic skill requirement and blue collar workers will be implementing the rules that automation follows, while white collar software development jobs will be the work creating the automation systems. (This is a massive simplification of some of the changes, but hey, I have a day job so I can't spend all day commenting :D)
Bottom line, the student will get a high school diploma, a marketable skill set, and a chance to be an early adopter of the disruptive changes to primary and secondary education that have been coming over the last generation.