Redshirting consequences at Lafayette

[Anonymous]

Have you been in a classroom? Teachers go “off book” daily. In my kids classes, the teachers often bring up current major current event stories that are relevant to the general curriculum they are teaching but an extension of it. The movie Oppenheimer was discussed in a physics class about nuclear fission and a History class of WWII. No AP exam will bring up a Christopher Nolan movie.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I doubt this will matter to the already derailed thread, but there have been boys redshirted all over the city.

It's not a strictly Lafeyette, or strictly NW, or strictly Ward 3 thing.

I live in NE. I asked to redshirt my August birthday kid (in part due to Covid -- she missed PK3 due to Covid and seemed immature for K to me) and was told no and that it was not permitted under DCPS rules. We know lots of summer and September birthdays at our school (the young kids from the grade seem to gravitate towards each other) and none are redshirted.

I was very surprised when this story surfaced to learn that redshirting was fairly common at Lafayette or any school. It is unheard of at our DCPS and I can't imagine them allowing it absent SNs.

You just described most of the kids your dd’s age. They couldn’t redshirt everyone who needed it after Covid, because that was the majority of kids.

Perhaps an uptick in redshirting requests due to Covid disruptions is part of what led DCPS to start cracking down on it. Redshirting is a practice that only works if it's fairly limited. If Covid led to it becoming more common, I could see the district deciding they needed to limit parental discretion. What if 5-10% of parents decides, at their discretion, they need to redshirt? And redshirting also begets more redshirting because in districts where most summer birthdays are redshirted, you start to see May and June birthdays being redshirted too, and it kind of becomes a snake eating its own tail.

To be clear, I am NOT anti-redshirting. But I do think you have to limit it somewhere -- it can't just be a free for all. I'm open minded about how the limits should work. Requiring an eval for readiness seems reasonable for me. I also think flexible cutoffs where there is a window would work.

The problem with the Lafayette parents is that they don't seem to care about creating good policy -- they just want a carve out exemption for themselves. That's hard to endorse.

Many privates have many redshirted children. It creates quieter classrooms. The youngest children with April and May birthdays are just fine.

Imagine a class where the kids are learning addition. All NT children reach a point where there is no relative benefit to being older when it comes to learning addition. Or perhaps at a younger age, kids are learning about sharing. All NT children reach a point where they’re not struggling with sharing because if immaturity. The fact that you’re past this point by a month or six doesn’t make a difference. It doesn’t give the six month older kid an advantage.

What it does do is create learning-oriented classes. This is why I support redshirting. Even for my kids who would never be redshirted because of the way their birthdays fall, I appreciate redshirting. It does impact them: it creates fewer conflicts. It’s better to be around mature, well-behaved children for many reasons.

Behavioral problems do exist in private, but I’m glad the schools eliminate as many as could possibly exist.

Teachers set their lesson plans to the middle of what their particular class can handle. So if a class with a large proportion of redshirters can, to use your example, easily handle single digit addition, they might introduce double digit addition to stretch the class. The youngest on time kids might struggle with this and internalise that they are slow or dumb, not realising that the “ smart” kids are over a year older than them and had been exposed to that material more than them. That’s significant.

No, teachers teach to national standards. A May birthday will not be as disruptive or impacted like the youngest in late September almost October. This is why privates do it without impacting the younger spring birthdays.

That’s rude to continually suggest that non-redshirted September boys can’t keep up or that they’re disruptive. My Sep baby excelled no matter who was in the class and wasn’t ever a distraction. Went to a college people on DCUM are vying to get into and now makes lots of $$.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I doubt this will matter to the already derailed thread, but there have been boys redshirted all over the city.

It's not a strictly Lafeyette, or strictly NW, or strictly Ward 3 thing.

I live in NE. I asked to redshirt my August birthday kid (in part due to Covid -- she missed PK3 due to Covid and seemed immature for K to me) and was told no and that it was not permitted under DCPS rules. We know lots of summer and September birthdays at our school (the young kids from the grade seem to gravitate towards each other) and none are redshirted.

I was very surprised when this story surfaced to learn that redshirting was fairly common at Lafayette or any school. It is unheard of at our DCPS and I can't imagine them allowing it absent SNs.

You just described most of the kids your dd’s age. They couldn’t redshirt everyone who needed it after Covid, because that was the majority of kids.

Perhaps an uptick in redshirting requests due to Covid disruptions is part of what led DCPS to start cracking down on it. Redshirting is a practice that only works if it's fairly limited. If Covid led to it becoming more common, I could see the district deciding they needed to limit parental discretion. What if 5-10% of parents decides, at their discretion, they need to redshirt? And redshirting also begets more redshirting because in districts where most summer birthdays are redshirted, you start to see May and June birthdays being redshirted too, and it kind of becomes a snake eating its own tail.

To be clear, I am NOT anti-redshirting. But I do think you have to limit it somewhere -- it can't just be a free for all. I'm open minded about how the limits should work. Requiring an eval for readiness seems reasonable for me. I also think flexible cutoffs where there is a window would work.

The problem with the Lafayette parents is that they don't seem to care about creating good policy -- they just want a carve out exemption for themselves. That's hard to endorse.

Many privates have many redshirted children. It creates quieter classrooms. The youngest children with April and May birthdays are just fine.

Imagine a class where the kids are learning addition. All NT children reach a point where there is no relative benefit to being older when it comes to learning addition. Or perhaps at a younger age, kids are learning about sharing. All NT children reach a point where they’re not struggling with sharing because if immaturity. The fact that you’re past this point by a month or six doesn’t make a difference. It doesn’t give the six month older kid an advantage.

What it does do is create learning-oriented classes. This is why I support redshirting. Even for my kids who would never be redshirted because of the way their birthdays fall, I appreciate redshirting. It does impact them: it creates fewer conflicts. It’s better to be around mature, well-behaved children for many reasons.

Behavioral problems do exist in private, but I’m glad the schools eliminate as many as could possibly exist.

Because they screen students and also are allowed to kick those out who are disruptive, whereas public schools must serve everyone.

Private is free of both kinds of disruption. If publics have both, and one can be eliminated at zero cost, why not? Do people like having the young, disruptive kid in their kid’s classes?

If DCPS set a bar for academic and emotional readiness that let every UMC kid with a summer birthday and entitled parents redshirt, do you know how many kids they'd have to let redshirt at title 1 schools? Unless you make it specifically exclusive, because the parents have to get outside assessment or something. Which is bad.

Private schools aren't making policies for whole systems. And redshirting is a very small piece of what's different.

As discussed above many privates redshirt freely. Some classes have very little redshirting. Some classes are full of redshirted kids. What matters is the learning environment.

You entirely missed the point that DCPS needs a strategy that works for every DCPS, which is a much broader range that any private school. That six year old who according to her mom doesn't know the ABCs is probably ahead of a lot of DCPS kids who are older than she is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I doubt this will matter to the already derailed thread, but there have been boys redshirted all over the city.

It's not a strictly Lafeyette, or strictly NW, or strictly Ward 3 thing.

I live in NE. I asked to redshirt my August birthday kid (in part due to Covid -- she missed PK3 due to Covid and seemed immature for K to me) and was told no and that it was not permitted under DCPS rules. We know lots of summer and September birthdays at our school (the young kids from the grade seem to gravitate towards each other) and none are redshirted.

I was very surprised when this story surfaced to learn that redshirting was fairly common at Lafayette or any school. It is unheard of at our DCPS and I can't imagine them allowing it absent SNs.

You just described most of the kids your dd’s age. They couldn’t redshirt everyone who needed it after Covid, because that was the majority of kids.

Perhaps an uptick in redshirting requests due to Covid disruptions is part of what led DCPS to start cracking down on it. Redshirting is a practice that only works if it's fairly limited. If Covid led to it becoming more common, I could see the district deciding they needed to limit parental discretion. What if 5-10% of parents decides, at their discretion, they need to redshirt? And redshirting also begets more redshirting because in districts where most summer birthdays are redshirted, you start to see May and June birthdays being redshirted too, and it kind of becomes a snake eating its own tail.

To be clear, I am NOT anti-redshirting. But I do think you have to limit it somewhere -- it can't just be a free for all. I'm open minded about how the limits should work. Requiring an eval for readiness seems reasonable for me. I also think flexible cutoffs where there is a window would work.

The problem with the Lafayette parents is that they don't seem to care about creating good policy -- they just want a carve out exemption for themselves. That's hard to endorse.

Many privates have many redshirted children. It creates quieter classrooms. The youngest children with April and May birthdays are just fine.

Imagine a class where the kids are learning addition. All NT children reach a point where there is no relative benefit to being older when it comes to learning addition. Or perhaps at a younger age, kids are learning about sharing. All NT children reach a point where they’re not struggling with sharing because if immaturity. The fact that you’re past this point by a month or six doesn’t make a difference. It doesn’t give the six month older kid an advantage.

What it does do is create learning-oriented classes. This is why I support redshirting. Even for my kids who would never be redshirted because of the way their birthdays fall, I appreciate redshirting. It does impact them: it creates fewer conflicts. It’s better to be around mature, well-behaved children for many reasons.

Behavioral problems do exist in private, but I’m glad the schools eliminate as many as could possibly exist.

Teachers set their lesson plans to the middle of what their particular class can handle. So if a class with a large proportion of redshirters can, to use your example, easily handle single digit addition, they might introduce double digit addition to stretch the class. The youngest on time kids might struggle with this and internalise that they are slow or dumb, not realising that the “ smart” kids are over a year older than them and had been exposed to that material more than them. That’s significant.

No, teachers teach to national standards. A May birthday will not be as disruptive or impacted like the youngest in late September almost October. This is why privates do it without impacting the younger spring birthdays.

If most kids in class are meeting national standards early in the year, a good teacher will push them a bit further. In private schools where they encourage/force redshirting for kindergarteners who aren't yet reading (fairly common at elite privates), they will adjust teaching forward, beyond national standards, in order to advance the kids. Publics will also do this, and it's not uncommon for schools to divide kids by test scores when they do class assignments, specifically so they can move faster in the classroom with higher scoring kids.

You also get pressure from parents to move more quickly. It's so common for parents to complaint that their child is bored or needs to be challenged more, and you especially see this among UMC and wealthy parents (in publics, they are aware that many privates are accelerating students and often feel the need for kids to keep up, especially in neighborhoods where it's common for families to switch to private in MS or HS, as is the case in upper NW). When you combine this practice with redshirting, you wind up with schools that are teaching past national standards in many if not most classrooms.

But my concern is less with academics than behavior. In a public school, you will always have a range of academic speeds and abilities, even at schools in wealthy neighborhoods or where redshirting is common. In elementary, with parental support and school resources, academic gaps can be overcome. Even with LDs or delays -- I've seen it many times. But behavioral deficits are much harder to "catch up." Kids who are less mature can fall into negative dynamics within their cohort. Being known as the kid who cries easily, who gets frustrated quickly, can be hard to reverse. Not impossible, but it's less straightforward.

I think one of the toughest situations to be in is to be academically advanced but behaviorally behind. There's no solution. I think this is the group that tends to be most impacted by redshirting, and not because the redshirted kids are so much more academically advanced. It's because an academically advanced kid will rarely be redshirted (schools won't want to -- they don't want to accommodate a kid reading at a 2nd grade level in K) but their immaturity will be more visible in classrooms with redshirted kids. It's an example of how the situation cannot always be gamed.

[Anonymous]

The answer is private schools for the rich. Public for everyone else.

[Anonymous]

Why does it seem like so many Lafayette parents clearly would rather have their kids in private schools, but don't either because they can't afford it or their kids weren't special enough. These parents then spend the entirety of their time at Lafayette making everyone else at the school miserable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why does it seem like so many Lafayette parents clearly would rather have their kids in private schools, but don't either because they can't afford it or their kids weren't special enough. These parents then spend the entirety of their time at Lafayette making everyone else at the school miserable.

+1

Stop comparing DCPS to a private school. It just isn’t, doesn’t serve the same population, etc. For all of its faults DCPS has to manage so much more diversity in every way you can imagine that a private school. And many of those resources need to go to support kids who lack resources and stable adults at home. If you want to dictate what happens in your child’s school, go to private school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why does it seem like so many Lafayette parents clearly would rather have their kids in private schools, but don't either because they can't afford it or their kids weren't special enough. These parents then spend the entirety of their time at Lafayette making everyone else at the school miserable.

+1

Stop comparing DCPS to a private school. It just isn’t, doesn’t serve the same population, etc. For all of its faults DCPS has to manage so much more diversity in every way you can imagine that a private school. And many of those resources need to go to support kids who lack resources and stable adults at home. If you want to dictate what happens in your child’s school, go to private school.

DC residents are paying some of the highest state and local tax rates in the entire country, in a place that spends more per student than the vast majority of other states/jurisdictions, so of course we should have high expectations of the public schools that we fund.

Your apathetic, hands-off, let the bureaucrats take care of it approach is frankly far too common and a large part of why our schools are performing at their current levels.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why does it seem like so many Lafayette parents clearly would rather have their kids in private schools, but don't either because they can't afford it or their kids weren't special enough. These parents then spend the entirety of their time at Lafayette making everyone else at the school miserable.

+1

Stop comparing DCPS to a private school. It just isn’t, doesn’t serve the same population, etc. For all of its faults DCPS has to manage so much more diversity in every way you can imagine that a private school. And many of those resources need to go to support kids who lack resources and stable adults at home. If you want to dictate what happens in your child’s school, go to private school.

DC residents are paying some of the highest state and local tax rates in the entire country, in a place that spends more per student than the vast majority of other states/jurisdictions, so of course we should have high expectations of the public schools that we fund.

Your apathetic, hands-off, let the bureaucrats take care of it approach is frankly far too common and a large part of why our schools are performing at their current levels.

DP. I'm the opposite of apathetic. I've sat on my school's LSAT for three year's running, am an active member of the PTO, and have lobbied Central Office on multiple occasions on behalf of curriculum and administrative changes I think would benefit our school and the district as a whole.

I don't give a flying **** whether some rich parents at Lafayette get to redshirt their kids who apparently don't even have diagnosed special needs. If you are an involved, committed parent within DCPS, you'd know this is like the dumbest and least important controversy the district could possibly have. There are schools with principals who are literally incompetent. There are school building that are falling apart at the seams and in desperate need of replacing but the school is still 3 years out from their renovation date. DCPS as a whole continues to have major truancy issues post-Covid. There are internal debates being had regarding tech and screens in classrooms, how to implement the new phone and watch ban, and how to handle issues related to social media, bullying, and privacy at schools.

You do not get to lecture me about being "apathetic" or "hands-off" within DCPS. I'm sorry you screwed up and assumed your principal would allow you to redshirt your 6 year old and then found out they wouldn't. I wouldn't worry overmuch about it -- by virtue of having highly educated parents and having had several years of preschool prior, your children are likely already testing at or above kindergarten level in DC. Certainly higher than the average DCPS kindergartener. They are going to be okay.

This is not even within the top 100 most critical issues in DCPS right now. It's a tiny issue affecting a handful of the district's best resourced and supported students. Please grow up and deal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why does it seem like so many Lafayette parents clearly would rather have their kids in private schools, but don't either because they can't afford it or their kids weren't special enough. These parents then spend the entirety of their time at Lafayette making everyone else at the school miserable.

+1

Stop comparing DCPS to a private school. It just isn’t, doesn’t serve the same population, etc. For all of its faults DCPS has to manage so much more diversity in every way you can imagine that a private school. And many of those resources need to go to support kids who lack resources and stable adults at home. If you want to dictate what happens in your child’s school, go to private school.

DC residents are paying some of the highest state and local tax rates in the entire country, in a place that spends more per student than the vast majority of other states/jurisdictions, so of course we should have high expectations of the public schools that we fund.

Your apathetic, hands-off, let the bureaucrats take care of it approach is frankly far too common and a large part of why our schools are performing at their current levels.

DP. I'm the opposite of apathetic. I've sat on my school's LSAT for three year's running, am an active member of the PTO, and have lobbied Central Office on multiple occasions on behalf of curriculum and administrative changes I think would benefit our school and the district as a whole.

I don't give a flying **** whether some rich parents at Lafayette get to redshirt their kids who apparently don't even have diagnosed special needs. If you are an involved, committed parent within DCPS, you'd know this is like the dumbest and least important controversy the district could possibly have. There are schools with principals who are literally incompetent. There are school building that are falling apart at the seams and in desperate need of replacing but the school is still 3 years out from their renovation date. DCPS as a whole continues to have major truancy issues post-Covid. There are internal debates being had regarding tech and screens in classrooms, how to implement the new phone and watch ban, and how to handle issues related to social media, bullying, and privacy at schools.

You do not get to lecture me about being "apathetic" or "hands-off" within DCPS. I'm sorry you screwed up and assumed your principal would allow you to redshirt your 6 year old and then found out they wouldn't. I wouldn't worry overmuch about it -- by virtue of having highly educated parents and having had several years of preschool prior, your children are likely already testing at or above kindergarten level in DC. Certainly higher than the average DCPS kindergartener. They are going to be okay.

This is not even within the top 100 most critical issues in DCPS right now. It's a tiny issue affecting a handful of the district's best resourced and supported students. Please grow up and deal.

+1. Sorry that a few parents thought that rules that are clearly written didn’t apply to their special snowflake kids. It’s disturbing and unfair to have kids far older than their counterparts in classes -pay for private school if you want to have your kids who have no diagnosed special needs treated in a special way and be the oldest in their class if they can’t hack it in the correct grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I doubt this will matter to the already derailed thread, but there have been boys redshirted all over the city.

It's not a strictly Lafeyette, or strictly NW, or strictly Ward 3 thing.

I live in NE. I asked to redshirt my August birthday kid (in part due to Covid -- she missed PK3 due to Covid and seemed immature for K to me) and was told no and that it was not permitted under DCPS rules. We know lots of summer and September birthdays at our school (the young kids from the grade seem to gravitate towards each other) and none are redshirted.

I was very surprised when this story surfaced to learn that redshirting was fairly common at Lafayette or any school. It is unheard of at our DCPS and I can't imagine them allowing it absent SNs.

You just described most of the kids your dd’s age. They couldn’t redshirt everyone who needed it after Covid, because that was the majority of kids.

Perhaps an uptick in redshirting requests due to Covid disruptions is part of what led DCPS to start cracking down on it. Redshirting is a practice that only works if it's fairly limited. If Covid led to it becoming more common, I could see the district deciding they needed to limit parental discretion. What if 5-10% of parents decides, at their discretion, they need to redshirt? And redshirting also begets more redshirting because in districts where most summer birthdays are redshirted, you start to see May and June birthdays being redshirted too, and it kind of becomes a snake eating its own tail.

To be clear, I am NOT anti-redshirting. But I do think you have to limit it somewhere -- it can't just be a free for all. I'm open minded about how the limits should work. Requiring an eval for readiness seems reasonable for me. I also think flexible cutoffs where there is a window would work.

The problem with the Lafayette parents is that they don't seem to care about creating good policy -- they just want a carve out exemption for themselves. That's hard to endorse.

Many privates have many redshirted children. It creates quieter classrooms. The youngest children with April and May birthdays are just fine.

Imagine a class where the kids are learning addition. All NT children reach a point where there is no relative benefit to being older when it comes to learning addition. Or perhaps at a younger age, kids are learning about sharing. All NT children reach a point where they’re not struggling with sharing because if immaturity. The fact that you’re past this point by a month or six doesn’t make a difference. It doesn’t give the six month older kid an advantage.

What it does do is create learning-oriented classes. This is why I support redshirting. Even for my kids who would never be redshirted because of the way their birthdays fall, I appreciate redshirting. It does impact them: it creates fewer conflicts. It’s better to be around mature, well-behaved children for many reasons.

Behavioral problems do exist in private, but I’m glad the schools eliminate as many as could possibly exist.

Teachers set their lesson plans to the middle of what their particular class can handle. So if a class with a large proportion of redshirters can, to use your example, easily handle single digit addition, they might introduce double digit addition to stretch the class. The youngest on time kids might struggle with this and internalise that they are slow or dumb, not realising that the “ smart” kids are over a year older than them and had been exposed to that material more than them. That’s significant.

No, teachers teach to national standards. A May birthday will not be as disruptive or impacted like the youngest in late September almost October. This is why privates do it without impacting the younger spring birthdays.

If most kids in class are meeting national standards early in the year, a good teacher will push them a bit further. In private schools where they encourage/force redshirting for kindergarteners who aren't yet reading (fairly common at elite privates), they will adjust teaching forward, beyond national standards, in order to advance the kids. Publics will also do this, and it's not uncommon for schools to divide kids by test scores when they do class assignments, specifically so they can move faster in the classroom with higher scoring kids.

You also get pressure from parents to move more quickly. It's so common for parents to complaint that their child is bored or needs to be challenged more, and you especially see this among UMC and wealthy parents (in publics, they are aware that many privates are accelerating students and often feel the need for kids to keep up, especially in neighborhoods where it's common for families to switch to private in MS or HS, as is the case in upper NW). When you combine this practice with redshirting, you wind up with schools that are teaching past national standards in many if not most classrooms.

But my concern is less with academics than behavior. In a public school, you will always have a range of academic speeds and abilities, even at schools in wealthy neighborhoods or where redshirting is common. In elementary, with parental support and school resources, academic gaps can be overcome. Even with LDs or delays -- I've seen it many times. But behavioral deficits are much harder to "catch up." Kids who are less mature can fall into negative dynamics within their cohort. Being known as the kid who cries easily, who gets frustrated quickly, can be hard to reverse. Not impossible, but it's less straightforward.

I think one of the toughest situations to be in is to be academically advanced but behaviorally behind. There's no solution. I think this is the group that tends to be most impacted by redshirting, and not because the redshirted kids are so much more academically advanced. It's because an academically advanced kid will rarely be redshirted (schools won't want to -- they don't want to accommodate a kid reading at a 2nd grade level in K) but their immaturity will be more visible in classrooms with redshirted kids. It's an example of how the situation cannot always be gamed.

If six year old k in private are struggling, makes me wonder as they should be able to handle the older kids from wealthy families just fine. I have a fall kid who went at 5, not a problem at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why does it seem like so many Lafayette parents clearly would rather have their kids in private schools, but don't either because they can't afford it or their kids weren't special enough. These parents then spend the entirety of their time at Lafayette making everyone else at the school miserable.

+1

Stop comparing DCPS to a private school. It just isn’t, doesn’t serve the same population, etc. For all of its faults DCPS has to manage so much more diversity in every way you can imagine that a private school. And many of those resources need to go to support kids who lack resources and stable adults at home. If you want to dictate what happens in your child’s school, go to private school.

These parents should go private.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I doubt this will matter to the already derailed thread, but there have been boys redshirted all over the city.

It's not a strictly Lafeyette, or strictly NW, or strictly Ward 3 thing.

I live in NE. I asked to redshirt my August birthday kid (in part due to Covid -- she missed PK3 due to Covid and seemed immature for K to me) and was told no and that it was not permitted under DCPS rules. We know lots of summer and September birthdays at our school (the young kids from the grade seem to gravitate towards each other) and none are redshirted.

I was very surprised when this story surfaced to learn that redshirting was fairly common at Lafayette or any school. It is unheard of at our DCPS and I can't imagine them allowing it absent SNs.

You just described most of the kids your dd’s age. They couldn’t redshirt everyone who needed it after Covid, because that was the majority of kids.

Perhaps an uptick in redshirting requests due to Covid disruptions is part of what led DCPS to start cracking down on it. Redshirting is a practice that only works if it's fairly limited. If Covid led to it becoming more common, I could see the district deciding they needed to limit parental discretion. What if 5-10% of parents decides, at their discretion, they need to redshirt? And redshirting also begets more redshirting because in districts where most summer birthdays are redshirted, you start to see May and June birthdays being redshirted too, and it kind of becomes a snake eating its own tail.

To be clear, I am NOT anti-redshirting. But I do think you have to limit it somewhere -- it can't just be a free for all. I'm open minded about how the limits should work. Requiring an eval for readiness seems reasonable for me. I also think flexible cutoffs where there is a window would work.

The problem with the Lafayette parents is that they don't seem to care about creating good policy -- they just want a carve out exemption for themselves. That's hard to endorse.

Many privates have many redshirted children. It creates quieter classrooms. The youngest children with April and May birthdays are just fine.

Imagine a class where the kids are learning addition. All NT children reach a point where there is no relative benefit to being older when it comes to learning addition. Or perhaps at a younger age, kids are learning about sharing. All NT children reach a point where they’re not struggling with sharing because if immaturity. The fact that you’re past this point by a month or six doesn’t make a difference. It doesn’t give the six month older kid an advantage.

What it does do is create learning-oriented classes. This is why I support redshirting. Even for my kids who would never be redshirted because of the way their birthdays fall, I appreciate redshirting. It does impact them: it creates fewer conflicts. It’s better to be around mature, well-behaved children for many reasons.

Behavioral problems do exist in private, but I’m glad the schools eliminate as many as could possibly exist.

Teachers set their lesson plans to the middle of what their particular class can handle. So if a class with a large proportion of redshirters can, to use your example, easily handle single digit addition, they might introduce double digit addition to stretch the class. The youngest on time kids might struggle with this and internalise that they are slow or dumb, not realising that the “ smart” kids are over a year older than them and had been exposed to that material more than them. That’s significant.

No, teachers teach to national standards. A May birthday will not be as disruptive or impacted like the youngest in late September almost October. This is why privates do it without impacting the younger spring birthdays.

That’s rude to continually suggest that non-redshirted September boys can’t keep up or that they’re disruptive. My Sep baby excelled no matter who was in the class and wasn’t ever a distraction. Went to a college people on DCUM are vying to get into and now makes lots of $$.

They have to say it to justify their holding back their kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm late to this thread but saw a news story about this recently. We moved from out of state last summer and the state we moved from has a different cutoff date than DCPS's. We enrolled our child in the grade that they would have been in the previous state since this child has only been in daycare until we moved. But based on DCPS's age policy, this child would have been in first grade. We don't really agree with the redshirting across the board since with the previous school district with a different child, it was very prominent and my oldest child with an end of year birthday was actually one of the youngest in their class with a late summer cutoff. Lots of the redshirting parents boasted how their child was "ahead" in the next grade. It was exhausting as a parent with a kid who's kid attended on time. I get case by case but it became the norm. Probably not as bad here with the free preK3-4 options here. Anyways is there any kind of policy for kids who come in from out of state? I looked online and didn't see anything.

This is one scenario where it does seem very unfair to skip the kid a grade ahead. I believe it is part of the cleanup legislation the Lafayette parents are pushing to let them do it.

The rules are that this child would start out in 1st and then they would assess whether he should go to K instead. Seems reasonable to me. If my child in that scenario was not reading or writing yet then I would advocate for them to go to K.

The parents and preschool should have taught them.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I doubt this will matter to the already derailed thread, but there have been boys redshirted all over the city.

It's not a strictly Lafeyette, or strictly NW, or strictly Ward 3 thing.

I live in NE. I asked to redshirt my August birthday kid (in part due to Covid -- she missed PK3 due to Covid and seemed immature for K to me) and was told no and that it was not permitted under DCPS rules. We know lots of summer and September birthdays at our school (the young kids from the grade seem to gravitate towards each other) and none are redshirted.

I was very surprised when this story surfaced to learn that redshirting was fairly common at Lafayette or any school. It is unheard of at our DCPS and I can't imagine them allowing it absent SNs.

You just described most of the kids your dd’s age. They couldn’t redshirt everyone who needed it after Covid, because that was the majority of kids.

Perhaps an uptick in redshirting requests due to Covid disruptions is part of what led DCPS to start cracking down on it. Redshirting is a practice that only works if it's fairly limited. If Covid led to it becoming more common, I could see the district deciding they needed to limit parental discretion. What if 5-10% of parents decides, at their discretion, they need to redshirt? And redshirting also begets more redshirting because in districts where most summer birthdays are redshirted, you start to see May and June birthdays being redshirted too, and it kind of becomes a snake eating its own tail.

To be clear, I am NOT anti-redshirting. But I do think you have to limit it somewhere -- it can't just be a free for all. I'm open minded about how the limits should work. Requiring an eval for readiness seems reasonable for me. I also think flexible cutoffs where there is a window would work.

The problem with the Lafayette parents is that they don't seem to care about creating good policy -- they just want a carve out exemption for themselves. That's hard to endorse.

Many privates have many redshirted children. It creates quieter classrooms. The youngest children with April and May birthdays are just fine.

Imagine a class where the kids are learning addition. All NT children reach a point where there is no relative benefit to being older when it comes to learning addition. Or perhaps at a younger age, kids are learning about sharing. All NT children reach a point where they’re not struggling with sharing because if immaturity. The fact that you’re past this point by a month or six doesn’t make a difference. It doesn’t give the six month older kid an advantage.

What it does do is create learning-oriented classes. This is why I support redshirting. Even for my kids who would never be redshirted because of the way their birthdays fall, I appreciate redshirting. It does impact them: it creates fewer conflicts. It’s better to be around mature, well-behaved children for many reasons.

Behavioral problems do exist in private, but I’m glad the schools eliminate as many as could possibly exist.

Teachers set their lesson plans to the middle of what their particular class can handle. So if a class with a large proportion of redshirters can, to use your example, easily handle single digit addition, they might introduce double digit addition to stretch the class. The youngest on time kids might struggle with this and internalise that they are slow or dumb, not realising that the “ smart” kids are over a year older than them and had been exposed to that material more than them. That’s significant.

No, teachers teach to national standards. A May birthday will not be as disruptive or impacted like the youngest in late September almost October. This is why privates do it without impacting the younger spring birthdays.

That’s rude to continually suggest that non-redshirted September boys can’t keep up or that they’re disruptive. My Sep baby excelled no matter who was in the class and wasn’t ever a distraction. Went to a college people on DCUM are vying to get into and now makes lots of $$.

+1. I have a late September kid that entered kindergarten on time and has excelled. He would never have been labeled “disruptive.” He is in middle school now and doing well academically and socially. People responding here seem to forget that there has to be some sort of cutoff. Someone has to be the youngest.