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Speak up (to your school) if you are worried about all the redshirting
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Anonymous
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A small group of parents at our private school recently went to the administration to discuss the trend of redshirting and to inquire about how the school planned to handle it. Many of us were concerned that the trend is damaging in many respects, and we have read up on all the studies and articles about it. We were particularly concerned about how it affects the girls -- because boys are much more likely to be redshirted than girls, it can create a situation where you have young five year old girls in classes with boys much older than them, and this can exacerbate pre-existing gender issues in the classroom.
The school was very receptive. They were aware of the issues, of the studies, and were interested in hearing our thoughts. Our school is going to be strict with the date cut-offs, and only allow a "redshirt" where there is a documented developmental issue that is legitimate, and they will inquire to make sure it is appropriate. I just want to encourage everyone who is concerned about this issue to speak directly to the school. Schools are becoming more and more sensitive to this growing problem, and many are enacting policies and/or practices to deal with it. I was extremely concerned about my summer-birthday kids being disadvantaged by this practice, especially my daughter, but after speaking to the school, I really trust that they are on top of this. |
Anonymous
| Whom are you kidding?? Many private schools are driving the trend by insisting on redshirting! |
Anonymous
Good for you--great idea!
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Anonymous
| what school??? |
Anonymous
| A group of parents has done this at my school too. |
Anonymous
| maybe you are at the same school. What school(s) have done this? |
Anonymous
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Teacher here-
I've been fighting this myself but the school is insisting on it. We've changed the cut-off date for kindergarten 3 times in 4 years with no clear rhyme or reason. It's a mess. We currently have several 7-year-olds in K and a starting age of 5.3. We are trying to move that back down to 5, though already have a crop of 6.4's moving up. |
Anonymous
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I thought teachers actually liked red-shirting since the older kids are easier to teach.
BTW, at our school, you can bring in all the research you want, it makes no difference. The school should have been doing the research. |
Anonymous
| This issue is way exaggerated. I have a child at a Big 3, and maybe there are 3-4 kids out of 70 that are redshirted. But, so what. They all appear to have had good reasons, which I am not to judge. Finally, none of the kids care, and neither do the parents. |
Anonymous
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"I thought teachers actually liked red-shirting since the older kids are easier to teach."
If that is the attitude of the teachers at your school, you should demand your money back. First off, redshirting makes a teacher's job MORE difficult. When you expand the age range, you expand the level of differentiation. If your program is not designed for multi-age groups, it's damn near impossible to meet every students' need. More importantly, I'm not looking for my job to be "easy". I'm looking to do it well. When I teach K I want to teach K-aged students. If I wanted to teach 7-year-olds, I'd teach them a 1st grade curriculum. In 1st grade. |
Anonymous
| And the teacher's point doesn't even raise the negative social issues, on both sides of the spectrum. |
Anonymous
I believe the whole goal of holding back children (when done for the right reasons) is to reduce the differentiation by carefully grouping children by their skills/abilities, rather than bluntly grouping them by chronological age. I suspect most people on DCUM would agree wholeheartedly that when it's done for the wrong reasons (to gain some improper advantage), redshirting is a bad thing. But it also seems most people (including me) think that it makes sense to hold children back who are not really ready to move on. |
Anonymous
| I was recently speaking with the Head of the Lower School at DS's NW private school, and the Head told us that there is new research out showing ill effects from redshirting. Head said that the pendulum looks to be swinging back in the other direction as the research piles up in favor of sending kids on based on cut-offs. I did not ask to see the research, as this was not the main point of our conversation, but did find it interesting to hear. |
Anonymous
Ah, the "several 7 yr olds in Kindergarten" again... what school?  Oh wait, I know you can't reveal it!
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Anonymous
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I don't understand why people won't name names. We have a kid with a very late August birthday, so we called around the privates and spoke to the admissions directors or others in the admissions offices. Here is what they said, not verbatim, but the bottom line after 5 minutes or more on the phone:
Maret: we want older kids Sidwell: we're flexible, though usually end up with older kids Concord Hill: happy to take younger kids Sheridan: happy to take younger kids I know we spoke to Beauvoir and GDS but don't remember exactly their bottom line, so I don't want to characterize it. |