Hellobee Boards

Do people not repeat kindergarten anymore?? When my brother started, he was born right around the cutoff, so he was the youngest in his kindergarten class. After, the teachers thought he could benefit from another year of kindergarten, so he just repeated it and was one of the oldest kids. So parents sent their kids to school on time and then just repeated K if necessary!

I'd never heard of redshirting outside of Hellobee (except in Star Trek terms - redshirts are doomed to be killed off!). I don't think people do it here. But our district cut-off is September 30th. My November baby will be one of the oldest in his class. My February baby will be in the middle.

I'm in NYC and didn't realize there were so many different cutoffs across the country. I like the Dec. 31st cutoff here. It's simple. All kids born in a certain year are in the same class. I'd be ticked if I had to hold back my Oct. baby for a whole year.

I don't think you can hold kids back here unless you put them in a private school. Some of the private schools have summer cutoffs.

I also think the red shirting and more academic kindergarten programs feed into each other to create a problematic cycle.

@Adira: I grew up in Mass like you and when I was a kid we had a grade called "Readiness". It was between Kindergarten and 1st grade and some kids went and some kids didn't based on how they adjusted to Kindergarten. K was half day, 1st was full day, and Readiness was 2 half days and 3 full days. It seems like a great solution for kids who need a little extra time to be ready for 1st grade, and they have a whole year of school to make that determination vs. a parent just making a decision that their kid isn't ready to start K on time. I've heard though that they have eliminated Readiness because it created a stigma for the kids who had to go.

Yes to so many comments that have already been said here. I think there should be more rigor around the process of redshirting and I don't think parents should be the sole decision makers. Teachers and administrators are experts in their fields and should know more about development and education than us non-educator parents. And let's face it, parents come with pretty significant bias about their children.

I have a daughter with a later August birthday and we have a 9/1 cutoff. It was never a consideration to redshirt her. She is behind emotionally. It is a problem for her in school. But she will catch up, her teachers have told me to expect her to level off emotionally (or catch up) in second grade.

My other daughter has a November birthday. She will be one of the older kids in her class when she gets there. I wish we had an option to test in early, as I would at least entertain the process for her and accept the outcome of the testing. But unfortunately, we don't have that option at all in our district.

Sure, Kinder is more academic than back in my day, but I don't necessarily view it as a bad thing. They still get plenty of carpet time and learning through play type activities. It's not all sitting at a desk with a pencil in hand.

@Adira: I think a lot of parents mistakenly assume that there is an option just to repeat K, but given the state of the school budgets, districts really discourage it because they don't have the ability to really spend more than they have allotted for a child. It's unfortunate, but school funding is a problem in a lot of states.

I also think it creates a lot of stress on a child to repeat a year, all your friends are moving on and you're staying behind...I would rather start late than have a child go through that.

@katsupgirl: I have a really hard time with the idea that two kids born in Jan and Dec of the same year are on the same developmental level. It's a full 12 months difference, which is why I actually prefer if we did mixed level/ability classes. I think you get this no matter what kind of cut off you do, though, so maybe the right solution involves going by ability rather than age.

I do think that all kids benefit from being in a mixed ability class. Let's face it, as adults, we have to deal with a population of mixed ability people all the time.

There should definitely be more rules. Have a national cutoff. We have this issue in Canada too - some provinces have a Dec 31 cutoff, others have this stupid Mar 31 cutoff (of the following year). In my opinion, if parents hold their kid back from entering kindergarten on time, they should have to enter the grade appropriate to their age group. The redshirting option should only be given if the birthday falls within 1 month of the cutoff.

Studies show that redshirting is a disadvantage for kids who are academically advanced/gifted or high achieving, but there is so much attention on the so-called benefits of holding back your kid that it scares parents (thanks, Malcolm Gladwell). Younger kids actually have much larger gains by learning with older kids.

I'm not familiar with US G&T programs, but i wonder how testing/entry works - how would they compare the results with a redshirted kid vs a non-redshirted kid, but competing for the same classroom spot?

A big problem is that you have more wealthy families redshirting their kids, and it's usually not for academic reasons. This only creates a bigger disadvantage for poor students who may not have had the luxuries of a strong preschool program.

@sunny: Mine is petite too - we went to a 4 year old's birthday party last week, and he is bigger than her!!

I have all the thoughts about this. We live in the south in a very high redshirt area. It's a well off area so parents do hold their kids back just to have them home longer. Cut off is August 15 and I'd say it's common to hold back from May on, I actually know someone who held back from December of the previous year! My oldest son was an October baby and therefore on the older side. My youngest is July 25 and just turned 5 when we sent him this year. He is the youngest in his class. We sent him for a variety of reasons- he's smart academically, he behaves better with older kids, it's a financial strain to put him in another year of daycare, we wanted both kids in the same school., etc...
His behavior/ maturity is completely appropriate for a child his age, but since half the class is at least a year older than him his maturity is NOT at their level. Therefore he is struggling with behavior in kindergarten. They expect so much of kids in K now. And it's not academics its behavior-wise. It's hard for a newly five to be attentive for as long as is required. And it's impossible for them to act like a 6 year old in this regard.
I am very thankfully we have an older teacher who has seen it all. And has watched kindergarten evolve herself and assures us his behavior is completely appropriate for his age (even though not at the level of his peers) and that all the "problems" he is having now he will grow/age out of. But I do wish parents wouldn't hold their kids back a year because they feel like or because of maturity. (Because typical five year olds AREN'T mature.)

Redshirting keeps me up at night these days I have a mid-September boy with a district cut off of October 1, but parents have recreated a June/July (often earlier) cut off themselves. So much so that the principal of what will be his elementary school said she literally cannot remember the last time she had a September boy start "on time." Well then why is there even a cut off?! We have him in private K at daycare this year, since that was the next step after finishing pre-K, but he will likely repeat K again next year when he enters the public school. So technically we'll be "redshirting" him, but I sorta feel like we're left no choice when it's so common here. I'm against it in principal, but also feel like it's not fair to my son to have to be the trailblazer with kids 1-1.5 years older than him. It's so stressful!

@SeptMomma12: yes! I feel like red shirting has become so common that there is pressure to do so when your child is close to the cutoff, and then that leads to even more redefining of what is "close", exaberating the problem even more.

I really like the rules in NYC, actually. For public K, there is no redshirting allowed. If your kid was born in 2012, they have just started kindergarten. If you decide to skip kindergarten and do another year of (I suppose private) pre-k, you'll need to enroll them in 1st grade next year. This means that the age range of the kids is limited to those born within the calendar year - there is no 18-month age range - no older kids that have been held back a year. The teachers are prepared to teach to a class that is a mix of mostly 5 year olds and some 4.75 year olds.

Personally, my son turns 5 in late October, and I'm very glad he's in K this year. He's been in preschool/pre-K for 3 years already, and is more than ready for kindergarten, even though he'll be among the youngest in the class. But I expect there will be a range of abilities, maturities etc. in the class, and the teacher is prepared for that.

When I was in kinder, I was the cutoff baby by a day. The teacher scared the daylights out of me on the first day of school due to a communication issue and I became very timid. She conferenced to hold me another year because of social immaturity but my mom advocated at the end of the year to send me ahead, despite the teacher's opinion, as I was very advanced academically, even before kinder started. I definitely wasn't academically challenged as I was, so I am very grateful it was a parent/teacher decision and not just one sided. Although I was immature compared to my peers. I don't think keeping me back for the social/maturity side would have addressed the problem.

@kodybear: Yeah, I think there are totally valid reasons for TK and even for redshirting if your kid just really needs it in the present - but most of the down the line arguments just seem so squishy to me. Perhaps its because my husband is a college professor and he's got some strong opinions about academic success in college (basically he doesn't think any of the redshirting reasons really add up outside the VERY elite Ivy League level arenas where things are crazy anyway). I know lots of people who did TK and loved it, so I'm not knocking it AT ALL. Especially if you're leaping from a private daycare/preschool to a big public school, I think its fantastic and totally useful as a transition tool to school.

But that's what I'm saying - like the parent knows their kid best, but HOPEFULLY parents are humble/smart enough to get input from the professionals to get good advice on when to start.

@gingerbebe: I think TK is awesome! Especially for people who can barely afford preschool. Also I am confused, when you talk about redshirting your son, do you mean if he went to a public school and he would have to wait until he was 5? That's not redshirting. That's the rule of when he can start.

@mrsbubbletea: I call it redshirting because the cutoff is September 1 and he's a September 6th birthday. Like, I get he would be going to school "on time" if we put him in public school, but to me it would be like holding him back an entire year of school because of a 5 day difference. It seems absurd to me that he would have to wait when I felt at 4 years, 359 days old, he was ready.

And I have no problem whatsoever waiting if he needs it. We honestly, for a long time I thought he WOULD need to wait because he had a speech delay. But his teachers have been telling me that while his expressive speech in terms of speaking in sentences is a little behind his peers, its still totally within normal range. And more significantly, they keep telling me he's very "academically motivated." Which is laughable to hear when describing a toddler, but basically he REALLY likes to learn new concepts and he has a ridiculous recall memory. I mean, they use very polite ways to describe him, but basically, he's the really annoying kid who shouts out the answers to things all. day. long. and they have to find creative ways to let the other kids get a word in edgewise. That's why they asked us to let him move him up to the next class early. The thought of not having that type of flexibility and collaboration with my teachers when it came to kinder because of a 5 days was just super frustrating to me.

We are planning on sending our son to private school for a myriad of reasons, but the ability to have more control over when to start kinder and having a school that would do individual readiness assessments just made a lot more sense to me.

I'm not a teacher and I'm not around kids every day other than my own. So I have no idea how their behavior stacks up compared to their peers. I really look to the teachers to give me their opinions.

I do have a lot of angst around my son and kindergarten, but for the complete opposite reasons than red shirting. He has a November birthday and our district has a 9/1 cutoff. I grew up in NYS so this is kind of bizarre to me. Due to the way MA structures daycare staffing laws, he started pre-school in August last year at 2 years 9 months. He did the preschool room for a year, and they moved him up to pre-k this month. Because he misses the 9/1 cutoff and because our daycare doesn't have a kindergarten room, he will be in pre-k for two full years.

Part of me thinks it's a good idea for him to not go to K because I think he needs time to get to where he can sit still and listen. But again, I'm not a teacher. And I know K is way more academic than when I was a kid. But I was one of those kids who was SO BORED the first few years of school because it wasn't challenging enough and it had an impact on me until I started grad school.

But basically, when it comes to redshirting, I think it should be more of a call for the teachers/administration to decide if an individual kid would succeed more by waiting a year.

My sister has the redshirt problem. She was born August 7th, with a cut off date of August 15th, and my parents chose to hold her back.

She's in HS now. She has always been more mature than her peers, she physically developed way before them (and was definitely bullied as a result), and now she's the only driver among them. She was always friends with the kids in the grade ahead of her...but her 8th grade sucked because they were all in hs.

Yes, she would be advanced regardless. But holding her back just magnified the issues.