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Seniors who turn 18 a week before graduation "young for their grade"? Yes or no?


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My oldest dd will graduate at 17 and so will my son, whom I am refusing to redshirt. He'll be the youngest, and he'll have to deal with it. Somebody has to be the youngest. I might even let dd5 skip a grade later so she can graduate at 17. Two reasons: 1. I graduated at 16 and lived to tell about it. 2. My mom taught high school for decades and saw way too many young adults in her class who really should have been getting on with their lives instead of sitting in a desk having to ask a middle-aged woman for permission to use the restroom.

 

This is what I love about homeschooling! You can tailor things to fit your child's needs. In the state where we live we don't have to declare a grade. This past year we had to make a decision because of sports reasons, in order for our oldest to play baseball with a local high school. We made the decision then to hold him back a year. It was for academic reasons. He just wasn't ready at all for high school level work. He will be ready this fall. He will graduate within a few weeks of turning 19. The high school team he will be playing with has a couple of 19 year old seniors on the team. I have no idea why they were held back or when.

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I turned 18 a month after graduation. My oldest ds will turn 18 right before graduation and my youngest will not turn 18 until 3 months after graduation. My birthday is in June. oldest is in May. and my baby's birthday is in August so all toward the young side for the grade.

 

So, you think that a May bday makes someone "young" for his grade?

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Here in WA, June birthday kids, boys in particular, are considered young for grade. In fact, my June birthday kid was by far the youngest boy in his class at the private school he attended last year (by a good 9 months).

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I am honestly not trying to be snarky or anything, but why does it matter?

 

I can see where there may be some real concerns for members of a the typical cohort who compete against the older student academically, in atheletics or otherwise. A year of age can make a significant difference in physical and mental development from birth through adolesence. But, if we really press the issue wouldn't it mean that some controlling authority would have to determine what perfect month/year = fair competition cohort. Go down that road and I can see where issues would arise requiring specificity down to the month.

 

I don't know about other people's kids but mine changes hugely over 6 months as a teen (sometimes over a month). My hands on experience is that what is experienced/done over time matters more than the passage of it. Just being a year older or younger doesn't tell me the story that knowing what is being done in those years does.

 

Again, not trying to be contrary, but beyond a range, just how important is a birthdate?

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Mine have summer birthdays, and I decided not to redshirt them. My oldest was reading pretty well before he started K, and while I thought that a bit more maturity would have been helpful at the time, I realized that he would have been terribly bored in school if he'd waited a year to start.... Turns out that he was terribly bored in school anyway, and that is part of what led us to homeschooling. When he was in ps 1st grade, there were a couple of boys in the class an entire year older than him. He's gone on to graduate college and has done well. When it was time for him to leave home for college, I felt he was ready.

 

My younger one has two friends who've been in our hs group activities in the same grade as him for several years now. Both have summer birthdays and were redshirted when younger. At the beginning of what should have been 11th grade for both of them, they decided (with their families' blessings) that they were ready to move on, and were actually 12th graders this past year. Based on the level of work they were doing, their moms were able to count their "8th grade" years as 9th grade when they made their transcripts. As someone else said, one of the benefits of homeschooling is that the parent can usually change the child's "grade" level fairly easily if needed.

 

I know another family who decided to redshirt their son while in high school because they had a tough 10th grade year where there were several deaths in the family, and care-taking of older relatives, and not much school got done that year. The boy has gone on to college now and is doing fine.

 

I'm just glad that we have the freedom to make the best decisions for our kiddos.

 

Brenda

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I was 16 when I graduated high school so this doesn't seem young at all to me, and dd was 17. Dh, however, had a late birthday and though he qualified to attend school at 4, his parents chose to wait. As a result, he turned 19 right before he left for college.

 

I think that "young" for graduation has a lot more to do with maturity than with chronological age. I may have only been 16, but I was so ready to embrace university life and a full college plate (I took 18 credits hours my first semester and had to beg the dean for waiver in order to do it because my advisor thought I was NUTS - took some convincing to get the Dean to let me do it). I never had a single issue with readiness. However, I went to school with a lot of people who weren't ready for it at 18.

 

For what it's worth, our local district cut-off is Dec. 1st! Most parents in this area will send their kids to school as soon as they are eligible, so 17 year olds graduating is VERY common. Not only that, but if their 5th birthday falls between Dec. 1st and Jan 1st, the parents often petition the schoolboard to make an exception and allow their child to attend which means they are four during almost the entire first semester of school. The schoolboard generally complies because they see $$$. Per head funding at a time when schools are struggling. They'll also consider any child who turns four between Jan.1st and Mar.1st for "young fives" which is an all day developmental kindergarten designed to get kids ready for regular K, and which comes with full per-head funding as well in Michigan. These students take K twice, developmental first then regular. Of course, I question the term "young fives" when the student can be four for what is about three quarters of the school year.

 

Faith

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I have friends whose son is not going to turn 18 until the August after he graduates. Seems so young!

I turned 18 the April before, and was actually right around the average for my class. We had a lot of May b'days.

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Something else interesting in the nber article is that they attempted to discount the higer test scores they were seeing in older students because the student was older on the test date. Because of the way the PSTA/SAT/ACT are set up in the US, being older for those tests is bound to have an effect. Since all juniors take the PSAT in Oct, I find it hard to believe that a student who is already 17 is not going to do better than a student 15 months younger.

 

I agree wholeheartedly.

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I think the landscape of high school has changed and that comparing people who graduated at 17 thirty years ago to 17 year old graduates today is comparing apples and oranges.

 

I have 2 boys w/ fall birthdays that I wish I would have started at 5, not 4. My oldest was not only one of the youngest in his class, boys a grade behind him were his same age. With my youngest, I don't know as many boys in his grade but I suspect we'll see the same.

 

My boys would have graduated at 18 had I started them at 5.

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What unsinkable said.

 

Most of the anecdotes are of personal experiences, 30 years ago. It is NOT like that now. Since graduation is normally in May, I would say the child is young for their grade. In my area, most likely the youngest. My oldest is summer birthday, and also been dual enrolled in first middle and now high school. Despite making the K cutoff all those years ago where we lived then (Washington state), as the years have gone on, he has always been the youngest student in his grade. Middle was a small expat school, so I thought well- moving around is tough, so that is why. But now we are in one of the top districts in the US, and when I went in to register him the counselor mentioned he would be the youngest 9th grader. By quite a bit. She questioned whether we really wanted to have him in 9th grade classes at his age.

 

She was right- Ds cannot apply to some competitive language summer programs, they are for 9-12 grade, but must be 15 by June 1 or 15 or some date he isn't. Ditto forensic camp. No drivers Ed with peers, must be 15 and 6 months for a permit.

 

It's nice we homeschool except for the 2 dual enrolled classes, but though he is fine academically, it's a pain being the youngest. I would advise any parents with summer b day kids to start academics whenever they want, but not officially notify for kindergarten until age 6. You can always do more, take a gap year, travel, write a novel, get more CC credits, etc...but you can't get around age requirements.

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It's kind of funny. I have one boy with a May birthday that I have considered having repeat a grade (just on paper, not academically) to get him in with his same age peers because redshirting is pretty much a given for boys around here. It has never really been that I think he should have been redshirted or needed that extra year. I just have wished that not everyone else redshirted. He's fine where he is. I don't feel like he is too young but I do wish he had some other boys his age in his grade. I understand that everyone needs to make the choice for their kid but if half of the boys with spring birthdays didn't redshirt I think it would have been much less of an issue. I wouldn't mind him being the youngest if there were more of them. It wouldn't be so out of place in there was a group of boys on the young side and not just one of them.

 

I have thought to myself that my kids would very likely have better SAT scores and be better positioned for college if they had that extra year. Then I wonder how they would do that last year of high school if they were really emotionally ready to be out of high school and move on with their lives. While it is an advantage for some I can see that it wouldn't always be, depending on the kid at age 18.

 

Oh well...the conclusion I have always come to is that mine didn't need to be redshirted- I just wish not everyone else had.

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You can always do more, take a gap year, travel, write a novel, get more CC credits, etc...but you can't get around age requirements.

 

 

Actually, it's not true that you can't get around age requirements.

 

Both of my kids accelerated, and we did run into a few problems here and there. Ironically, one of the reasons we ended up sending our daughter off to college at 12 was because local homeschool groups kept fighting us on placement. (She did fine, graduated with her bachelor's at 16 and is happily getting on with her life at 18.)

 

My son's had less trouble, with the one stunning and awful exception of our own church. He's dual enrolling at the community college in the fall, even though he won't technically make the required age cut-off until mid-way through the spring semester. We submitted paperwork showing his academic standing and were intially turned away because he was too young. We opted not to fight it and had already moved on to plan B when the supervisor of the program tracked us down and said we should come in and chat. It turned out all we needed to do was sign an extra form and get it approved. He registered for his classes this week.

 

We've found the key to approaching these situations is to ask supervisors to clarify whether entrance requirements are based on age or grade. If it's really, truly age, and especially if there's some legitimate reason like insurance requirements, we walk away and look for another option. If the requirements are presented as being about grade level, though, we often find people are willing to work with us to find some way to make it work.

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Then I wonder how they would do that last year of high school if they were really emotionally ready to be out of high school and move on with their lives. While it is an advantage for some I can see that it wouldn't always be, depending on the kid at age 18.

 

 

Exactly. Most of the bright and mature kids I know are crawling out of their skins by 16 or 17 waiting to be done with high school and get on with life. I can't imagine expecting one of mine to be going through the motions of high school at age 19. (Honestly, we're not certain that even community college will be enough to keep our son from getting antsy past 16 or 17.)

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The solution for most children when butting up against age requirements is not going to be go to college at age 12.

 

Yes, it works for some, and it's nice to know the option is available but it wouldn't work for most.

 

My boys couldn't even volunteer at certain places with the boys in their grade. Of course, they found other but not always with who they wanted.

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The solution for most children when butting up against age requirements is not going to be go to college at age 12.

 

Yes, it works for some, and it's nice to know the option is available but it wouldn't work for most.

 

My boys couldn't even volunteer at certain places with the boys in their grade. Of course, they found other but not always with who they wanted.

 

 

No, that particular solution wouldn't have worked for my son, either. He's been much more interested in taking the scenic route.

 

My point was that it's not accurate to say "you can't," when, in fact, we've found you often can. I always tell my kids that any choice to do one thing is a choice not to do lots of others. So, you have to balance how important that one thing is to you and decide what else you're willing to compromise on in order to go with that choice. Around here, the one thing has usually been maintaining appropriate momentum--the specific pace of which varies for each kid--with school, and we've found ways to fit everything else around that.

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This is an interesting topic because I am now having to think about it again. I have mostly ignored it because we've never had to declare a grade before. DS would be the very youngest in his grade around here if he went by the school cut off date, as his b'day is within a few days of the date. So if he had gone to PS by their dates, he would have been 4 when starting K, and would be 17 when graduating HS and even 17 going off to college. And then turn 18 in that first semester after starting college.

 

I have always felt like this just didn't matter to us since we are homeschooling. But now that we are beginning to enter the high school years, and need to keep track of credits and a transcript, I feel like we need to think about this. I am really not sure how I feel about it. I feel like I can't possibly know right now if my child will be "ready" for or want to move away at 17 or 18. There are so many factors. Like if he decided to go to a large school on the other side of the country, or a smaller school that was closer to home. I feel like there are a lot of things that would affect it. But I feel like we have to decide. If we start keeping the HS transcript that would put him on track to graduate at 18, instead of 17, but then he gets to 11th grade and actually is ready, then will that hold him back?

 

I see a lot of people whose children went on to college early. So, did they actually graduate from HS with the required number of credits? Or did they just stop and move straight on to college and not worry about getting in four years of English, etc.

 

I have been reading a lot of college websites about admissions and it's amazing how many colleges specifically talk about homeschoolers. I've been reading top schools, because I figure if we aim for that, then we will have whatever any school might need. I was reading on the MIT website and they specifically said that a HS diploma or GED is not required to apply to MIT.

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No, that particular solution wouldn't have worked for my son, either. He's been much more interested in taking the scenic route.

 

My point was that it's not accurate to say "you can't," when, in fact, we've found you often can. I always tell my kids that any choice to do one thing is a choice not to do lots of others. So, you have to balance how important that one thing is to you and decide what else you're willing to compromise on in order to go with that choice. Around here, the one thing has usually been maintaining appropriate momentum--the specific pace of which varies for each kid--with school, and we've found ways to fit everything else around that.

 

 

You found you can.

 

Others found they can't in certain situations. Age can be a limiting factor.

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This is an interesting topic because I am now having to think about it again. I have mostly ignored it because we've never had to declare a grade before.

 

Why do you have to declare a grade now and not before? For any college aspect, a grade only needs to be declared for the PSAT and then only because scholarships are only available (from that program) for juniors - 11th graders.

 

Otherwise, just keep a transcript going with courses and grades or whatever. You can decide later if you want the first year to be 8th grade (eliminate that year from the transcript and just asterisk any high school courses done then) or 9th based on how it is all going.

 

If I had been homeschooling my youngest (a Dec birthdate), that's how I would have done it - and he could very well be off to college this year instead of next. However, since he's in ps... we don't really have that option.

 

FTR, the vast majority of colleges do not require the GED. Homeschooled kids legally get a diploma as long as they are homeschooling legally in their state and have met any state requirements. You, as leader of the homeschool, issue it.

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Yes, I think that is why I am thinking about it more, because he actually has been talking about the possibility of entering public HS. I feel confident that if he went that route, we would have him enter the grade that would put him at being 18 when he graduates, not 17, because that is the class that most of his friends are in. The boys in the grade above him are much older, some over a year older.

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I see a lot of people whose children went on to college early. So, did they actually graduate from HS with the required number of credits? Or did they just stop and move straight on to college and not worry about getting in four years of English, etc.

 

I have been reading a lot of college websites about admissions and it's amazing how many colleges specifically talk about homeschoolers. I've been reading top schools, because I figure if we aim for that, then we will have whatever any school might need. I was reading on the MIT website and they specifically said that a HS diploma or GED is not required to apply to MIT.

 

 

The transcripts of kids applying to MIT are incredible though, diploma or not. For that type of school, I'd take all the time possible, within the usual timeframe (PS grade levels), to build that application. Math courses alone will hog a lot of years.

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Yes, I think that is why I am thinking about it more, because he actually has been talking about the possibility of entering public HS. I feel confident that if he went that route, we would have him enter the grade that would put him at being 18 when he graduates, not 17, because that is the class that most of his friends are in. The boys in the grade above him are much older, some over a year older.

 

 

Ok, I get it. Yes, ps does change things. I'd keep him with his friends... unless he wanted something else.

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That age was completely normal and expected in my generation. In my kids' 1st grade class, it would be on the young side (other than my kids, nobody turns 7 after early June). Not sure when that all changed. My niece is 20, May birthday, graduated at just-18 and I never heard anyone say she was "young."

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I see a lot of people whose children went on to college early. So, did they actually graduate from HS with the required number of credits? Or did they just stop and move straight on to college and not worry about getting in four years of English, etc.

 

My sister and I took an extra load in order to build up the required credits in 3 years. For example, I took junior and senior English in the same year. We were also put into KG a year early, so we both started college at 16. Not sure how that would work nowadays, though. Of course, now you can do part-time college early, so maybe that is the new "early graduation"? I believe you can get high school credit for college courses. ... In the case of my daughters, I put them in KG a year early, so they will be 17 when they enter college (unless they decide to "graduate early" or whatever it will be called 10 years from now).

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I see a lot of people whose children went on to college early. So, did they actually graduate from HS with the required number of credits? Or did they just stop and move straight on to college and not worry about getting in four years of English, etc.

 

I can't speak for everyone, but it's been a little different for each of my two.

 

My daughter had accumluated an appropriate number of raw credits by the time she got admitted to the early entrance program, although the distribution was not quite typical. (She was short one year of English and had only three credits of math, for example, but had extra science and social sciences, as well as a ton of theatre-related credits we could have converted to/counted for English if we'd thought to do so.) In her case, the math didn't matter, because the college she attended required only three years, even for regular admission students, and early entrance students were not expected to have done that much.

 

She started doing a full slate of high school work (including online courses) when she was nine and finished in three years.

 

My son, as I said, has taken a somewhat more scenic route. He's extremely involved in the community here and very attached to his group of friends and is also quite busy with extracurricular activities. Although he, too, had been doing some high school classes earlier, we opted to dub him a 9th grader when his friends started high school and it seemed to matter for a variety of reasons. It just happened that he was a year younger than would be typical at that point. Because he did carry over a couple of credits from online courses and took a slightly heavier-than-average courseload in each of the last two years, he could also easily finish in three years, which would have him graduating two years ahead of his age peers with all of the appropriate credits (more than our local school system requires, actually).

 

After much discussion, I think he's going to stick around for two more years, though, probably completing at least a technical certificate at the community college in addition to finishing up the normal high school stuff. Even with that "bonus year," he'll be 17 until mid-way through the spring semester of his freshman year in college. It would just be ridiculous to make him stick around longer than that. And, honestly, I'll be mildly surprised if he does hang on that long, rather than choosing to go ahead and graduate next year. I'm totally fine with it either way. It'll be interesting to see what he decides.

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My sister and I took an extra load in order to build up the required credits in 3 years. For example, I took junior and senior English in the same year. We were also put into KG a year early, so we both started college at 16. Not sure how that would work nowadays, though. Of course, now you can do part-time college early, so maybe that is the new "early graduation"? I believe you can get high school credit for college courses. ... In the case of my daughters, I put them in KG a year early, so they will be 17 when they enter college (unless they decide to "graduate early" or whatever it will be called 10 years from now).

 

I meant to mention, too, that our local school district actually offers a streamlined, three-year high school option. Instead of the usual 24 credits, it requires only 18 and focuses on the classes most colleges actually care about seeing on applicants' transcripts. Students who want to go that route have to maintain a higher GPA and choose some of their courses from a specific list. But, as long as they follow those rules, even the public school will graduate them a year "early."

 

It just doesn't seem like a big deal to me, one way or the other.

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The redshirting discussion always makes me sad, because in my view, many kids are missing out by being held back just to make things easier on everyone in B&M school. My girls were accelerated and my eldest is not having an easy road at all, but she's learning so much more than she would if she were "older" in her class. (This is consistent with research that shows a young child in a higher class achieves much more than the same age child in a lower class.) I can't imagine either of my kids being a year behind right now - socially or in terms of academic challenge. And it also bugs me that thanks to the "ageing of the kindergarten," being on the younger side opens a child up for extra criticism because she acts her age. A doctor told me that kids who are young for their grade are more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD, which of course makes no sense. ... Of course if an individual parent feels her child isn't ready to successfully take on a grade, that is a whole other matter.

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After much discussion, I think he's going to stick around for two more years, though, probably completing at least a technical certificate at the community college in addition to finishing up the normal high school stuff.

 

What type of technical certificate is he looking at doing? There are some really cool (to me) certificate programs here through what is actually the vocational school, like what kids go to who aren't doing the higher level, gifted classes at the high school. But they sound really awesome! One is about alternative energy and green manufacturing and another is about computer programming. I mean I think they sound way cooler than the high school classes. I was thinking that since he is homeschooling, he could do one of those since he would just have the time, and still be able to get in the higher level math, science, etc. This child is seems to be on an engineering/physics path. But, I wondered about doing this, because I feel like these programs here seem to be viewed as the 'alternative' when a child isn't capable of doing more academic work. Which is one thing I really hate about the public schools, how they just peg students into certain stereotypes.

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What type of technical certificate is he looking at doing? There are some really cool (to me) certificate programs here through what is actually the vocational school, like what kids go to who aren't doing the higher level, gifted classes at the high school. But they sound really awesome! One is about alternative energy and green manufacturing and another is about computer programming. I mean I think they sound way cooler than the high school classes. I was thinking that since he is homeschooling, he could do one of those since he would just have the time, and still be able to get in the higher level math, science, etc. This child is seems to be on an engineering/physics path. But, I wondered about doing this, because I feel like these programs here seem to be viewed as the 'alternative' when a child isn't capable of doing more academic work. Which is one thing I really hate about the public schools, how they just peg students into certain stereotypes.

 

The one my son is interested in is entertainment/stage technology. It requires 17 credits/five courses at the community college to complete.

 

If he does end up following through on the current plan, he'll do one or two of those courses in each of the next four semesters, alongside the more usual dual enrollment stuff, and also one or two regular high school classes through Florida Virtual. His schedule for fall includes:

 

- Freshman Comp I (community college)

- U.S. Government (community college)

- Basic Stagecraft (community college)

- Latin II (FLVS)

- Physics (FLVS)

 

Latin and Physics are a full year each. So, he'll continue those in the spring and sign up for three or four more courses at the college, one of which will be College Algebra.

 

Personally, I think your son's transcript should speak for itself. If he's got good, solid coursework in advance math and science and so on, I can't imagine why it would bother anyone that he also has a more practical certification.

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The redshirting discussion always makes me sad, because in my view, many kids are missing out by being held back just to make things easier on everyone in B&M school. My girls were accelerated and my eldest is not having an easy road at all, but she's learning so much more than she would if she were "older" in her class. (This is consistent with research that shows a young child in a higher class achieves much more than the same age child in a lower class.) I can't imagine either of my kids being a year behind right now - socially or in terms of academic challenge. And it also bugs me that thanks to the "ageing of the kindergarten," being on the younger side opens a child up for extra criticism because she acts her age. A doctor told me that kids who are young for their grade are more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD, which of course makes no sense. ... Of course if an individual parent feels her child isn't ready to successfully take on a grade, that is a whole other matter.

 

I would be curious how you would feel if there is no "class".?.?.?

 

A child accelerated into the next level class should achieve more than the same aged child who is not accelerated because they should be working at a higher level with higher expectations to meet. In "school" you have to "accelerate" to do so. For the homeschooled student, you are a class of your own. As a parent who pulled her Dd from school I know what it is to walk away from the dictates of a system and allow a student to be where they belong with age being rarely relevant.

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I would be curious how you would feel if there is no "class".?.?.?

 

A child accelerated into the next level class should achieve more than the same aged child who is not accelerated because they should be working at a higher level with higher expectations to meet. In "school" you have to "accelerate" to do so. For the homeschooled student, you are a class of your own. As a parent who pulled her Dd from school I know what it is to walk away from the dictates of a system and allow a student to be where they belong with age being rarely relevant.

 

I love this, and this is why we homeschool, so that we can be where we are in everything.

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I turned 18 almost four months after graduation. I was the youngest in my class, but it wasn't a problem. In the schools I have attended in this state and where dd went to school for half a year, acceleration was not an option. They were going to skip me before we moved, but here it is just not done for the school districts in which I have attended or where we currently live.

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It doesn't seem young to me. To me, that would be almost average. I have a late May birthday, and when I went to school (here in CA in the 80s and 90s), I was very average as far as age. Dd has a mid-July birthday and when one of the mom's in our charter class said, "Oh so she's young!" it caught me by surprise. I just figured she was average.

 

Now they're moving the cutoff date in CA slowly year by year to eventually be Sept. 1st I believe. DS will miss the cutoff by four days the year he turns five. I know everyone says it's good for boys, but it just seems weird to me that he'll be 18.5 before he graduates high school. He's already reading short words, so I'm going to just plow ahead at his pace/level and not worry about grades. I guess if he is mature enough/academically ready, I can just graduate him early? Who knows; that's 14 years away. :-)

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In some schools you do have to 'accelerate', but in many a student can take independent study at the level and pace they wish. One does not have to be trapped into mediocrity if one does not want to be. It is quite common for students to use an i.s. offering or an 'arrangement' to be at a deeper level and faster pace than the group class offered. As my son pointed out, you don't have to spend fourth grade reading a comic book held in your lap while the rest of the class figures out what a fraction is; there are resources available to help you out with that passion that you've labeled your 'science project'. The label over the classroom door is largely irrelevant in this day of full inclusion...it's very much a differentiated experience if all the players agree.

 

Based on what I hear from the parents of my son's friends and the parents of the gifted and high-achieving kids with whom I chat online, I'd say your son lucked out.

 

More often, from what I can tell, the school machinery kicks into gear to rub off the rough edges of a kid who doesn't fit the mould.

 

One of my son's friends, whom the psychologist they hired to do IQ testing when the school refused to do it said they probably shouldn't put in school at all because he was too smart to be happy there, was told for two years that he didn't deserve to have any kind of subject-matter acceleration or accomodation or anything until he learned to keep his desk neat and push in his chair at the end of the day. In general, the school's solution to keep him busy was to give him the exact same work everyone else had, just more of it.

 

They also made him re-do the exact same science textbook he'd completed the previous year, in order to keep him with his new class.

 

And that happened at a magnet school for bright kids.

 

Other parents tell me how the schools promised them all kinds of wonderful opportunities for their kids, then backed off as soon as said kid was enrolled.

 

If your son is having a different experience, I think that's wonderful, but I don't think it's typical.

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Based on what I hear from the parents of my son's friends and the parents of the gifted and high-achieving kids with whom I chat online, I'd say your son lucked out.

 

More often, from what I can tell, the school machinery kicks into gear to rub off the rough edges of a kid who doesn't fit the mould.

 

One of my son's friends, whom the psychologist they hired to do IQ testing when the school refused to do it said they probably shouldn't put in school at all because he was too smart to be happy there, was told for two years that he didn't deserve to have any kind of subject-matter acceleration or accomodation or anything until he learned to keep his desk neat and push in his chair at the end of the day. In general, the school's solution to keep him busy was to give him the exact same work everyone else had, just more of it.

 

They also made him re-do the exact same science textbook he'd completed the previous year, in order to keep him with his new class.

 

And that happened at a magnet school for bright kids.

 

Other parents tell me how the schools promised them all kinds of wonderful opportunities for their kids, then backed off as soon as said kid was enrolled.

 

If your son is having a different experience, I think that's wonderful, but I don't think it's typical.

 

This is the experience of my youngest as well, so far - except that nobody actually made promises -in fact, they tried to convince me not to accelerate. "They pretty much level out in a few years." Well, I wonder why. My youngest just spent 9 months sitting in a classroom (with zero differentiation) and learning nearly nothing. At least I have some comfort in knowing that daydreaming through 1st is better than suffering through KG at this age.

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I would be curious how you would feel if there is no "class".?.?.?

 

A child accelerated into the next level class should achieve more than the same aged child who is not accelerated because they should be working at a higher level with higher expectations to meet. In "school" you have to "accelerate" to do so. For the homeschooled student, you are a class of your own. As a parent who pulled her Dd from school I know what it is to walk away from the dictates of a system and allow a student to be where they belong with age being rarely relevant.

 

I was talking about B&M school students, which I realized was not the experience of many families on this forum. I don't homeschool, but I can't imagine redshirting a homeschool child either. When I say "redshirt," I don't mean placing a challenged/delayed child in a lower grade because that's what he can handle. I'm talking about giving a typical child "the gift of time" in order to smooth his path. My family culture is the opposite: take on all you can handle; everyone falls, so get up and keep going; what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. For us, class rank / sports accolades are not as important as attaining knowledge/skills. Being bored/complacent is one of the worst states we can imagine. If there were no "class," I think it would be a relief because I wouldn't have to swim against the current in this particular respect.

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I was talking about B&M school students, which I realized was not the experience of many families on this forum. I don't homeschool, but I can't imagine redshirting a homeschool child either. When I say "redshirt," I don't mean placing a challenged/delayed child in a lower grade because that's what he can handle. I'm talking about giving a typical child "the gift of time" in order to smooth his path. My family culture is the opposite: take on all you can handle; everyone falls, so get up and keep going; what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. For us, class rank / sports accolades are not as important as attaining knowledge/skills. Being bored/complacent is one of the worst states we can imagine. If there were no "class," I think it would be a relief because I wouldn't have to swim against the current in this particular respect.

 

It's funny, because we started using that phrase "the gift of time" when our kids were little, but we meant something entirely different. I always said that homeschooling in general, and our approach specifically, gave our kids the great gift of time: time to play and read and explore passions while they were young because scooting through schoolwork was so efficient when you didn't have to wait for the rest of the class to catch up; time each day to take on extra classes just because they are interesting to this particular student and not because they fulfill a requirement; time to change majors twice or thrice even if it costs an extra year in college because you started early, anyway; and once you graduate, time to take on unpaid internships or a job that sounds like fun but doesn't pay a living wage or take a couple of years to focus exclusively on building a resume in an area of interest without having to worry about paying bills . . .

 

At least for my daughter, freedom to accelerate is what has given her "the gift of time."

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Yes! I totally agree! This is really what I love about homeschooling at all ages now. When they are little, they have the time for imaginative play or to read an entire book in one day. As they get older, they have the time to explore their interests and do internships and really figure out what they want to do with their lives and where their strengths and passions lie. I feel like we are at such a crossroads right now, because I think DS may want to try PS school. I feel like if he were to do it, he should try it at 9th grade, otherwise he may wind up having to repeat classes or not get credit for certain things he already has competence in. I think I go back and forth, because although I don't really believe this, I think I let doubts creep in, like, but don't you want him to go away to college at 18, with his same-aged peers, and have that college experience, that passage in our culture. I don't really believe that, but then sometimes I hear those doubts. Truly, I think it would be super cool if the child just followed their passion and started taking college classes whenever they were ready, and maybe even finished their bachelor's degree early so that they had more time like the post above says, to try out jobs or go on and get a graduate degree.

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I was talking about B&M school students, which I realized was not the experience of many families on this forum. I don't homeschool, but I can't imagine redshirting a homeschool child either. When I say "redshirt," I don't mean placing a challenged/delayed child in a lower grade because that's what he can handle. I'm talking about giving a typical child "the gift of time" in order to smooth his path. My family culture is the opposite: take on all you can handle; everyone falls, so get up and keep going; what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. For us, class rank / sports accolades are not as important as attaining knowledge/skills. Being bored/complacent is one of the worst states we can imagine. If there were no "class," I think it would be a relief because I wouldn't have to swim against the current in this particular respect.

 

We can imagine it. Dd is in the midst of deciding whether to graduate a year early (17), "right on time" (18) or later (19). Assuming she does what is required, the decision is ultimately hers. She is not "challenged/delayed" and she doesn't need her path smoothed. She tests extremely well, performs very well academically, navigates a very busy schedule well and thus has options. I actually had another mom suggest that letting Dd have an extra year would be unfair because she is already a "competitive" applicant and an extra year would give her "too much" of an advantage. While I appreciated the candor/honesty, our family culture is not about competing with others. It is about being appreciative for what you have, striving to be your personal best and giving back/paying forward.

 

I have always felt uneasy with the idea that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, because sometimes it wounds you. You may survive, but thriving may be limited. We can find strength we may not have been called upon previously to use in times of adversity, but sometimes we emerge from the struggle with challenges that lessen our potentials. Strength of character can shine in the sunlight.

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In some schools you do have to 'accelerate', but in many a student can take independent study at the level and pace they wish. One does not have to be trapped into mediocrity if one does not want to be. It is quite common for students to use an i.s. offering or an 'arrangement' to be at a deeper level and faster pace than the group class offered. As my son pointed out, you don't have to spend fourth grade reading a comic book held in your lap while the rest of the class figures out what a fraction is; there are resources available to help you out with that passion that you've labeled your 'science project'. The label over the classroom door is largely irrelevant in this day of full inclusion...it's very much a differentiated experience if all the players agree.

 

This is not the case at the school where I work. Some kids can do things independently strangely akin to self-study with homeschooling, but that's only at the high school level.

 

ALL kids have to do the same thing before that. A 7th grader who did Algebra 1 with his folks prior to 7th grade was out of luck and stuck in the course at our school - for 2 years as ALL kids have to do Alg 1 over a 2 year period. He had top grades in his class... but I imagine he was quite bored.

 

In middle school English in order to have the 8th grade class read the same book a 4th grade reading level book is chosen. Why? Because some kids can't read beyond a 4th grade level. Tough luck to those kids who are reading at a 12th grade level at that point.

 

The motto at our school is "Academically talented kids will do well no matter what. Don't worry about them." We were specifically told that - and told that public school is not here to serve academically talented kids. It's here to serve average kids and the state requires more for below average kids...

 

Our school tests slightly below average with standardized test scores across our state... we hit target! We don't have a nice bell curve either (generally missing the upper end). We have masses right near that average.

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I didn't turn 18 until my freshman year in college. The only problem I ever had due to age was when I arranged to go on a college sponsored ski trip and the bus was delayed in the parking lot because they decided at the last minute that I needed a permission slip signed by my mommy. ;( So, we had to wait until we could reach her and have her drive back to sign one. That was before the era of cell phones. Fortunately we only lived an hour away.

 

I did take some ribbing on the bus for that!

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