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Ugh I hate cutoffs. I feel like they should all be 5 by the first day of school.

My two girls have November and December birthdays and the cutoff here is (and has been since I was a child) Sept. 1st so I share a lot of the same irks and concerns as you.

It's especially interesting to contrast their experiences to those of DH and myself who both have August birthdays and were not red-shirted (I don't even know if it was a thing back then) so we were very used to being the youngest in our grades. Both of us even started school on our birthdays at some point! And one of my best friends in childhood has an early September birthday so we were nearly a whole year apart in age but always in the same grade. It was never really noticeable for us - if anything it was convenient because she could drive us all around sooner

We had thought about starting our oldest in a private school setting which would allow her to start kinder at 4, turning 5 that November, but ultimately decided against it for logistical reasons. So far, so good.

We have a sept 1 cutoff. We are redshirting my son who was born mid August. We also homeschooled my daughter for kindergarten who was born late April, and then she will join public school in first grade with her regular class. My third daughter is an October birthday, she will do the regular schedule.
For me the issue is that kindergarten here is no longer play based and I think it’s developmentally inappropriate for 5 year olds to participate in full day academic learning/sitting/screen time. 6 is still questionable for a lot of kids, I think 7 is a more appropriate age for this (and research supports this), but we also believe in the value and importance of public school so with each of our kids we are trying to balance protecting their childhood and allowing them to play, while also acknowledging the realities of public ed

@graceandjoy: I know this feels hard for working parents, but I wish we had a half day option. I think I'd probably send all my kids on time if I could opt for a half day.

I think it’s December here. In Oregon it was September. Our second little girl is due in September glad we don’t have to be right on the fence.

@Silva: we have a half day option here actually, but they have to cover the same curriculum in half the time. So lessons are condensed and they don’t have specials like gym and art. There are after school programs but that are more play based but then I was afraid it would be like, school is no fun and after school is fun.

@Foodnerd81: ugh that stinks. Someday things will change and we will get over this "earlier and faster and more is better" mentality and let kids be kids.

Here, kids have to be 5 on or before August 31. My DD has an early December birthday and, while I’m glad in the long run that she’ll be a bit older when she graduates from high school and (hopefully) starts college, I was mainly apprehensive about her being bored for her second year in pre-K. At our daycare, pre-K is a mix of 4- and 5-year-olds. However, it just so happened that the entire class is headed to kindergarten this fall and more than half of them have September-December birthdays. So the teachers were able to work with the whole class on a higher level (DD can sound out words, they’re learning to write lower-case letters as well as capital letters, recognizing and writing double- and triple- digit numbers, etc). It is really unusual that it happened this way and quite honestly, I wouldn’t be too happy if I was the parent of a kid stuck in the younger preschool class for an extra 6-8 months (fortunately the head preschool teacher is super awesome). But it’s working well for us...

Even the private schools around here generally follow the same cutoff because of people who enrolled their kids in private for just one year to “beat the system” and send them at 4. The public schools also require kids to be 6 to enter first grade, but drop the age barrier from second grade on.

ETA: from the way I described it, our daycare/pre-K sounds pretty hardcore but it’s really not. They do an excellent job of mixing skills with play and we’ve been really happy with how DD is learning without feeling pushed into it. Which actually makes me more worried about what public K is going to be like, but unfortunately private isn’t a good logistical choice for us right now.

Dec 1 which as a teacher I think is terrible. I can't imagine a 4 year old (especially a boy as they develop about a year behind girls) doing what is expected of kindergartens here in suburban NY schools (basically 1st grade, focus on academics, lots of seat time).

Honestly, my biggest concern is that it isn't the same everywhere. We're military and moving this year. DS is ready and I would be paying for private kindergarten (same price as daycare) and in his current daycare. I suspect that he will be in an easier daycare/preschool when we move. His early October birthday is a few days behind the September 30 cutoff.

Our current location, the cutoff is August 31, but you can petition and test to start kindergarten as long as the child is 5 by October 15. However, the private kindergarten would allow him to start 1st grade the following year.

@graceandjoy: I've seen my district's curriculum map . But mostly my good friend is a 1st grade teacher so she tells me what's expected. And my 2 best friends just went to K orientation and were like Holy Moly, they have to write sentences?! And use computer programs?!

Ours is 9/1 and my two older are January which is great, they’ve had a whole half year past 5. Our third is 8/8 and I expect to send her at just 5 but we’ll see how she’s doing obviously as she’s not yet 1. But I’m always reading these threads to help think through it!

I think being the third kid she might be ready and I really like our kinder teachers. I’ll be interested to see how my son (middle) does with all day kinder though, as he’s way more active and less mature than my oldest.

Ours is Sept 1 - my oldest was born at the end of July, and we are most likely not going to redshirt him (largely because our kindergarten is half-day.)

@katsupgirl: that’s how ours works too. December 31 cutoff, and all kids born in the same year go to school at the same time. The difference in our system is that kids are at least 5.75 when they start, and most kids have had 2-3 years of preschool. My DS’s birthday is 2 days before the cutoff and he went on time and is doing fine despite usually being the youngest. I have a nephew who is just a few weeks younger than my son, but he’s a year behind in school since he had to start the following year. At least this way, there’s only 12 months difference between oldest and youngest.

@lamariniere: I like that the Max age diff is 12 months.

@graceandjoy: I didn’t realize until HB that the cutoffs varied so widely in the US. It’s crazy and stressful. If the country went to one system I would hope it was the dec. 31st one.