I’d talk to the HS Spanish teacher and get his/her recommendation.
At my sons’ HS, the Latin teacher had to institute a placement test because he was getting so many kids from a certain private school that wanted to come in at Latin II but couldn’t keep up with the rest of the kids who came from the local publics. I’d tell the teacher about your concerns and see whether there’s been a pattern coming from your son’s middle school.
No matter what level, he will be taking the Placement test before he registers for the first semester at college. The other point, many kids do not like to be bored in any class, they like it or not. My D. was frustrated with the classes that are too easy. They still have to do homework without much benefit of it. D. felt that she is wasting her time and not learning anything new. So, it all depends on kid.
We have kids at our school that have gone both ways with language, either taking the 1st year again in the HS, repeating year 2 or moving on to year 3. It really depends on the child. I will say, for mine (French but same scenario) he took 1 & 2 at the MS but the grades are not something we want to carry over and so they will not show on his transcript. He will take 3 & 4 (is in 3 right now in 9th grade) at the HS. We debated taking year 4 but felt having 2 years showing in HS (and the GC agreed/suggested the same) for the types of schools he is targeting was the right choice.
To me it really depends what the end goal is. DS17 will only take 3 years total. 2 needed for graduation and the 3rd as many schools prefer 3. However he took all 3 in the HS. Had he done MS I felt there was a strong chance of the exact scenario you are in.
Ask your child, the spanish teacher and their counselor.
Probably most of the time for high school foreign language, it is the highest level completed that matters more than the number of years, but check to see if the high school (for its graduation requirements) or colleges that may be applied to (for admission) want to see a specified number of years, regardless of level completed (may have to ask directly if the web site is not informative).
College foreign language placement tests for a specific college are not likely required unless the student intends to continue with that language in college. They are for placing students in the appropriate level at the college. The only potential benefit is getting retroactive credits which are not needed as most students will take enough other credits to graduate in the same number of semesters. Most students will have met the foreign language requirement or start a new one so no reason to take the test. btw- better to use the time as a freshman for other courses instead of to attempt to get retroactive language credits for most students.
btw- Math and English (Language Arts) placements are given to place students who may need courses beyond HS to meet a college’s requirements for minimum proficiency in those areas. Proficiency in any foreign language has never been a general undergrad college graduation requirement as far as I have ever heard.
Definitely discuss this with your son’s current Spanish teacher. S/he may tell you it is best for your son to restart the language or that he was able to catch up after his previous lousy experience. Do consider entrance requirements and competitive student years of foreign language for colleges. Your son may blossom in HS and be a better student in a year or two. Getting done with 3 or 4 years of Spanish sooner could open up his schedule later for classes he may want but otherwise be unable to take.
I don’t think our HS allows kids to take Spanish 1 in HS after taking it in middle school unless they failed 8th grade Spanish (or maybe got a D). I would also ask your son. He may not want to start all over again if all his friends will be in Spanish 2. If your HS and your son are OK with it, I agree with those who suggest talking to his current teacher and maybe a Spanish teacher at the HS.
I know kids who switched to Italian in HS after taking Spanish in middle school, thinking it was easier. Not sure if it was or not.
I’d let him take Spanish 2. I’m currently taking intermediate Spanish 2001 (as a returning adult learner). On my transcript over the last 25 years I’ve had beginning spanish 1, 2, and 3. The last time I took a Spanish class was the mid 1990’s, right before older daughter was born. I’m doing ok in this class now (B’s).
My point to this story is if your son has already had two years of spanish recently, he should be fine in spanish 2. It’s not hard at all, just really boring and lots of grammar conjugation (just shoot me) and vocabulary flash cards (oh the humanity).
I also looked at the book before I signed up to see if I could keep up with the content. Despite the book being entirely in Spanish (because it’s Intermediate Spanish), I was able to figure it out. I’m assuming his book will have directions in English because it’s beginning Span 2, but it can’t hurt to take a look at it.
@MotherOfDragons, good for you for pursuing a language! You remind me that getting my French back into some kind of shape is a goal I have wanted to pursue. But I would point out that your perspective is that of a person who voluntarily chose to do so. It sounds like the OP’s kid would rather not take it at all.
My kid was a Romance language maven who took French 2 at the HS in 8th grade, and started Spanish in 9th grade with Spanish 2, skipping Spanish 1 entirely, except for doing some independent study in August.
With all due respect, I don’t think your experience with this is any more relevant to the OP’s kid than my kid’s is. 
^^Thanks @Consolation , but I"m not really voluntarily choosing it, it’s the one piece of my core curriculum for my major (studio art) that I haven’t satisfied yet.
I loathe the class and I especially loathe that it’s entirely online and consists of nothing but worksheet after worksheet of irregular verb conjugation.
But my point was that if the kid has already had two years of it recently, it shouldn’t be difficult for him (along the lines of if I can do this with huge gaps of repetition for the language, he should be fine).
OP is this your oldest child? How familiar are you with the school system?
We live in a very competitive school district. It is common for parents to drop their children down a level to earn an easy A in languages. They also do it in math and science. Advanced biology is taught in 8th grade. Most students then take AP bio in high school but some will take honors bio for the easy A.
This seems to be more common in families that have already been through the college admissions process so they must see it as an advantage. Of course if you don’t have advanced courses offered in middle school then this isn’t an option as the student may fall short of requirements.
Ah, I see. Your class does sound dreadful. Reminds me of Classical Greek and Hebrew.
Certainly, at our HS Spanish 1 apparently moves v e r y slowly, which is why the head of the language dept recommended that S consider starting in Spanish 2 instead. (It is also considered easier to go from French to Spanish that the other way round.)
I had one week of 1-on-1 Spanish instruction in Guatemala about 10 years ago, and I was able to pick up an amazing amount, so that I could understand a lot of what people said and could hold a fairly simple conversation. But there were other students in our program who had already studied the language who just could not converse at all.
I guess it’s just one of those things, like being unable to carry a tune.
Online instruction in foreign language sucks all the fun and interest out. College intermediate Spanish is supposed to include content meant for native speakers, including excerpts from films, poetry, novels, plus all kinds of interesting cultural facts about the way people live and think.
Italian is much easier than Spanish (fewer conjugations, no spelling problems). French is also easier than Spanish (fewer conjugations and tenses) however it’s harder for spelling and pronunciation than either Italian or Spanish. Since in my opinion conjugation is the worst part of learning a language, Italian and French would be my pick.
The downside to switching languages if they child is going to do year 2, then they will need to do at least 2 of the new language where in some cases they could stop (if they chose) after year 2 on the original one. That can become more of a scheduling question than anything. If the student takes year 2 in 9th and year 3 in 10th, then the language slot opens up for other classes in 11th. If the student wants 3 years of language for the more competitive schools, and switches language, in theory they only open up a “slot” in 12th grade.
I would weigh all and also see what it was my student really wanted. At the end of the day, I let them make the call.
You’re right @MaterS. I had a daughter go through this high school already, starting with French 2 in 9th grade. I’m sure I would not even be considering putting my son in Spanish 1 again, if it hadn’t been for her experience: French 2,3&4 dragged down her GPA. Guilty.
High schools sometimes abruptly stop teaching a foreign language for budget reasons or because enrollment has dropped too low. This happened in my son’s high school with German, and it has happened with French at other schools. I think there would be a similar risk with Italian, which relatively few kids study.
The one language they will never drop from the high school curriculum is Spanish. I think this is a strong argument for choosing Spanish over other languages.
Also, Spanish is the one language that’s taught everywhere in the United States. If a kid takes Italian and then the family moves to another community, the kid might not be able to continue to study Italian because the new high school doesn’t offer it.
I agree with this but if looking for a relatively easy language that’s not Spanish… the answer can’t be Spanish.
(ie., if OP’s son/OP wishes to find a way around the dislike Spanish/Spanish2 conundrum by picking another language that shouldn’t be harder than Spanish)
For my younger son, I don’t think taking Latin 1 over again would have improved his GPA except possibly the freshman year grade. Older son had no issues. My younger son started Arabic from scratch in college. He took a summer course before starting which helped not at all! He got a C the first year, went to Jordan for the summer, got a B the first semester of second year, but then slipped again. Then he spent a whole year in Jordan and got A’s after that. He’s convince that for him to learn a language he needs to be immersed for a good length of time. I had a very similar experience, but I did discover that second languages come a lot easier than the first one.
As for the OP, I think the teachers, both at the high school and the middle school will probably have the best advice. And I’d ask the kid too.
The advantage of going into Spanish 2 is obviously that even if the grades aren’t great, you can get it over with sooner and take courses you prefer.
I’ve studied a bit of French, Italian and Spanish. I agree Italian is the easiest because of the spelling, but otherwise I’d say they were all pretty similar in difficulty. German is noticably more complicated, but I liked it. Chinese I could not deal with because I can’t hear the tones.
Well then Chinese would be a breeze with fewer verb tenses. 
Seriously though, Italian has its own issues. More complicated possessive pronoun rules is one example. Compound tenses with avere/essere (similar to avoir/être in French) is another. Compared to that, ser/estar, por/para is heaven. However, I seriously doubt that if a student is struggling with Spanish that French or Italian would be any better. Aside from the greater opportunities to use Spanish in the US, as mentioned above, there is the risk that any less commonly taught language could be discontinued at a moment’s notice.
However, that is really off topic as there is no indication the OP’s son is struggling with Spanish or is considering a switch, only that he had a crappy teacher, which we’ve all had at one point.
Typically, if a district drops a language they do it in stages. They would stop offering Italian 1 and then Italian 2 etc while allowing those already enrolled to finish out the sequence (at least through the third year).
However, if there is only one teacher for a given language, and that teacher retires or otherwise becomes unavailable, then all levels of the language could be ceased at once.