Redshirting and MCPS

[Anonymous]

One good thing about MCPS is that tests like the CES/magnet entry exams are age-normed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thanks for the feedback. To clarify, I would never delay solely because she's small. We're considering it because she's slow to warm and still mostly parallel playing at age 3.5.

So you're not talking about the 2018-2019 school year, but the 2019-2020 school year? OP, this is not a decision you should make now. Wait until next spring.

OP again. Yeah. It's early, I know, but it affects where we send her to preschool next year so I'm starting to think about it. (Whether we send her to a place where she can stay 2 years without repeating the same classroom, etc.). But we know we have time and things can change. Just wanted a sense of whether MCPS is so unchallenging no one would do this, because that's what reading this board makes me think sometimes!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thanks for the feedback. To clarify, I would never delay solely because she's small. We're considering it because she's slow to warm and still mostly parallel playing at age 3.5.

So you're not talking about the 2018-2019 school year, but the 2019-2020 school year? OP, this is not a decision you should make now. Wait until next spring.

OP again. Yeah. It's early, I know, but it affects where we send her to preschool next year so I'm starting to think about it. (Whether we send her to a place where she can stay 2 years without repeating the same classroom, etc.). But we know we have time and things can change. Just wanted a sense of whether MCPS is so unchallenging no one would do this, because that's what reading this board makes me think sometimes!

Keep your options open -- send her to a preschool where you can either send her to kindergarten on time next year or delay kindergarten for a year.

And stop reading DCUM! By and large, people who are happy with MCPS don't post. Before I sent my younger kid to school, I read the most dire things about Curriculum 2.0 on DCUM, and I thought, "Oh no! My kid will languish! My kid is dooooooooomed!!!!!!!" But my kid did not languish and now, in middle school, seems pretty darn undoomed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have a one-week before the cut-off DD, who we did not enroll to start as a just-turned-5 year old. She was, and is, very academically advanced, but at age just 5 still had a lot of separation anxiety and clicked with very few kids. (Tolerated kids well generally, but friends needed to be actual friends from a younger age). We made the right choice for her. She really started to blossom in 2nd grade. Yes, she was very bored at times, but now she has been identified as GT and is with her people. Turns out the preschool friends were GT, too. She has always been gravitating to the same type.

We did a transitional K program at a different school when some of her older preschool friends went off to K. That worked out to be a terrific year.

If you are a year older than other kids, its very easy to be identified as gifted. About 40% of the kids at MCPS are identified in 3rd for gifted and test but there are very few slots so an easy way to get into the gifted program is to hold back a year, but why not send on time and then they will be challenged better being a year ahead. My kid who we sent early was identified as gifted. The gifted school was too far away so we had to turn it down.

First of all - that isn't true. Second, tests are age-normed.

[Anonymous]

Fwiw we have a shy kid.
We sent him on time with an August birthday because we felt there was no reason to think he wouldn’t still be shy the following year and we don’t necessarily think being shy is a bad thing.

[Anonymous]

LOL. The standards are so low at MCPS that redshirting will harm your child. On the other hand, not many students are capable of even reaching the low bar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have a one-week before the cut-off DD, who we did not enroll to start as a just-turned-5 year old. She was, and is, very academically advanced, but at age just 5 still had a lot of separation anxiety and clicked with very few kids. (Tolerated kids well generally, but friends needed to be actual friends from a younger age). We made the right choice for her. She really started to blossom in 2nd grade. Yes, she was very bored at times, but now she has been identified as GT and is with her people. Turns out the preschool friends were GT, too. She has always been gravitating to the same type.

We did a transitional K program at a different school when some of her older preschool friends went off to K. That worked out to be a terrific year.

If you are a year older than other kids, its very easy to be identified as gifted. About 40% of the kids at MCPS are identified in 3rd for gifted and test but there are very few slots so an easy way to get into the gifted program is to hold back a year, but why not send on time and then they will be challenged better being a year ahead. My kid who we sent early was identified as gifted. The gifted school was too far away so we had to turn it down.

First of all - that isn't true. Second, tests are age-normed.

PP with the August Daughter - above poster is correct. DD had to get more questions correct than younger peers (they do this by birth month & year) to achieve same score.

[Anonymous]

We didn’t redshirt our summer birthday DD. She went to a PK3-2nd grade school for PK3-PK4 and a number of parents with summer birthdays kept their kids in the school for K and then sent them to public K (so two years of kindergarten). I talked to those parents, and the school, and everyone recommended that we redshirt in this manner. We decided against it for various reasons and I’m so glad that we did. From a maturity standpoint, even though DD is one of the youngest, she’s also very mature and I think it would have been harder for her. Academically, she is advanced. So know that there are two sides to the consideration, with pros and cons on both, and it is very hard to predict which side you’ll be on in the long run. It will come down to luck- you have to guess what your kid will be like in the future and be lucky to have guessed correctly.

[Anonymous]

I have a September birthday DD who was accepted for early entrance into Kindergarten and we didn't do it. She was entirely ready and reading at a second grade level. We decided to go with the "normal" recommendations of admission and not push her a year early. I regret it. The curriculum is not robust at all. She has been getting great grades and is socially happy, so I guess it's okay and not the end of the world. She is small even though she is one of the oldest in her class so the extra year did nothing for her size.

I also have a July DS who we decided to send on time. He is small for his grade and does get teased about it, but that's okay. It's part of growing up. He also gets great grades and is strong academically and socially. I am happy we didn't redshirt him.

From what everyone has told me the payoff will come in middle school and high school. We are not there yet, so I can't comment on that.

So I've had both experiences (one oldest, one youngest) in elementary school. For elementary, I'd vote to send her on time. Who knows how things will work out in middle and high.

[Anonymous]

I started kindergarten at age four, having an October birthday. This was many years ago in a different state. Socially, I was behind, academically, I was a little bored. (Yes, I remember acing quizzes in the early years that the rest of the class thought was hard.) Looking back, I think it would have been better to be held back another year. Fitting in socially and being more mature would have helped me a lot. As for academics. I wasn't the only smart kid in class, and would have spent time reading and working on my own. But with more maturity, I think I would have applied myself in school and done much better academically and socially.

Either way, I think your child will be fine. But it is important to look at their needs and what will be best for them.

[Anonymous]

NP here. We're in MCPS, didn't redshirt late summer birthday. Few are redshirted in our school, a Whitman feeder. All working fine, classes easy but some good moments of differentiation/acceleration scattered throughout. Things speed up some in MS, and more in HS so everyone with kids ahead of us say.

[Anonymous]

"OP again. Yeah. It's early, I know, but it affects where we send her to preschool next year so I'm starting to think about it. (Whether we send her to a place where she can stay 2 years without repeating the same classroom, etc.). But we know we have time and things can change. Just wanted a sense of whether MCPS is so unchallenging no one would do this, because that's what reading this board makes me think sometimes!"

For us, part of what made MCPS seem unchallenging is that K was so academic and therefore challenging. Our kids had summer birthdays and were interested in learning to read. MCPS K encouraged that interest. Our kids took off reading wise and picked it up quickly then languished (from first to fourth at HGC) in the top reading groups with little teacher interaction.

For your situation I would ask the question is she going to learn to read during the extra year of preschool on her own/from you? Obviously, learning on her own won't be as efficient as learning in class, but even so if she learns enough then even K won't be challenging and her first years of school will ingrain the idea that school is boring.

[Anonymous]

NP here. We actually did the opposite of redshirting. Our child has middle September birthday and we made her take the Early Admission to Kindergarten test. She was able to handle the workload well through ES, MS and HS. Physically she is average and emotionally she is more mature than older kids. She is well liked by teachers and peers.

There are some social aspects of being younger than her classmates that we have noticed, but we have not found that to be a negative. She was the last among her peers to get a learner's permit. Some CIT and volunteering gigs, part-time jobs and some internships applicants need to be 16 yrs old - so we had to work around this in HS. This has not been a big enough drawback. Academically, she has been in the magnet track in STEM throughout.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thanks for the feedback. To clarify, I would never delay solely because she's small. We're considering it because she's slow to warm and still mostly parallel playing at age 3.5.

So you're not talking about the 2018-2019 school year, but the 2019-2020 school year? OP, this is not a decision you should make now. Wait until next spring.

OP again. Yeah. It's early, I know, but it affects where we send her to preschool next year so I'm starting to think about it. (Whether we send her to a place where she can stay 2 years without repeating the same classroom, etc.). But we know we have time and things can change. Just wanted a sense of whether MCPS is so unchallenging no one would do this, because that's what reading this board makes me think sometimes!

Of course it's not. That's insane.
- mother of 6 yr old challenged in 1st, totally unconcerned about sending 2nd child with Nov birthday who's pretty far ahead of peers already (more so than older kid)

[Anonymous]

OP, if you want to see what they do in Kin MCPS, here are some resources:

http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/curriculum/elementary/parent-guide-traditional-kindergarten-en.pdf

http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/info/enroll/0774.17_KindergartenHandbook_Web.pdf

http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/curriculum/2.0/parent-newsletters.aspx (Click on links to see what they learn in math and literacy in each term in each grade)

http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/curriculum/integrated/IntegratedCurriculumOutcomes-Kindergarten.pdf (What kids should know by end of each grade)