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@looch: Yes all in the same room with the same teacher all day. They only go out for special area (art, pe, music etc).

I dont think its until 3rd grade that they start moving around.

For a boy with a summer birthday it is extremely common here. Less common with girls, but definitely still happens quite a bit. What I think is interesting is how many boys born in winter or spring are getting red-shirted. The twins are March babies and we have never considered red-shirting based on age or any other developmental issues, but we have friends who will have sons in their classes that were born in March of the year prior and will start with them.

Redshirting is not uncommon here but it is not the norm either. My DD is the youngest (2 days before cutoff) and my DS will be the oldest (10 days after cutoff) and I expect them both to do fine by following the cutoff. But if I had any hesitation, I would consider holding back or pushing forward.

@looch: I'm pretty sure they do but I think they are focused more on grades 2+ (aka students that are behind and at risk of being held back).

The teacher basically told the parent I think that she could assign extra work for at home for the student to practice on.

It is super common where I live. My town refers to them as "sunshine babies", meaning those born in the summer months, and encourages holding them back. My son is an August baby and the cutoff is 8/31. We will be holding him back, as will most of his friends born in the summer. I have mixed feelings about it but I think, for my son, the extra year of maturity will only help him. We based our decision on the advice of his preschool teachers as well as intuition.

In NYC (where my older DDs started school), it's pretty strictly prohibited. The cut-off there is 12/31, and from what I understand, the DOE got very strict about red shirting because people were abusing it - holding back spring/summer birthdays, which created an 18 month age gap between some kids in the same grade. The 12/31 cutoff put both of my older kids right in the middle of the pack age-wise, so I never thought much about pushing ahead or holding back.

The cut-off where we are now is 10/1. DD3 was born 10/15, so I'm actually more concerned about the possibility of pushing her ahead a year if it's appropriate. I've heard other parents discussing the same thing at a preschool open house hosted by the public school system, rather than talk of holding back.....but that's probably biased just because if you wanted to red-shirt a child, you wouldn't be at an open house for the coming year.

ETA: Gosh, sorry, this turned out to be a novel!

@looch: Good question - it's a little bit complicated, and since I was playing totally by the book in terms of age and zoned school, I'm not 100% sure of what happens when people try to bend the rules - no one I know has been brave enough to try, though we certainly discuss it a lot!

We apply for pre-k and k online...so I guess it would be easy to fudge a child's birthday (or more likely, their address, since that could get him/her priority for a seat in a better school). But once the child receives an offer for a seat at the school, parents have to go to the school in person, with the child, and present a whole bunch of documents - the child's birth certificate & medical records, parent id, proof of address....so I guess at that point, if the child was really first grade age (born in 2011 rather than 2012), the school could deny the kindergarten placement. If the kindergarten placement was in the child's "zoned" school, it probably wouldn't be a big deal and the kid would just go to first grade at the same school - but if the child had gotten into a school they WEREN'T zoned for, I'm not sure the school would be obligated to "make room" for the student as a first grader, and the student might be asked to reapply to their zoned school.

I am guessing that if a young-for-grade child is genuinely having trouble performing in first grade, the school would quickly consider the appropriateness of having the child move down a grade - but I really don't know.

Also, I was surprised to find out via a friend who was considering homeschooling/not sending her November boy to kindergarten that kindergarten is not mandatory in NYC either....but skipping it just means that the child goes straight to first grade when they must enter school at six, not that they get to do Kindergarten when they are six...so there's no loophole there. But again, what happens if a child who has never been to school can't keep up with peers who have been going to full day school for at least a year already? I'm not sure. It all seems like such a slippery slope. FWIW, my friend sent her son to K, and he's doing fine.

Lastly - if you meant how does the state *really know* if you send a six (or seven) year old to school....good question. I guess that if the child was born in that state, the state could choose to chase up birth records? I know that we've been chased with DD3 for results of various newborn screenings the state felt needed to be repeated - and I was surprised by this. But people in NYC move so much that I imagine it's hard to track down truant families, and I don't know if there is really anyone dedicated to trying! I DO KNOW that because my child was registered for pre-k, I am getting completely harassed - like multiple auto-dial phone calls per night - because the Kindergarten application deadline is today, and I haven't put her name in (because we moved). I expect I'll also get calls about my 2.5 year old for Pre-K next year, because the DOE has a record of her as a sibling of DD1. But if a child was never in the DOE system before, part of me doubts anyone is checking in.

It's common where we live. Both of our sons will miss the district cutoff of September 1 by about 3 weeks as they're both September birthdays. I don't think LO1 is socially ready for kindergarten. He's more of my needy child, and he's extremely sensitive. I think he'll benefit from going to kindergarten when he's 5 turning 6.

LO2 is only 15 months, but he's a social butterfly already. I don't know if there's an opportunity to test into kindergarten, but I would want to evaluate once he's older.

As far as it being common, our neighbor is holding her son who turned 5 in early August because she thought it would be best. She's contemplating holding her other son who has a May birthday, and I think that might be a little too long. He would be 6 turning 7 in May of his kindergarten year, and I think that's too old without some sort of developmental delay.

On the contrary, I have a friend whose son is 5 and will be 6 in April. He's in a transitional kindergarten right now and will be going to kindergarten in September when he's 6 turning 7 in April. I feel it's appropriate for him, because he's had some developmental and behavioral challenges for most of his life.

It's pretty common where we are. DS has a late June birthday and the cutoff is mid-August. He's one of the youngest in his Kindergarten class, if not the youngest?

At first I was afraid we'd made the wrong choice because he struggled a lot with his writing, but he's caught up to an admirable degree and his reading is taking off. I think he'll be OK academically and he doesn't have any major behavioral/social issues that weigh in. I think for me one of the biggest things has been accepting that his age means, at least for now, he's not going to be that kid who is super ahead. And that might actually be a good thing? I think if I'd held him he might have been bored.

@looch: Yup! I was part of a discussion with parents here in NJ (where the cutoff is Oct. 1) about not wanting to "hold back" children with October birthdays. The workaround I've heard to be most common is to send the child to private school (where there is wiggle room on age) for a year or two, then transferring them into the public system at the higher grade level.

Waaaaaay too soon to tell, but if DD3 is anything like DD2 (very advanced for her age, mostly from having close older siblings to copy, I suspect), I might be considering this sort of move for her.