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We're in a suburb of NYC and most districts (including ours) are Dec 1 - some are the 31st. My daughter misses it by less than 2 weeks but I think it will be better for her to be one of the older kids than one of the younger ones.

I'm in MA and in our town it's Sept 1.

So my 2 October babies will be turning 6 one month after starting K

I'm in California and the cutoff is now Sept 1 (moved from Dec 2 a few years ago.). They are, however, offering Transitional Kindergarten for kids that turn 5 between Sept 2 & Dec 2. My first 2 have winter birthdays so I haven't really had an opinion but my mom is a Kindergarten teacher and absolutely loves it. She said with expectations as high as they are now for what kids should/need to be doing in K, she's found that most kids do better being older and more mature.

@MommySLP: I was an aide for several K teachers several years ago before they made the switch and they always recommended waiting for parents on the fence. Our kids will both do TK and I'm happy about that!

Sept 1 and my daughter's birthday is 2 weeks later so I'm not super thrilled with it, but I realize there will always be older and younger kids! The annoying thing is in MA its up to the town to decide and the next town over is October 1st!

I like in Kentucky and they just moved it to August 1 for the next school year. I don't like it. Both of my girls will turn six a month and a half after starting K unless they test in early.

The cutoff is 8/31 here in North Carolina. DS misses it by a few days - his due date was 8/26 but he was born 9/3. You can pay to have your child tested for early entry but I don't think we'll pursue that option -- he gets an extra year to be a kid/at home and we get an extra year to save for college We will probably send him to a transitional K program when he is 5 (several church preschools have them in our area for kids with summer birthdays) just to ward off boredom.

North Texas, 9/1. I'm not a fan. I have a November baby August baby. They are three years apart but will be 4 grades. And after going through Kinder with my August baby, I'm confident my November baby would be able to handle it too but there are not any options for starting early.

It's September 1 here and school starts the Tuesday after Labor Day (and goes until this Friday).

I'm in a Westchester suburb just north of NYC and the cutoff is 12/1. It's the same where I teach too.

@Mrs. Champagne: just curious, what is the curriculum like for K there? Do you know how it compares to the US? I'm in California and I saw quite a few 4 year olds struggle when starting K (when the cutoff was in Dec).. I can't imagine starting them at 3!

MA and it's 9/1 here (I think- or 8/31?). It's not great for my older one as she is an end of July bday and will start K a month after turning 5, but I think she does better being with older kids than with younger, so I'm not worrying about holding her back.

I don't really see how i could "dislike" the cut off date- someone is always going to be youngest and oldest, whether it's sept 1 or June 17, right? Or do people feel that it's better if everyone has already been five for a couple months or something? My oldest just finished her first year of preschool so I really don't know!

@ShootingStar: my younger one is a December bday so I think she will do 3 years of part time preschool/ preK, but knowing that I'll purposely be able to step it up every year I think. But I guess that's more of an option with part time?

@MommySLP: what is transitional Kindergarten and how is that different from preK? Do kids go from TK to regular K the next year?

@Mrs. Champagne: it sounds a lot like TK here. A lot of places don't have TK or Jr K but if it is an option then that's ideal. I like that. I really wish we put more into early education here but I guess that's a whole other can of worms!

Illinois. Sept 1.

CA, sept 1. DD1 has a January birthday and will fall where I did in school (also Jan birthday) but with more kiddos on the older side where I was one of the older kids when the cut off was dec 2 when I was growing up. DD2 will do TK as she's late Oct and then will be on the older side when she starts Kinder.

@Foodnerd81: Yeah, with full time we can't really step it up. The school says they can tailor it to be more challenging, so we'll see. I'm not sure how other preschools work, but in daycare (at least the ones I'm familiar with) there are separate rooms for "preschool" and "pre-k". And typically you move up through all the rooms, spending 1-1.25 years in each. But DS will spend 2 full years in the same room with the same teacher and the 2nd year a class full of kids younger than him. I'm just kind of worried about it.

PA, the cutoff is August 31st (just changed from September 15th last year), and is different depending on which school district you're in. My oldest is an August baby, but I'm due with #2 on September 14th, so it stinks to have to pay $10-$12k in daycare costs for an additional year due to a few weeks (especially considering that depending on when I deliver, had the timing been different she may have made it in). There is no option to be given an exemption or test in. Of course I have no idea how baby #2 is going to be academically, but with E having been in daycare since she was 1, I can't imagine holding her back from K a full year if she had been born 3 weeks later.

In addition, each school district decides whether they do full day or half day K, and currently where we are it's half day K. So we have to wait an extra year *and* still pay a big chunk of money for daycare for that K year. I personally think the half day K is a huge waste (they spend more time being transported around than they do actually at school, and don't get recess because of the shorter day). There are whispers the district is going to try to make the change to full day K :).

Obviously baby #2 isn't even born yet, so I'll cross that bridge when I come to it, and who knows what the future holds! It's just kind of in my peripheral vision right now. I know that there always has to be a cutoff, I just wish it wasn't so variable and that there were other options besides going to private K and testing into 1st grade.

In our city it's Sept. 1 and you have to be 6, but our LO is in private school and it's December 31 (also have to be 6), so he was able to start a whole year earlier than if he had gone to the local public school (end of December birthday). I'm glad he didn't have to wait because he was ready when he started.

I'm in NJ, in a suburb of NYC, and our Pre-k cutoff (same as K) is Sept 30. I'm from Texas originally, where the cut off is 9-1, so it seems "late" to me, although NY is Dec., so we are "early" compared to them.

In any case, I don't really care where the cut off is. My girls are July and August, so they will both start on time.