s/o Redshirting - Poll

[MinivanMom]

How common is it to redshirt in your local area?  There seems to be a lot of variation in redshirting from one area to another.  Just give your best estimate of how common it is in your local area or your local elementary school.  For the purposes of the poll I'm ignoring states with fall cutoffs.  If you live in a state with a fall cut-off then you can just lump the fall birthdays (kids who are still 4 at the start of K) in with summer birthdays.  Thanks.

[Alice]

The cutoff here is Sept 30th. It’s very common to redshirt boys, both those who have Sept birthdays and those who have summer birthdays. It’s very uncommon to redshirt girls. 

[Arcadia]

California's cutoff is being push up to September 1st from originally December 2nd.

For the 2013-14 school year the date is October 1

For the 2014-15 school year and each school year thereafter the date is September 1.

 

In my area, nobody I know redshirt as it is hyper difficult to grade skip in my school district but hyper easy to do a grade retention.  So even for SAHMs, it is easier to send the child to school on time and retain if the need ever arise.  A child was retain in 1st grade for our assigned school but she was actually "old" for her grade.

 

ETA:

Can't find state statistics but I found this research report.  Data is for kindergarten entry in 2006, 2007

"The Extent, Patterns, and Implications of Kindergarten "Redshirting "

[twoxcell]

I honestly have no idea. The majority of my friends homeschool or send their kids to private school. My oldest has a July B-day and I can think of a few boys born the same summer as him that are a grade behind so their parents must have red shirted them.

[Coco_Clark]

It's extremely common to red shirt summer birthday boys around here. Less common for girls. My son squeaked by the cut off by a matter of days, and if I was to do the public school route I would have seriously considered red shirting him just because it is so so common. Even though I felt he was ready to begin Kindy work (he was writing his name, counting to 20, knew letters and sounds, just beginning to sound out words) its getting to the point here that you are expected to red shirt a boy unless he is noticeably AHEAD. It's crazy.

 

Thankfully we homeschool so it was a bit of a moot point. ;)

[Jayne J]

Around here, the cut-off date is June 1, with plans to possibly move it to May 1. Our area just instituted all day Kindergarten, and the upshot seems to be that the district is redshirting everyone themselves.

I don't know how popular it was prior to this, but if I had to guess I'd say it was pretty uncommon, since I've never heard it discussed in general mommy conversation. Since the switch, most parents I've heard are actually upset that their child has to wait another year, and not keen on redshirting I guess.

 

I didn't vote, by the way, since a guess doesn't seem solid enough to be worth polling. :)

[Meriwether]

My son has a late summer birthday. In sports activities segregated by grade, he was ALWAYS at least a year younger than the other kids. So the boys with summer birthdays were red shirted and many of the others were, too. A kid with a September birthday would have been almost *two years* older than him. Yeah, those sports teams were fun. I voted the middle option for the girls. There was some redshirting, but I don't know how much.

[Julie Smith]

The cut off in our area is Dec. 31st. So red-shirting might happen with a kid born in Dec. or Nov. 

 

I do know of someone who had a born born Dec. 31st. Parents didn't even know about red-shirting till kid was in grade 2. So I'm guessing it is very uncommon.

 

 

[chicagoshannon]

This year was he first I had heard of someone red shirting their July birthday son. He is extremely small, like the size of my 3yr old maybe smaller. He is also very sports oriented and his dad is a PE teacher and coach. He was not held back for academic reasons at all. He is a very bright kid.

 

Most of the time around here the redshirting only happens if the child's birthday is within a week of the Sept 1 cut off.

[Meriwether]

Adding: The school encourages redshirting by having a beginning K program for 5 yos. The kids basically do two years of K.

[Guest]

I don't know how common it is here. I don't think it's very common, at all. Usually I have heard of people I know figuring out ways of putting their kids in before they should. 

 

I know I had never heard the term until I came here.

[xixstar]

I am curious as to how people know this. Or when I hear people say "everyone here does x" how do they know?

 

I have no clue what other parents do with their 5 how with summer birthdays. We are stating school with ours. :)

[Arcadia]

I am curious as to how people know this. Or when I hear people say "everyone here does x" how do they know?

 

I have no clue what other parents do with their 5 how with summer birthdays. We are stating school with ours. :)

There are many neighborhood mum's groups around my area. So everyone kind of know which preschool, public school, private school that the neighborhood kids go to as well as when the kids birthdays are.  There are neighborhood play dates arranged by which kindergarten cohort the child is going to be.   That is so that the children would already know their kindergarten classmates very well before the first day of school.

[TracyP]

I am curious as to how people know this. Or when I hear people say "everyone here does x" how do they know?

 

I have no clue what other parents do with their 5 how with summer birthdays. We are stating school with ours. :)

 

Google. :D

I voted based on this article. I wasn't comfortable guessing (and I would have been wrong).

 

 

ETA: This article states that over 50% of boys and 20% of girls with summer b-days are redshirted in my area. Nationally, 17% of kids start kindergarten at age 6.

[Carrie12345]

No idea. And, honestly, I don't think it's any of my business. As a homeschooler, I think it's up to a parent to figure out what their kid is or isn't ready for at whatever age.

[Farrar]

Around here, the cut-off date is June 1, with plans to possibly move it to May 1. Our area just instituted all day Kindergarten, and the upshot seems to be that the district is redshirting everyone themselves.

I don't know how popular it was prior to this, but if I had to guess I'd say it was pretty uncommon, since I've never heard it discussed in general mommy conversation. Since the switch, most parents I've heard are actually upset that their child has to wait another year, and not keen on redshirting I guess.

 

I didn't vote, by the way, since a guess doesn't seem solid enough to be worth polling. :)

 

:blink: May 1st?

 

So basically, the cut off used to be Dec. 1st most places.  But the expectations for K increased and lots of families were redshirting kids with fall birthdays.  So they moved the date back to September to reflect that and that's the average now.  So now, with an older crop of kids and political pressures, the expectations for K have increased again and families are now redshirting kids with summer birthdays.  So this is the next step, huh?  Move the cut off back to spring.  But if they do that, then families with kids with early spring birthdays will redshirt them.  And having older kids will again raise the expectations...  WHEN DOES IT END?

 

Seriously, this whole thing is nutty to me.

 

I can't answer the poll though.  It's not common in the city, but it's common in the suburbs.  Huh, I wonder how much *that* helps skew the testing data.  Ugh.  I mean, I totally 100% understand redshirting individual kids and have known families who did it and felt it was positive for them.  But as an overall phenomenon, I don't like the effect its having on our schools and expectations.  Thank goodness I homeschool.

[LeslieAnneLevine]

Where we lived when my son was that age the cut-off was June 30, but if your child had a birthday in July or August, you could request they start that year.  I think it makes more sense than 5 year-olds starting first grade (or 4 year-olds starting K). This was in a different country and I don't think redshirting was an option--you had to go by the cut-off and if your child turned 6 prior to June 30, he either needed to start school or you would need to send a letter to inform the school authorities that you were homeschooling. 

 

I'm guessing with earlier cut-offs, you see less redshirting because the child will turn 5 well before the start of Kindergarten. I think it has more to do with parents feeling their child is ready than being worried he/she will be one of the younger kids in the class. 

[Ellie]

As a long-time homeschooler, I haven't any idea what public schools do. My opinions on it are based on my many years of experience as the owner/administrator of a homeschool umbrella school, which is why I am so strongly opposed. :-).

[Soror]

Seriously, this whole thing is nutty to me.

 

I can't answer the poll though.  It's not common in the city, but it's common in the suburbs.  Huh, I wonder how much *that* helps skew the testing data.  Ugh.  I mean, I totally 100% understand redshirting individual kids and have known families who did it and felt it was positive for them.  But as an overall phenomenon, I don't like the effect its having on our schools and expectations.  Thank goodness I homeschool.

Which came first though redshirting or the increase in expectations? I believe longer school days and harder work preceded the redshirting. As test scores fall expectations increase even more without any thought as to why increasing work is not working.

 

I didn't vote in the poll. Redshirting is common here for boys. I think it is much more rare for a girls though. Ds' b-day is literally a day before the cut-off so he is technically red-shirted. It is nice for him to be w/ his peers in activities. As far as what we do in hs it doesn't really effect us, I teach him to his level.

[MinivanMom]

I am curious as to how people know this. Or when I hear people say "everyone here does x" how do they know?

 

I have no clue what other parents do with their 5 how with summer birthdays. We are stating school with ours. :)

 

Well, I know women who work at local elementary schools.  I also have lots of friends whose kids go to public school and most of them volunteer constantly at the school as room mothers or on the PTA (usually both), so they know the birthdates of the kids in the same class or in the same grade as their own children.  Everyone talks about local trends.  We also attend a local church where we are the only homeschooling family.  I have always worked with the children at church, so I know all the children's birthdates and which grade they are in. 

 

I completely understand, though, that some people might not feel like they can make an estimate due to limited knowledge of the overall situation locally.

[Farrar]

Which came first though redshirting or the increase in expectations? I believe longer school days and harder work preceded the redshirting. As test scores continue to either stay stagnant or not improve expectations increase even more without any thought as to why increasing work is not working.

.

I'm not sure which came first originally, but I think at this point they're very interwoven. And I think changing the dates is a very disingenuous way to fudge the data. And every time they change the dates, the expectations rise, meaning this constant narrative of crisis is perpetuated.

[Wheres Toto]

NJ allows local districts to set their own cut-off as long as it's after October 1st.  My district is October 1st.  The school told us to not send our son to kindergarten until he was 6 (late August birthday).  Red-shirting is very common for boys around here.  It's almost the default option.   We were involved in town rec sports for a while and they go by age.  There was always a lot of discussion about what grade kids were in.

[Crimson Wife]

This topic seems to come up every year on my town mother's club BBS shortly before the district K registration deadline. Under the old cutoff of Dec. 2nd,, mostly it was parents of fall birthday girls and summer birthday boys who were asking for opinions. Fall birthday boys were almost always redshirted without hesitation. I never heard of anyone with a birthday before July redshirting.

 

Now that the cutoff has been moved up to September, I think we'll see nearly all summer birthday boys redshirted, and the moms of summer birthday girls and late spring birthday boys asking about it.

 

Personally, I think that the pushing of reading and writing down from 1st into K is a big factor in the desire to redshirt. Many kids are not developmentally ready to learn to read at 5, and even more are not physically able to write. My DS could read as a not-quite-5 y.o. K student but he had only learned to write half of his alphabet by the beginning of the next school year (one of the reasons he did a year of "transition" between K & 1).

[mom2scouts]

Our school districts changed the cutoff date to August 1.  School doesn't start until the very end of August, so all children entering K have to be at least 5 years 1 month old.  I think it's cut down on redshirting a bit because parents no longer have to make the decision about their "barely 5" children.

[Julie Smith]

NJ allows local districts to set their own cut-off as long as it's after October 1st.  My district is October 1st.  The school told us to not send our son to kindergarten until he was 6 (late August birthday).  Red-shirting is very common for boys around here.  It's almost the default option.   We were involved in town rec sports for a while and they go by age.  There was always a lot of discussion about what grade kids were in.

 

I imagine that people who move around a bunch might have trouble due to age cut off dates. 

 

Last year in September my Youngest was 6, and for my area given the cut off dates he was considered to be starting grade 2. 

 

He is now 7 years old, will turn 8 in November and is going into grade 3. 

[FairProspects]

Virtually all boys born April or later are red-shirted here or are advised by pre-school teachers to red-shirt. I know some boys as far back as January birthdays that were red-shirted. More than half of all summer birthday girls are too.

 

I have several teacher friends who report that 30+ percent of their classes are red-shirted students. It definitely impacts my decision on what grade to label my ds even as a homeschooler.

[warneral]

I did it but didn't know there was a term (which somehow sounds disgraceful?)

 

My son was a May 28 birthday. He had some early speech delays and has always been on a different time clock which was younger than his actual age. I didn't regret it in school, and now that we homeschool, I sometimes regret having done it, but all in all I was making a decision on MY son and what I thought was best for him. The fact that he will be an 18 year old senior really won't be a problem (I figure).

[airforcefamily]

We started homeschooling because of moving to a state with an earlier age cutoff. Our oldest went to preschool and was not nearly the youngest in the class. We had to move to another state the next summer and were told that she could not go into kindergarten even though she was ready, could not go to preschool again because all the spots were full, and so would have to wait at home for an entire year then start kindergarten. No thanks. We decided to homeschool instead.

 

Now we live in yet another state with an early age cutoff. People assume she is two grade levels behind the work she is doing at home. People also assume another of our children, whose birthday is the day of the cutoff, will be held back for no reason. We don't plan on using the public schools but it's an interesting assumption.

 

I don't agree with the practice at all unless there are compelling reasons. The post that asked 'where does it stop' got it right. When all fall birthday kids waited a year the new norm became summer birthday kids waiting. Now what? Any kid who starts on time is considered to be immature and behind simply because parents of other kids decided their child should have a special advantage.

[NASDAQ]

Our cut-off is December 31st. My fourth would be young for her grade (Nov. 4th).

 

I would not red-shirt except in the most compelling of circumstances. My rising second-grader was hopeless when she was K age. I don't think we know much about where kids will end up before about third grade anyway; They're unreliable. And I don't want to cut off that extra year of earnings at the end, once they enter the workforce.

[Mandy in TN]

I may be back later when I have more time. My general thought on the subject is that as kindergarten has become more and more developmentally inappropriate more parents choose to hold children whose birthdays are near the cut-off.

 

When my son who is entering his second year of college went to kindergarten it was half day and much of that time was social. The learned letters and sounds, counting, how to skip and jump rope, colors, names for body parts like calf and ankle. They sang songs and had centers that had things like giant cardboard blocks and another set up like a kitchen. There was a lot of talking and they were there for 4 hours. Basically, things that were developmentally appropriate for kids who were just turning 5yo.

 

Now, kindergarten is all day- the same length day as the 8th graders. There is a lot of desk time. Kids are expected to be reading and writing their own multi-sentence short stories by the end of kindergarten. If I had a little guy who was turning 5 in July, I probably wouldn't send him to that. It is just sad. :(

 

Mandy

[Soror]

Around here parents that red-shirt do not do so to give their child an advantage, at least that is not the general reason I've been given. They do it because they know their child would flounder in the current k environment. They don't want their child labeled as ld/sn because they cannot meet the current standards. They do it because they don't want their child to think they're dumb their first year of school.

 

It was not a decision I made lightly here. It didn't really come up officially until ds was 7 when we did Cub Scouts. It is a shame that PS is forcing this onto many parents. I'm very thankful to be at home and able to meet ds' needs. I don't know why one should feel guilt over following a date when start dates are so arbitrary and quite different all across the country. Personally, I consider ds really in between grades ability wise for my planning purposes. His grade placement works perfectly for extra-curriculars.

[Belacqua]

In the district where we live, redshirting is quite common. I'm sure some people do it for academic or social readiness reasons, but most I've talked to acknowledge that it's for sports. High school football is huge here, and parents want their sons to be competitive (and, presumably, be large enough not to get creamed by all the kids who waited a year).

 

Conversely, in the district where we do most of our activities, a lot of kids are competitive about being young for their grade. I've head kids almost scoff about a student who would be turning 18 while still in high school. They take pride in not turning 18 until first semester of college, or at earliest the summer before.

 

Both situations remind me how grateful I am that I never had to make that decision.

[Mom2TheTeam]

I have no clue how common it is. 

 

All I know is I'm very glad that my oldest son's b-day is 2wks AFTER the cut off and my baby boy's is 1wk AFTER.  My older son's b-day could have easily fallen on the other side of the cut off.  He was definitely NOT ready to be pushed into K.  He wasn't ready for any formal schooling at all.  I was so glad I had the freedom to wait without even having to think about it.  I know mom's of boys on the other side of the line and they wish they were after.   My second boy wouldn't have been ready just after his 5th b-day either.  He will be on the older side for K too, but his b-day is 3 months after the cut-off here.I'm sure not all boys are not ready, but mine wasn't.

[Word Nerd]

I don't know any kids here who were red-shirted, but I don't know how common it is either. I didn't even consider it for my DD, and she's only a few weeks from the cutoff date of August 31. (My older DD also has a summer birthday but was homeschooled for several years, and I started K with her at age 5.)

[SKL]

I answered based on my impression of how things are in public schools - that there is some redshirting but it's less than half of summer birthdays for both boys and girls.

 

However, it seems different in private schools.  In my girls' Lutheran school, it seems the norm to redshirt if your kid (boy or girl) has a summer birthday.  The cutoff was 9/30 for my kids' grade, yet there are zero kids who turned 5 between June 10 and October 1.  The only kid who turned five in June is a girl.

[SKL]

I note that I know families where they didn't redshirt but they allowed many of their kids to be retained at some point in public school.  I assume they didn't want the kid home for that extra year, but they weren't committed to helping him/her be successful in school either.  (I've personally seen this in families I know, and I've also tutored many PS kids in this situation; so I do not believe it is unusual, but I do not mean to imply that all retained kids have parents who don't support them at home.)  Ultimately the result is similar as far as the mix of ages in the classrooms after a certain grade level.

 

Repeating KG as a planned course of action is also not uncommon; not sure if that is considered redshirting or not.

 

(Edited to clarify that I wasn't intending to judge all parents of kids who are retained.)

[Mom22ns]

I am curious as to how people know this. Or when I hear people say "everyone here does x" how do they know?

 

I have no clue what other parents do with their 5 how with summer birthdays. We are stating school with ours. :)

 

My kids went to ps for K. I never met a boy in ps with a summer birthday that wasn't redshirted. I only knew a few girls that were and none of them were in my kids classes. I based by answers on our experience. I also know several Pre-K and K teachers. They all strongly recommend parents hold their summer boys back unless they are just exceptionally bright or mature.

 

Since it is done SO much here, it is just the standard. Kids can't leave K until they can read independently. They will also be retained if they can't sit still for the time required in first grade. Sending summer boys into this environment is setting them up for failure (with exceptions). 

 

Personally, I think homeschooling boys who aren't ready for either the academics or sedentary requirements of school is a far better solution that redshirting  :thumbup:

[MinivanMom]

Redshirting is not common in our area.  In fact, our state recently moved the cutoff from Oct.15 to Sept.1, and there were a lot of impassioned complaints from moms whose Sept/Oct boys no longer made the cutoff.  At our church (where we are the only homeschooling family), there are about 250 children in elementary and middle school.  Only 5 of those children are redshirted.  Those 5 children are all boys with summer birthdays who are transplants from areas where redshirting is more common.  My friends who work or volunteer in the schools say that this is consistent with what they see in our local elementary schools.

 

I am personally opposed to redshirting.  The research doesn't back it up, and I've known too many redshirted kids who wound up having serious problems in middle school or high school.  I do fully support parents in making what they feel is the right decision for their individual child.  We are all up against the expectations in our local kindergarten, and we have to make decisions for our children within that framework.  It must be a tough issue for parents who live in an area where redshirting is common.

 

I do find the whole issue fascinating.  The school raises expectations for kindergarten.  Parents start holding kids back in response to the new expectations.  The school raises expectations even more in response to having an older and more mature kindergarten class.  More parents hold their kids back.  The school moves its start date back to reflect what parents are doing.  Even more parents hold their kids back, and on, and on, and on.  It seems like an unstoppable cycle!  Where does it end?!  The weird thing is that I don't see that extra year shaking out as an advantage in the end (though it may be the right choice for an individual).  I don't see high schoolers scoring higher on their SAT's, accomplishing more academically, or showing more maturity.  If kindergarten is the new 1st grade then why don't we see better results in 12th grade?  Where did that extra year of academic instruction go?

[Hwin]

Our cutoff is December 5th or 6th so summer birthdays are usually not redshirted (maybe an August boy would be) and spring birthdays definitely are not (for either gender). However, the few people I know who've had to make this decision were okay with sending a 4yo girl but not a 4yo boy, unless they were using Kindergarten as free childcare and okay with the kid repeating.

 

edited to add I am talking about very few people so it's all specific anecdotes and I'm not applying it to all parents... to sum it up, redshirting is more for boys with fall birthdays due to our cutoff.

[Caclcoca]

My oldest son went to public school for K and 1st. We redshirted him, and 3 of his friends were also redshirted that year. It was definitely the best for them. Fast forward six years, and we are now making the same decision with my youngest even though he is at home. He is just not ready to do the level of work that a Ker needs to do. He is very bright, so we may change our minds before we have to declare K or 1st for our cover school next year when he has to be enrolled. All that to say that I think it s fairly common to redshirt boys here.

[SKL]

I answered the poll and a post that I had red-shirted my son before I read this post, and didn't realize there was a distinction between red-shirting and holding back.  we held my son back in 1st grade instead of keeping him out of kindy; he went to kindy.  it's pretty obnoxious of you to assume that I did this because I was not committed to helping him be successful; indeed, I had very good reasons for handling him this way and considered this option on the advice of a kindergarten teacher.  namely, he benefitted from kindy and I wanted him there, but was not sure if he needed to be held back, so I used the kindy year as a "look see" to determine our next move and buy some observational time.  at that age, my son was not a good candidate for homeschooling.  you should not be making assumptions about parents' motives in their educational choices for their kids; it's not your business to do so..

 

Just to clarify, I was talking about families that I know.  (I did say that, but I went back and edited for more clarity.)  I do know enough about them personally to make the comments I made.  I wasn't talking about people I don't know.  However, in the great scheme of things, there are doubtless other families who neither redshirt nor support their kids when they struggle in school.  I have tutored many such children in the public schools as well.  Therefore I do believe that phenomenon impacts the age ranges above the primary grades.  That's not to say there are no parents whose kids are held back despite being well-supported at home.

 

[SKL]

But that's a good point about kids repeating KG.  There are teachers who recommend two years of kindy, and I don't know if these kids are considered "redshirted" or not.

[Dmmetler]

In my area, it's SES based. Red-shirting (or sending your child to a private school with a much earlier cut-off, which accomplishes the same thing) is a sign that you can afford to keep them home/in preschool another year. So, middle class parents almost all red-shirt if their child is within a month or two of the cut-off.

 

It helped that, in TN, until this year it was not required to send your child to school until they were 6,even though K had been made mandatory, so there was a tradition that was in place before K was mandatory that "good parents" waited until age 6, a lot of preschools had 5 yr old classes, and so on. As a result, a lot of kids ended up effectively doing K twice-once in a preschool 5 yr old class, and once in PS K.

 

In urban areas, though, where parents are struggling to pay for child care, even with subsidies, and subsidies stop when the child is age-eligible for K, red-shirting is rare. Retention in the early grades is fairly common, though, because the school is scored on the number of kids who are able to pass the state test in 3rd, so they'd rather retain in K or 1st if a child is "behind" in reading. In the school I taught in, I'd say at least a quarter of the kids were retained in K-2 at some point. About half of those would be young for grade kids, and the other half usually ended up with a special ed label and IEP by 3rd grade.

 

To get the idea, when my DD was accepted for early entry to K (with a November birthday, which would have met the cutoff in other states),  I was told that she was the first child to be accepted in our suburban community in over 10 years. Yet, I know good and well that in the urban school I taught in, there were always a handful of kids in K early-if they didn't get into the limited Pre-K slots (either the child was considered too high functioning, or there just weren't enough and they didn't get picked in the lottery), but the family really couldn't afford good child care, the principal in my school would sign the waiver because he felt it was better for that older 4 yr old to spend the year in K, even if they ended up doing K twice, rather than at home babysitting themselves with the help of Big Bird and Spongebob while a relative slept in another room under the influence of either mind-altering substances or a job that kept them up all night.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Library Momma]

Where I live cutoff is Dec 31st so we are talking about kids with birthdays in late fall through December.  About 10-15 years ago you saw many parents redshirting.  It has now fallen out of favor because in many cases people found that the older children (turning 6) have had issues with a class full of 4 and 5 year olds , that is geared towards the 4 and 5 year olds. There can be an enormous jump in abilities from the time a child is turning 5 to the time they are 6.  When my son started Kindergarten 5 years ago, 11 of the children in his class of 18 had September birthdays (including him).  All were turning 5.  Now, the only people I see redhirting are those who have children with disabilities.

 

I know though, that this is just my area. I'm sure things are different in other places.  Varying cutoffs can make quite a difference.

[Crimson Wife]

There can be an enormous jump in abilities from the time a child is turning 5 to the time they are 6.

And this is a big reason why people might start a young-for-grade kid in K rather than "redshirting" hoping that he (or she but usually it is a boy) will be ready to move on to 1st the following year. Maybe some parents are using K as free daycare, but it's totally rude to assume that's the reasoning for ALL parents whose non-redshirted young-for-grade kids wind up repeating K or going into a formal "transition" class.

 

Let's say that you have a bright fall birthday boy (cutoff is Dec. 2nd) who is reading fluently but not yet writing. His older sister also has a fall birthday, started K at not-quite-5, and is doing well now going into 3rd grade at not-quite-8. You know that kids this age can make big leaps and it's hard to anticipate a year ahead of time whether or not he'll catch up on the writing. You also know that retention is easy but grade-skipping is nearly impossible. Do you automatically "redshirt"? Or do you enroll him in K hoping for the best but knowing he might need to do "transition" between K & 1?

[ocelotmom]

No clue. My guess would be that most people around here put their kids in school as soon as possible, but that's totally a guess.

 

Our cutoff is Sept. 30th, which means DD's birthday is just a few days before the cutoff, and I'm not sure what we would have chosen if we'd been putting her in public school. 

 

 

And this is a big reason why people might start a young-for-grade kid in K rather than "redshirting" hoping that he (or she but usually it is a boy) will be ready to move on to 1st the following year. Maybe some parents are using K as free daycare, but it's totally rude to assume that's the reasoning for ALL parents whose non-redshirted young-for-grade kids wind up repeating K or going into a formal "transition" class.

Let's say that you have a bright fall birthday boy (cutoff is Dec. 2nd) who is reading fluently but not yet writing. His older sister also has a fall birthday, started K at not-quite-5, and is doing well now going into 3rd grade at not-quite-8. You know that kids this age can make big leaps and it's hard to anticipate a year ahead of time whether or not he'll catch up on the writing. You also know that retention is easy but grade-skipping is nearly impossible. Do you automatically "redshirt"? Or do you enroll him in K hoping for the best but knowing he might need to do "transition" between K & 1?

This is what would have been the case with DD. While not reading fluently, she was sounding out cvc words at 4.5, and was doing addition and subtraction, with negative numbers, around the same age. So she seemed totally ready academically, but whether she was ready socially to be the youngest in the class was another question.

[ocelotmom]

double post

[Farrar]

Something that someone brought up in another thread was that redshirting means that in some areas there are now routinely girls in a class with boys that are nearly two years older than them.  On the one hand, I don't really have any problem with mixed age groups.  But on the other hand, the way school segregates kids by grade means that it's a weighted group where there are lots of older boys and lots of younger girls and some kids in the middle, which is different from a group where the ages are just naturally spread out...  I don't know...  it just feels like an added negative social aspect to this phenomenon to me, though it's possible that I'm not fully thinking it through.

[Carpe]

Our cut off is very late (March 1 after the year has started), kindergarten is optional, and school is not mandatory until the year they turn 6 (so all kids born in 2007 must start school this year).

 

Most people send their girls as soon as they can. Boys in Jan-March typically end up with the next grade. Virtually no one holds back kids in the fall or earlier.

[NatashainDFW]

Redshirting is very very uncommon here. The PSK is used as free childcare by the majority BUT that is this community. I have lived in other parts of the state where it was common.