young-for-their-grade boys, does it ever work?

[musicianmom]

I'm looking ahead. In 2014, ds will barely make the K cutoff in our state (8 days). As of right now, he's big for his age, extremely verbal, and will definitely be ready academically to handle a gentle K year when he's 5. I really don't want to hold him back because I don't want a grown man someday who's still in high school. But then I don't want him to be at a disadvantage all the way through either.

 

So, is there anyone out there with a son who has done well despite being on the young side for his grade? We're talking August b-day here.

[PeterPan]

We had a September due date (he went over and hit October, oh the torture), so this was an issue we thought about. I've got him doing K4/K5 work this year at 4. I think it's much easier to teach him where he's at, label conservatively, and correct it in junior high by bumping him a grade if it seems like that would be for the best.

[mom2att]

My boys both have August birthdays in a Sept. 1 cut-off state. For one I delayed his start in K, the other I did not. They are 3 years apart in age but 2 years apart in school. Both are doing fine because that's right where they should be.

 

If he's ready, start. You can always adjust later.

[Joani]

Do you plan to homeschool?

 

Both of my boys (now 8 and 14) have August birthdays - the 18th and the 28th. My oldest was in public school through 5th grade and never had an issue being the youngest. Now, he's handling a full 9th grade course load at home and competing on two public school sports teams. He's always been tiny, but so has my daughter who has a January birthday, so I don't think that's a big deal. I just can't imagine him still being in middle school this year. My younger son has done just as well so far.

[Arcadia]

My older entered B&M public school at 4yrs 8 months and did well. He was reading and finished K math before school started. Now he is in 3rd grade at 8 yrs old and still doing ok. He is big for size and was among the tallest in class for K.

 

ETA:

Both boys are not into sports so that was less one consideration.

[Farrar]

Mine met the cut off by three days. I went ahead and registered, in part because the law here is vague about mandatory schooling and I didn't want to try and clarify things and in part because we basically did kindy that year so why wouldn't I? Now, they do like kind of mediocre as third graders and stellar as second graders... But it so doesn't matter. If you're not planning to homeschool, though, I would give it serious consideration. If you are, I would just put him in whatever grade he is in by law and teach to his level.

[weederberries]

My son taught himself to read at age 3 and demanded to be included in school at age 4. I finally relented and now my 6 year old (December birthday) is in second grade. His behavior improved immediately when given the responsibility of school work, too. He speaks easily with other children, gets along in play situations, and relates to and speaks well with adults too. I'd say it has "worked" for him. On the other hand, I have a 6 year old in 2nd grade. We have no plans to, but I couldn't enroll him in a school if we had to because of the disparity in age and abilities. He'd either be the baby in 2nd grade or bored and impossible to control in Kindergarten. It'll all level out eventually, but until it does we're committed to a completely individualized education for him.

 

Ask yourself whether your son is eager to begin school, if you feel like you're holding him back by denying it, and whether it is possible for you. What are your future plans for homeschooling? There's absolutely nothing wrong with meeting the specific needs of your child. Remember, it all levels out eventually.

[chepyl]

Mine has a late Sept birthday, bit was doing first grade work when the PS said he wpuld start preschool. So we homeschool. He does fine in all social situations where he is with other second graders. He is more mature than a lot of older second graders. It worked for him, but that is his personality. It does not work for everyone.

[Marie131]

If you're not planning to homeschool, though, I would give it serious consideration. If you are, I would just put him in whatever grade he is in by law and teach to his level.

 

This. I would have held back my October birthday K-er this year if he were going to school, but since were hs-ing I'm teaching to his level and are having a pretty gentle year.

[serendipitous journey]

If he is big & verbal, my take on the literature about this is it is better to put the child into Kindergarten for the earlier year. He will tend to stretch himself to catch up with his peers; and at the tail-end of schooling, if you are concerned about a young age for college, plan a gap year.

 

Button is young-for-grade and we had no plans to hold him back if he had gone to Brick & Mortar school.

 

That said, there are some who feel strongly that a particular child should be delayed. I would just be careful about a decision to hold the child back a year, because red-shirting like this has become very common in the culture and yet it is not clear that it helps the child -- the only study I've seen suggested that the child's performance is, on average, better if they are not held back a year as a preventative measure. Again, that is an average and not your child; but just a thought.

[jujsky]

My son is also an August birthday. We've kept him mostly at grade-level, but it has been a struggle. I decided this year to hold him back in math. If I could do it over again, I would have held him back a year. His fine motor skills have always been on the weak side. Another year would have benefited him.

 

That being said, all kids are different. Just because my son probably wasn't ready doesn't mean that your son isn't ready.

[Element]

I still don't really know what to call ds, as far as grade levels go! He was due in Oct., came in Aug., HG (advanced in some areas,) almost as tall as me at 9 years old, and socially immature. Technically he (by 11 days) made the cutoff to be in 4th, but socially and due date-wise he should be in 3rd, while he does some 5th grade work and is at least as tall as a 5th grader. Good thing we homeschool!

[kiana]

If you're in a mandatory testing state, you may consider recording him in the "redshirted" grade, and bumping him up towards Jr. High if he's still doing very well. It is generally easier to bump up than hold back.

 

This does NOT mean that you need to not teach him this year! There is nothing preventing you from doing K curriculum with a boy who's labeled as PK, or 3 curriculum with a boy who's labeled as 2.

[Mandy in TN]

If you are homeshooling, don't over think the issue right now. :-) If he will be working at least at K level, go ahead and register him as a k'er. At the end of the year, if he isn't able to keep up, register him as a k'er again.

 

If he keeps moving forward, revisit the issue when he hits jr high. Is he on track to be taking AP or other advanced classes during his junior year? If not, if he waits a year, will he be ready? Early enrollment for competitive colleges will be in the fall of his senior year, so the last completed coursework they will see is from his junior year. Will a year mean the difference between acceptance or even scholarship money from his reach schools or will it not? At this time he may choose to repeat seventh or eighth grade.

 

HTH-

Mandy

[Dana]

Our state has an age cutoff of Sept 1. My son was born August 29.

Redshirting wasn't even on my radar when he started school (neither was homeschooling).

I did know that full day kindergarten wouldn't be right, so we made an effort to keep him in the private half-day kindergarten where he'd attended 4 yo preschool.

 

He's very bright. If he were in public school he might want to be skipped a grade or two for academics.... but he's also very small for his age - under 10% on the growth charts. We're fairly certain he'll homeschool through high school.

 

We're also talking (ad nauseum on my part) about having him repeat 5th grade this year (record it as another 5th grade, but let it be a basically unschooling year). He's got severe food allergies that it doesn't look like he'll outgrow, and so that makes me want him to have another year before being on his own in a dorm situation. Many people in our state do high school coursework (that appears on transcripts) as early as 7th grade. I would prefer high school to be just 4 years and don't want to have a break in the transcript then. I don't really see a gap year because I don't have any ideas of what he'd do during that time.

 

I really wish I'd have waited a year to start K. None of my options make me really happy, but I'm still leaning towards repeating 5th this year and making the correction now. If he really wants later on, we'll let him skip ahead or graduate early.

 

OP... you can also tag this thread "grade level" and there have been a LOT of other threads with that tag. Some of those conversations may help you.

From what I've read on this board, it's kind of mixed, but yes, for some, young-for-their grade boys absolutely works. I keep telling myself our decision will be the right one because it's what we're choosing with the best information we have at the time and the best intentions, but it's tough.

[FairProspects]

I've heard too many horror stories from high school parents about kids age-wise not making the cutoff for such and such a program and trying to red-shirt or change the decision later, so no, I do not think it works out well in most cases. Society as a whole is just working against early entrance boys, whether on sports teams, summer camps, or research opportunities. I think it is mostly a fight upstream, and not one I'm sure I'm willing to fight over and over again throughout an entire academic career.

 

When I did extensive research on it, I personally decided to go by the earliest cutoff state since many academic summer programs used that cutoff and I wanted ds to be eligible for the most amount of opportunities possible on the later end when grade level matters the most. I found that July 1 was a common cutoff for programs that included both age and grade, so we decided to keep ds at red-shirted grade level because he could not meet that cutoff by age. Prior to a July 1 birthday, it would have been a different consideration.

[Mélie]

I've heard too many horror stories from high school parents about kids age-wise not making the cutoff for such and such a program and trying to red-shirt or change the decision later, so no, I do not think it works out well in most cases. Society as a whole is just working against early entrance boys, whether on sports teams, summer camps, or research opportunities. I think it is mostly a fight upstream, and not one I'm sure I'm willing to fight over and over again throughout an entire academic career.

 

When I did extensive research on it, I personally decided to go by the earliest cutoff state since many academic summer programs used that cutoff and I wanted ds to be eligible for the most amount of opportunities possible on the later end when grade level matters the most. I found that July 1 was a common cutoff for programs that included both age and grade, so we decided to keep ds at red-shirted grade level because he could not meet that cutoff by age. Prior to a July 1 birthday, it would have been a different consideration.

Can you elaborate a little on what type of program you're talking about? Just about everything I look at has restrictions either by grade or age, but not both. I'm curious because one of my boys is at the very young end of his grade and the other is technically one grade "ahead" of where he should be. Competitive sports aren't an issue here, because they're not connected to the schools.

[FairProspects]

There was a thread a few months back about a Mom of a 15 year old who was applying for a competitive university research program that required the student to be BOTH a junior in high school and 16 by July 1. The Mom was red-shirting her son during his sophomore year to make him eligible for the program in which he really wanted to participate because even though he would have turned 16 in August and technically made the state cutoff, he did not meet the age requirement for the program. When I looked into it further, I found that was common for many academic summer programs to have a July 1 age requirement. Some of these programs only had an age requirement, but some at the high school level included age and grade level.

 

It's crazy, I know, but these are the things that keep me up at night.

[MyLittleWonders]

Ds9 barely made our December cut-off. If we were sending him to PS, we would have redshirted him as he was/is physically smaller than many of his peers and at the time emotionally young for all day K. But academically, he was already half way through K level work, so giving that we were hs'ing, we just kept doing what we were doing and added him to our affidavit when he was a very young first grader the next year. If we had mandatory testing, we might have thought twice, more from emotional readiness than academic readiness. (I was also concerned about not reporting him at the age of six on our affidavit without reporting him as a Ker, since K isn't mandatory here and our state HS organizations counsel against reporting K.)

[Mélie]

There was a thread a few months back about a Mom of a 15 year old who was applying for a competitive university research program that required the student to be BOTH a junior in high school and 16 by July 1. The Mom was red-shirting her son during his sophomore year to make him eligible for the program in which he really wanted to participate because even though he would have turned 16 in August and technically made the state cutoff, he did not meet the age requirement for the program. When I looked into it further, I found that was common for many academic summer programs to have a July 1 age requirement. Some of these programs only had an age requirement, but some at the high school level included age and grade level.

 

It's crazy, I know, but these are the things that keep me up at night.

Wow, that'll definitely be something to keep in mind if we're ever looking into American programs.

[NASDAQ]

Our province has a December 31 cut off. My husband is September 11th and survived intact.

[chepyl]

As far as changing the grade level later, it depends on your state. We are in a non-reporting state, I can change his grade whenever I want. If I was in reporting and testing state, I might label DS differently.

[snowbeltmom]

There was a thread a few months back about a Mom of a 15 year old who was applying for a competitive university research program that required the student to be BOTH a junior in high school and 16 by July 1. The Mom was red-shirting her son during his sophomore year to make him eligible for the program in which he really wanted to participate because even though he would have turned 16 in August and technically made the state cutoff, he did not meet the age requirement for the program. When I looked into it further, I found that was common for many academic summer programs to have a July 1 age requirement. Some of these programs only had an age requirement, but some at the high school level included age and grade level.

 

It's crazy, I know, but these are the things that keep me up at night.

 

I was the mom who adjusted her son's grade level in high school. Technically, I guess I didn't "red-shirt" him since our public school has an August 1st cut-off which he missed by three weeks. It has turned out to be a great decision. Here is my response from the other thread in case someone may find it useful:

 

The cut-offs vary quite a bit in my area. The range is from the end of March to the end of September. Both of my boys have late summer birthdays, but missed the cut-off at the private school they attended and our public school district.

 

The school moved my oldest up to the next grade level and we maintained that grade level on paper when we began homeschooling. If I had to do it over again, I would have moved him back with his age peers on paper when we began homeschooling. Here are the issues that we faced. Some of them may not seem important as adults, but they were important to my son. The other issue I considered important enough that we decided to "red-shirt" my son in the middle of the school year as a high schooler:

 

1. He was never on the same sports team as kids his own age. Kids in our area with summer birthdays are 6 when they begin K. The community sports leagues determine the teams based on grade level not age. My son was always the youngest on the team. In some cases, kids were up to 16 months older.

 

2. My son enjoyed competing in Mathcounts. Athough age-wise he could have competed another year, grade wise he was not eligible to compete.

 

3. In addition to sports, my son encountered an academic situation last year. He wanted to apply for the opportunity to conduct research the last two years of high school. He had a very strong resume, and I am confident that he would have been selected for this program. In order to apply to the program the student had to meet the following criteria:

He had to be a rising junior and he needed to be 16 years old by the end of June. Because my son was not old enough, he was not eligible to apply. This opportunity is important to my son. Since we are homeschooling, and never had to officially report a grade level, we moved him back a grade level on paper so he can apply to the program at the end of this school year. He will now graduate at 18. We are all very happy with this decision.

[Ellie]

For homeschoolers? Of course. Homeschoolers are never young for their grade, not even if their parents put the appropriate grade-level label on them. Many of the boys in my umbrella school had late fall bdays, but they were not "young for their grade." They did just fine, including graduating at 17 and not having 18th bdays until the fall. I had never known of *homeschoolers* who thought that their dc were "young for their grades" until I started posting here. It was never a topic of conversation when I was homeschooling.

 

For campus-schoolers? Yes, even then. Mr. Ellie's bday is September 7; he grew up in California, where the cut-off date at that time was December 2. He did well in school, TYVM. :-)

 

Some people seem to think that even summer bdays make dc, girls as well as boys, "young for their grades," Mine is July 18. I'm so happy that no one thought that a summer bday made me "young" for my grade. I graduated in June, was 18 in July. I never had any problems in school.

[JudoMom]

My oldest 3 have late July, late June, and mid September birthdays. They are all doing just fine.

[MtnMama]

The PS cutoff here is August 31, and it seems like most boys with summer birthdays are held back. A friend whose son was due on August 30 was asked several times whether she planned to redshirt-while she was pregnant! After she got over her shock, she just started telling people that she wanted to meet him before deciding :).

 

My son has a July birthday, and I went against local custom (what can I say, I'm a rebel) and had him start K when he had just turned 5. He was the tallest kid in his K class, and was extremely verbal, though he wasn't really reading yet. He's in 1st grade now and is in the top tier of readers in his class. I think he's a little socially immature compared to some of his classmates, but many of the boys in his class were redshirted, so they are quite a bit older than him. I don't think it's such a big deal though. So far, I don't regret sending him on time.

[Amy in NH]

If you're planning to homeschool him, work at his level and tell people he is in whatever grade he would be in public school.

[snowbeltmom]

Some people seem to think that even summer bdays make dc, girls as well as boys, "young for their grades," Mine is July 18. I'm so happy that no one thought that a summer bday made me "young" for my grade. I graduated in June, was 18 in July. I never had any problems in school.

It is not always as simple as being able to succeed in school. My oldest was always successful both socially and academically in the traditional school setting even though he was more than a year younger than some of the other kids.

 

The outside of school activities, which were equally important to my son, were what caused the problems. Homeschooling permits us all to meet the needs of our kids academically and grade levels are really meaningless. We may have "held our son back" on paper, but we certainly did not hold him back academically. That is the advantage of homeschooling.

[wapiti]

If he is big & verbal, my take on the literature about this is it is better to put the child into Kindergarten for the earlier year. He will tend to stretch himself to catch up with his peers; and at the tail-end of schooling, if you are concerned about a young age for college, plan a gap year.

 

:iagree:

 

Some random articles, though it might be worth googling for more recent ones:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/blogs/nurture-shock/2009/09/03/should-children-redshirt-kindergarten.html

http://www.wcer.wisc.edu/news/coverstories/pros_cons_holding_out.php

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/family/2008/08/the_downside_of_redshirting.html

http://www.kidsource.com/education/red.shirting.html

[Crimson Wife]

Start him in K if he's ready, and be prepared to do a "transition" year if at any point it becomes necessary. Many B&M schools in my area have special "transition" classes between K & 1, 5 & 6, and/or 8 & 9. It's not exactly repeating a grade but I get the impression that they work on the skills that are most necessary for the next grade up (reading & writing for the young 'uns, organizational for the older kids).

 

My DS has a November birthday (cutoff at the time was Dec. 2nd) and he was reading so I did start him in K at not-quite-5. He wasn't ready to move on to 1st at not-quite-6 so he did a "transition" year.

[EKS]

If you're homeschooling, meet him where he is. If or when you decide to put him in school later, it will be more clear what grade he should be in.

[acablue]

When I was growing up, the age cut-off was December 31st, and I was born on December 21st. My twin sister and I both started school at 4 and when we graduated at 17, I was named the athlete of the year and she was valedictorian. My two older siblings both skipped grades and my brother hated being 6+ months younger than everyone else, but I never had any issues being among the youngest.

 

The cut-off here is October 1st, and my oldest has a late August birthday. Right now, there are more perks to being in 2nd than 1st grade, and academically he's closer to 3rd, so we're happy with where he is and will re-evaluate in middle school.

[Ellie]

I'm looking ahead. In 2014, ds will barely make the K cutoff in our state (8 days). As of right now, he's big for his age, extremely verbal, and will definitely be ready academically to handle a gentle K year when he's 5. I really don't want to hold him back because I don't want a grown man someday who's still in high school. But then I don't want him to be at a disadvantage all the way through either.

 

So, is there anyone out there with a son who has done well despite being on the young side for his grade? We're talking August b-day here.

 

 

*I* would not hold back a homeschooled child, either on paper or in real-life activities, because of an August bday.

[LMD]

All of my children will miss the cut-off here, by a significant enough amount (between 12 and 16 weeks). I started both my daughter and my son a year 'earlier' than the schools would have accepted them, because they were more than ready. I was a year ahead all through my schooling, always the youngest in my grade, no problems what-so-ever. Cut off is April here (school starts Jan/Feb) and my son is an August b'day.

 

Having said that, we never considered a b&m school for our children, so I don't know, but I may have decided to hold my children back a year, due to confidence for my daughter, maturity for my son. Actually, scratch that, I wouldn't have had a choice to start them any earlier even if I'd wanted to.

[Laura Corin]

Calvin is young for his grade. With a December birthday, he could have been in his current year (where he will leave school at 17 1/2) or in the next year (18 1/2). Scotland has flexibility about this. It's absolutely the right placement for him: he's very bright and mature. I think he would have been very frustrated in the lower year.

 

FWIW, sport for boys is not such a big deal in most British schools as Husband tells me it is in US schools. Everyone has to do PE, but there is no social stigma attached to being useless at sport.

 

You mentioned being a grown man in high school. All of Calvin's friends look like men to me and they still have over a year to go.

 

Laura

[snowbeltmom]

*I* would not hold back a homeschooled child, either on paper or in real-life activities, because of an August bday.

 

 

However, you may not have the final say with regards to the "real-life activities."

 

In my son's situation, either we "held him back on paper" or he would would have missed out on a significant "real-life" two-year opportunity simply because he did not meet the age cut-off/grade level established by the outside institution.

[Ellie]

However, you may not have the final say with regards to the "real-life activities."

 

In my son's situation, either we "held him back on paper" or he would would have missed out on a significant "real-life" two-year opportunity simply because he did not meet the age cut-off/grade level established by the outside institution.

 

Would that be fair to the folks who followed the requirements regarding date of birth? Shouldn't an outside institution have the right to establish such rules?

[kiwik]

It seems to be a very American thing - red shirting. Here kids can start anywhere (and anytime) between 5 and 6 but we were told that if we didn't start them until 6 they would be placed with their age mates and helped to catch up. I guess though if I had delayed just a couple of months he would have effectively been delayed a year as kids who start after a certain date do a " year 0" whereas before that date they start in year 1. Since he probably needs year 3 maths I can't see any advantage in that.

[dbmamaz]

i sent my son to school for kindergarten despite meeting the cut-off by only 3 weeks. He was not interested in reading but was very advanced in math, and it seemed silly to keep him at home another year. he had a terrible year - because of behavior. He is a very immature class-clown sort of kid. he was seriously traumatized. I admit that much of the school i did with him the first 2 years was very light, except for math of course. He has been consistently a year or two or more above grade level in math, and a year or two behind in language arts. i cant imagine dropping him a year back before going back to school, but i also cant imagine him being mature enough any time soon . . . for any grade lol

[Staceyshoe]

My oldest is not an athletic child. He did a whole grade acceleration to start p.s. kindergarten, making him the youngest child ever accepted in the history of our school district. (He was 4 yrs 4 months.) It worked beautifully for him. He continues to be young for his grade, though we've switched to homeschooling now. It was definitely the right decision for him. If he was interested in athletics, I would be more hesitant about accelerating him. My youngest will start p.s. kindergarten next year (at 5 yrs 4 months). He's just a different kid--a lot more dependent emotionally, hesitant, and immature for his age. Even though he will be typical kindergarten age, I'm not 100% sure that he will be ready. Different kids are just different. What's right for one at a certain age isn't right for another. It's one of the things I struggle with as a parent----letting of the expectations of when children should know or do certain things. I'm really making an effort to treat my children as the individuals they are.

[Carrie12345]

My teenager has an August birthday. I actually think he would have been well served by a grade skip a couple of years ago! I can't imagine having held him back.

[kiana]

Would that be fair to the folks who followed the requirements regarding date of birth? Shouldn't an outside institution have the right to establish such rules?

 

 

What? It's a program that is designed for students in their last two years of high school, that for some reason (probably liability) also requires them to be 16.

 

Undoing the skip the public school did has allowed him to participate in his last two years of high school, exactly as intended. I will also point out that (unless I misread her posts) he is now registered at the grade level he would have been, had he been enrolled in public school and not skipped. I really don't see anything unethical here.

[Farrar]

Would that be fair to the folks who followed the requirements regarding date of birth? Shouldn't an outside institution have the right to establish such rules?

 

 

Yes, of course. But in one of the situations mentioned, the requirements were for both age and grade, meaning that some kids would never be eligible, which certainly would feel unfair and rotten if political geography and birthdates - two things that a child has no real control over - meant they couldn't even apply for a program they'd love to do. So with institutions doing that, it seems like they're encouraging people to strategically place their kids into certain grades. That frustrates me, honestly. I'm sure there are a few, rare cases when public school kids should be held back or skipped ahead. But the more that people redshirt their kids, the more I think it skews our growing academic expectations for kindergarten, which isn't good for any of the kids.

 

ETA: I was thinking about this more... if the cutoff for the program is July 1st and you're applying from a state with a September 1st cutoff (which is very common) and your child has a birthday in August, then you're actually penalized for following your state's kindergarten cutoff laws. They're effectively saying no one with a child born in August or July (1/6 of ALL the children!) may apply - unless, of course, you've redshirted them. It seems very unfair, even if they can do it.

[brookspr]

My son has a late September birthday and we lived in Connecticut when he started kindergarten. The cutoff there was December 31st, so he easily made it and his preschool teacher said he would be fine, which he was. Right before he started 3rd grade we moved to Illinois, where the cutoff is September 1st. He started 3rd grade at 8 years old (turning 9 a month later) but had kids in his class that were a whole year older than he was. He is at or above grade level in all subjects, but needs lots of help with organizational skills and time management. We will be homeschooling starting next year when he would be entering middle school as a 6th grader.

[blondeviolin]

My son has a late October birthday. If he were going to PS, he'd be preK still. At home, I'm not sure what grade to call him, so we say "Junior K." He's already ahead of our state's K expectations. The only extracurricular activity he does is swimming, where it is not age-based but ability-based. He's ahead there too. It's a good thing we homeschool so I don't have to worry about that headache!

[snowbeltmom]

Would that be fair to the folks who followed the requirements regarding date of birth? Shouldn't an outside institution have the right to establish such rules?

 

I am not sure I am understanding you correctly. Do you think that somehow it was unfair to move my son back on paper? If that is the case, you are not understanding my son's situation.

 

Before we moved my son "back on paper" he was the youngest in his class and technically, based on our school's cut-off he should have been one grade lower.

 

Before we moved him "back on paper", he was not eligible to apply to the academic program (which is not affiliated at all with the public school) because in order to apply he needed to be a rising junior (which he would be) AND he needed to be 16 years old by the end of June (which he would not be.)

 

I have not investigated any other academic programs, but another poster mentioned in this thread, she has investigated other academic programs and they also have similar age/grade requirements.

 

There is no right answer when determining grade placement. I never imagined that my son would be prohibited from applying to a program simply because he was too young despite meeting the grade level requirement. Ideally, I would have appreciated knowing about this issue earlier so we could have made the grade adjustment when he was younger.

 

My son's situation may not be relevant to most families, but I thought I would share for those families that may find our experience relevant.

 

Other families' mileage will vary.

[jennynd]

My husband has aug 30th birthday. So he made cutoff by one day. He had no problem socially nor academically in school. I made the cutoff by 16 days. While I didn't have problem academically, I think I will do better socially if I was not always the youngest in class. For homeschool, I won't worry that much. But if you plan to send him to PS, you probably want to evaluate based on personality.

[snowbeltmom]

 

What? It's a program that is designed for students in their last two years of high school, that for some reason (probably liability) also requires them to be 16.

 

Undoing the skip the public school did has allowed him to participate in his last two years of high school, exactly as intended. I will also point out that (unless I misread her posts) he is now registered at the grade level he would have been, had he been enrolled in public school and not skipped. I really don't see anything unethical here.

Thank you. This is exactly the situation. He is now in the grade he would have officially been in had he been enrolled in the public school.

[FairProspects]

For me it also partly a consideration of what I can control. Since we can work at whatever level is appropriate for ds's abilities at home, and I can't control outside program requirements, I'd rather have him placed in a grade where he can take the most advantage of outside opportunities. Society has decided that this is a lower grade overall than what the state has proposed. This placement currently matters very little for our day to day schedule, while it might mean a lot more to him later on.

 

There is also some point where grade level doesn't matter. If you are planning early graduation, or radical acceleration, your child may be in a university by 14 or 15, and it won't be an issue on the later end.

[snowbeltmom]

.

 

ETA: I was thinking about this more... if the cutoff for the program is July 1st and you're applying from a state with a September 1st cutoff (which is very common) and your child has a birthday in August, then you're actually penalized for following your state's kindergarten cutoff laws. They're effectively saying no one with a child born in August or July (1/6 of ALL the children!) may apply - unless, of course, you've redshirted them. It seems very unfair, even if they can do it.

 

 

I agree. There are some public school districts in the next county that have a September 30th cut-off. However, I don't know of anyone that does not "redshirt" a child with a summer birthday, let alone a birthday in September. From what I have been told, the administrators advise parents of kids with summer birthdays to delay entree into K even if they meet the school's cut-off date.