MoCo Schools - Is September 1st birthday cut off the rule?

[Anonymous]

I know 3 or 4 kids (in DD's private K class) who did not pass the test but were allowed to start at the private school at 4, about to turn 5. I'm sure they are smart enough kids, but they were pretty much a year behind DD (late fall birthday). Yes, it's expensive to have to pay for an extra year of daycare/preschool/K, but the cutoff has to be somewhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know 3 or 4 kids (in DD's private K class) who did not pass the test but were allowed to start at the private school at 4, about to turn 5. I'm sure they are smart enough kids, but they were pretty much a year behind DD (late fall birthday). Yes, it's expensive to have to pay for an extra year of daycare/preschool/K, but the cutoff has to be somewhere.

I agree there needs to be a cut-off but there has to be some leeway, hence the test for kids born Sept 1 - Oct 15. I'm sure there were kids born in late summer that were pretty much a year behind your DD. My point is that there's really no difference between a child born Aug. 29th and one born Sept 3rd. I've got the Sept 3rd kid, and some people seem offended that I want to start him "early". One person told me I'm robbing him of his childhood, for goodness sake. For the life of me I can't understand why it's such a big deal. It's 3 days! If he can pass the test and is mature enough I'm not going to hold him back.

[Anonymous]

My daughter has an October 1 birthday. When we were planning on living in DC, she had missed their cutoff by 11 hours, and I was looking for ways to get her into kindergarten a year early. Based on her development so far, I thought she would be ready for kindergarten when she's 4 almost 5. After all, I was fine throughout school starting kindergarten at 4 with a mid-September birthday, and I'm short.

After some reflection, I think the changing cut-off dates reflect the changing expectations. Kindergarten is now what first grade was when I was in school, in terms of teaching reading and math. (And I went to one of the best public schools in the country.)

I still think my daughter would do fine if she started kindergarten at almost-5, but I would prefer to give her another year of play based curriculum. This will be better for my child because I can afford to send her to a high quality pre-kindergarten.

For families that cannot afford high quality early childhood education, research shows that kindergarten readiness does not increase with an extra year at home.

[Anonymous]

There is an interesting chapter in Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell that relates to this. He looks at things like most successful sports players and it turns out it was all based on the cut-off date, but in the other direction. It's better to have a child older when going into school, not younger. It's a good book anyway -- worth reading.

Think of it this way. One child born 1/1 and the other on 8/31. If they both enter school in the same year, then one of the child is 9 months older than the other. That's 15% more mature in terms of age for a 5-year old. The older kid has developed more in many facets, and is more likely to excel.

We're planning our first child and are taking this into account -- we're hoping to have a child born in the first 6 months of the year. However, if fate agrees otherwise, we certainly won't intervene to change the outcome. I guess we're also lucky that the financial costs of paying another year of child care if our child were to wait a year to enter school will not be a burden on us.

Justin

[Anonymous]

I can relate to and empathize with parents wanting the very best education for their children. I'm jumped through tons of hoops and paid a fortunute getting my child into a pre-k program that will ensure him a seat in a very competitive, high-quality charter elementary school.

That said, some of the people in this thread seem a little intense. Let the child's eyes focus on objects before saddling them with a life of intellectual and developmental expectations. Inducing labors and planning pregnancies around school cutoffs is just indicative of the pressures those children will face in school if the parents are that vested into the preschools and kindergartens of pre-born and hypothetical children.

[Anonymous]

We have a September 10 birthday boy who is turning four this year (incidentally he was due at the end of August but was really late) and we live in MoCo where the cutoff is September 1. He is average and we are happy that he will be the oldest in his class rather than the youngest, but you have to admit that it does suck. We had a really tough time finding a preschool that would take him when he was two, even for just a morning class. So he ended up being home with our nanny for an additional year and didn't go to preschool until he was almost three. We're also having to pay an additional year of preschool/nanny for him than we did for his August birthday older sister.

It's just funny that if he had come by his due date, we would have saved over $25,000 in his first 5 years of life, which to us anyway is a lot of money.

[Anonymous]

However, if fate agrees otherwise, we certainly won't intervene to change the outcome.???

So does this mean you would not terminate a pregnancy if the child was born at the "wrong" time of year?? Wow what a statement. Kids develop differently 5yrs 0mos for one child is not the same as 5 yrs 0 mos for another. Each child deserved to be evaluated differently. My August b-day child was bored and ignored in K....a year later would have been even worse.

[Anonymous]

Seriously? People still signing kids early? There was this article in New York Times a while ago
pointing that it is so..... "last generation".. there is something to the effect that poor people rush to sign kids asap
and rich people delay kids.. curiously enough, check for yourself:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/magazine/03kindergarten-t.html?pagewanted=2&en=6534eeb516595491&ex=1338609600&partner=digg&&exprod=digg&%2359;ei=5124&%2359;amp

[Anonymous]

Can we stay on the topic please?