Craziness!

[Impish]

My school board is a wee bit insane.

 

They have the cut off for grade one extended into the end of February! This means, Tazzie, at the ripe old age of FIVE, is registered to start grade one in Sept.

 

Grade one. My five year old. Its enough to make me cry. *sniffle* Talk about growing up too soon!

 

And, to be honest, makes me sooooooo grateful I homeschool. I can't imagine him going to ps, starting grade one this year. I've no doubt that if he did, I'd be getting letters home about ADD/ADHD, and medication. He's way too active a boy to sit still for a day. Princess, being a girl, and simply a different kid all around might manage it, but not my superball of a boy!

[KnitWit]

Wow! I agree with you!

[novagirl]

OH my that is JUST CRAZY!!

[Pamela H in Texas]

How wonderful for all the children who really need to be in a higher grade, but it seems like it wouldn't make sense that the average 5yo would be.

 

The best situation seems to be where they consider where the kids need to be in the lower grades. Like where we were in Louisiana. They test ALL incoming preK, Kindy and 1st graders for placement. They do require Kindy, but allow skips. And with a little later cut off date, some kids could start school quite early or accelerate quite a bit. Of course, plenty of kids are held back a year or two this way also. I like that grade levels are less one age. I like, as a parent of two kids on each end of the academic spectrum, that kids can be place more appropriately.

[AHASRADA]

That is extremely surprising! When I was in school, the cutoff was January, but about 15 years ago, everyone seemed to start moving the cutoff to the 1st day of school or thereabouts. If your child misses the cutoff by a day or a week or whatever, they might make an exception through an interview and testing, but it is typically very difficult to get your kid to be "allowed" to start K if they miss the cutoff.

 

Since the cutoffs are usually meant to keep unprepared kids out, I cannot imagine that this cutoff date in your district would mean your child would be *required* to be placed in Grade 1, just that they couldn't deny you from placing him in Grade 1 if that is what you felt he was ready for, which seems like a fairer way to go about it.

 

It is a surprisingly late cutoff. I wonder how it came about?

[MorganClassicalPrep]

How wonderful for all the children who really need to be in a higher grade, but it seems like it wouldn't make sense that the average 5yo would be.

 

:iagree: In a perfect world, where parents would consider the academic level of their children rationally and then make educational decisions based on that, I think a late cutoff date is preferable to an early one. A later date could allow children who are advanced to be more to their level, and people could still decide (as they do even with an early cutoff date!) to hold their children back.

 

Instead, I believe that everyone will be pushing younger and younger children to achieve at levels they aren't ready for. Either more children will be lost in school, or the expectations of 1st grade (and all the grades following) will come down. There are many, many 5 year olds who can't read, and just aren't ready to read, but of course learning to read is a HUGE focus in 1st grade. I see a problem...

 

I'm glad this isn't the case in my area. With a Feb 1 cut off date, DD would be able to go up (January birthday), and I may not have considered homeschooling. The only reason I even looking into it was that she is already advanced and the school systems around here wouldn't even consider putting her in K instead of preschool.

[MariannNOVA]

My ds would have been able to handle it academically, but behaviorally (ADHD) :lol::lol::lol:, he would have been swinging from the light fixtures.

 

As it was, with medication and in second grade, his teacher would call a couple of times a month :glare: -- and this was a private, Christian school.

 

I see that there is alot to be said for maturity - the kind that can only come with age. As ds approaches the ripe old age of TEN (in October), I see huge leaps in his attention span, impulse control.....and alot of growth in those areas just in the past few weeks. :001_smile:

 

Moms know that all of this is a process. As a former classroom teacher, I know that with 20 plus or minus kids in a classroom, it is a process...each one of them is in a different place. I would tell parents all the time: 'It's a process.'

[Impish]

Imagine my shock when I thought he would have been registering for K this year, only to discover, nope, its grade 1!

 

I honestly wonder if its about driving the school enrollment up, and therefore the $ up. Here, you can choose the school your child enrolls in, not just the one in your area. I wonder if that plays a part as well.

 

It boggles my mind still, to be honest. He'll be 5 for 5.5 months of the school year. I wonder how much further it may go...Soon it may be that K starts at 4 (or 3 for those with 'later' birthdays)...

 

So glad we're home schooling.

[fivetails]

I think Alberta has always had a late cut off date, unless they made it earlier and have now changed it back? I went to elementary school in Cold Lake and started grade one at five years old... my birthday is near the end of Feb, so I was just barely in before the cut off and I was always the youngest in my class.

[tofuscramble]

My 4 year old would be starting K this fall and he would still be 4! He, like your son is also a ball of energy, there is just no way! And to top it off he has been reading since he was 2! Talk about square peg/round hole. I'm so glad for homeschooling!!

[Cindyg]

He'll be 5 for 5.5 months of the school year.

 

My brother was in this situation. Both he and my parents throught (and still think) it was an enormous mistake.