getting an Oct birthday kid into kindergarten early?

[Anonymous]

I just want to say that my daughter was born two weeks late...she was due in late September and then came 2 weeks late! The kicker is I could have scheduled a repeat c-section and had her Sep. 21. Anyway, I am pushing to start her early. If I have to put her in private K I will. I have a December birthday and graduated high school @ 17 and so did my husband. Yes, everyone says its better to start them late...but I know I turned out fine and so did my husband, and my husband is very, very smart.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just want to say that my daughter was born two weeks late...she was due in late September and then came 2 weeks late! The kicker is I could have scheduled a repeat c-section and had her Sep. 21. Anyway, I am pushing to start her early. If I have to put her in private K I will. I have a December birthday and graduated high school @ 17 and so did my husband. Yes, everyone says its better to start them late...but I know I turned out fine and so did my husband, and my husband is very, very smart.

Are you seriously saying that you wish you had had a c-section so that your DD could start K a year earlier?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just want to say that my daughter was born two weeks late...she was due in late September and then came 2 weeks late! The kicker is I could have scheduled a repeat c-section and had her Sep. 21. Anyway, I am pushing to start her early. If I have to put her in private K I will. I have a December birthday and graduated high school @ 17 and so did my husband. Yes, everyone says its better to start them late...but I know I turned out fine and so did my husband, and my husband is very, very smart.

Are you seriously saying that you wish you had had a c-section so that your DD could start K a year earlier?

Wow - this post reaffirms my believe that DCUMs are generally a crazy bunch!! I also love the "I did fine and so will my kid." Honey, it is a VERY different school enviroment today than it was when we were growing up. If you want to push it, fine. But find better reasons than the ones you stated...

[Anonymous]

it is a VERY different school enviroment today

I see this said often and it has not been our experience at all in FCPS. My young for grade third grader was bored beyond belief at the the slow pace in grades K-2. It is better in third, but I can't imagine her being a year older and working at this same level. My younger DD is an October birthday and I also worry about her being bored and have considered ways to move her ahead although I have a couple years to think about it with her.

I do get that there are kids for whom the pace may be an issue, but why can't people respect that parents might know their own children best? Some kids do better in an environment where they are the oldest. But some do better when they are amog older peers. And some kids need the additional pace at a younger age. Kids are not all alike.

And FWIW I took the c-section comment to mean that she was offered a repeat C at 38 weeks (common practice among many OBs) and refused/rescheduled not that she would have deliberately had an early c-section!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

it is a VERY different school environment today

I see this said often and it has not been our experience at all in FCPS. My young for grade third grader was bored beyond belief at the the slow pace in grades K-2. It is better in third, but I can't imagine her being a year older and working at this same level. My younger DD is an October birthday and I also worry about her being bored and have considered ways to move her ahead although I have a couple years to think about it with her.

I do get that there are kids for whom the pace may be an issue, but why can't people respect that parents might know their own children best? Some kids do better in an environment where they are the oldest. But some do better when they are amog older peers. And some kids need the additional pace at a younger age. Kids are not all alike.

And FWIW I took the c-section comment to mean that she was offered a repeat C at 38 weeks (common practice among many OBs) and refused/rescheduled not that she would have deliberately had an early c-section!

I grew up in the FCPS system and have kids there now. Maybe it depends on the school, but I will say it is very different today. PARENTS are more competitive and much more aggressive about making sure their kids stand out. Tutoring and test prep is MUCH more prevalent. I don't think it is enough to say - I thrived as a young kid and so will my child. If you feel that your child is advanced and is bored for her age, these are much better reasons to push your kid to enter K early, but let's face it...everybody thinks their kid is just the smartest thing since sliced bread. I truly believe that we are better off listening to and respecting our kids teachers. If little DC's teacher says to enroll her early into private K, fine...I respect that.

[Anonymous]

I grew up in the FCPS system and have kids there now. Maybe it depends on the school, but I will say it is very different today. PARENTS are more competitive and much more aggressive about making sure their kids stand out. Tutoring and test prep is MUCH more prevalent.

I did not grow up here, so my frame of reference is different. FCPS is certainly better than my old (pretty crappy) public school system, but not that much more advanced academically.

I honestly don't understand how parental competition (which I agree can be fierce in this area) is an issue in the classroom? Are you saying that kids are being tutored outside and that affects the level of performance/instruction in the classroom? Maybe that is true, I dunno, but we haven't seen that yet. Older DD is in a GT center and it is a good fit for her. She is GT but not highly gifted, so academically it is a good fit...a challenge but not overwhelming. We did have some issues in the earlier grades with her fine motor skills (mainly writing) making the homework tedious, but she has grown out of that now. We've never done any sort of outside tutoring, etc., although she is the kind of kid who likes to do workbooks for fun. But nothing really above grade level. Maybe this is more of an issue in upper grades?

What worries me about younger DD is that she is even more advanced than older DD was at the same age in terms of verbal, gross motor and fine motor skills. She also thrives on outside stimulation and being with other kids in a way that older DD does not. I know that she will be highly ready for K the year she turns 5, but after the cutoff. Having dealt with the issues of having a bored kid in school, honestly it isn't a picnic.

I think that info from a preschool teacher is one data point. But I don't think that the average preschool teacher is a particularly effective judge at the level of work that is being done in elementary school (unless they are connected to the school itself). They also don't see the HUGE strides that most kids make between the ages of 5 and 8/9, when most issues like "immaturity" and "fine motor" problems tend to even out.

[Anonymous]

Just an FYI - the Washington Diocese has changed its policy for admission to pre-K, K and 1st for its Catholic Schools. The new policy is that it follows the cut-off of your local district. So if you thought that you could go private to get around the cut-off date and then switch, this is no longer an option through Washington Diocese Catholic Schools.

[Anonymous]

You might want to check into doing the following..we lived in FL and they had a Sept. 1st cut off. Set up a residency in New York (cut off is still in Dec.)...start him/her there (for first month) then transfer him/her back to your home state. That was the only real loop hole we could find, they must take an out of state transfer. We did this for my daughter and she is now in 9th grade and she is HIGH honor roll & top of her class...in fact she is in several advanced courses doing 10th grade work...plus, she is very involved with several extra curricular activities, too. I only mention this because I am tired of hearing people blame their children's poor grades on being a couple weeks younger then other students...I was only 17 when I started college myself and had no issue's what so ever making friends or keeping up with the older kids, but I was raised to not be afraid "to hold my own"...it is all a matter of the individual...some kids are ready sooner, some later...and as for my daughter, I knew that she was more then ready for school and my wife and I didn't do this for her I think she would have been bored and lost interest (I did, but a sharp teacher caught is when I was young and help to get me to skip a year)...I think it is insane to lump all kids together just because of exact age...if you feel your child is ready then I say go for it...you can always pull them out and start over if you are wrong but not the other way around. Nobody knows your kids better then you do...hope this helps and best of luck, as I said, it worked for us but you will need to double check the ruling of out of state transfers in VA just to be sure.

[Anonymous]

OP - you might want to check out Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. He makes the point that relatively older children in classes do better than the younger ones.

[Anonymous]

It is so nutty that the schools are making parents go thru all this craziness to put a kid in a bit young but anyone seemingly can redshirt with no questions asked to no limit.

Why don't they just have a subjective process for kids thru a shoulder period (maybe 12/31 birthdays). I'm sure there is a way they can figure out if the kid seems ready. If a mistake is made, a hold back is always possible.

When I was growing up the cut-off was 12/31 and there were several kids in my elementary grade whose birthdays fell after that (two of them were June birthdays -- so quite a bit after) but got a waiver. On the flip side we had several Nov. and Dec. b-day kids who should have been a grade ahead but weren't. The total spread from oldest to youngest in our class was actually 2 1/2 years due to a couple kids who got left back. It worked fine.

[Anonymous]

So, for the parents who have been thinking of private kindergarten, which private K's did you find that would accept October birthdays?

[Anonymous]

For NoVA, the only schools I know that will make an exception for K are Congressional and Chesterbrook. Congressional has kids that have been "red-shirted" and kids that have accelerated. They are very good at assessing individual children for the best fit.

[Anonymous]

Is Chesterbrook what Town&Country turned into? I know they would allow young for grade kids to test in.

I have heard that Westminster will also young for grade students to test in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Why don't they just have a subjective process for kids thru a shoulder period (maybe 12/31 birthdays).

Probably because it would be an administrative hassle = expensive.

[Anonymous]

Also, parents of kids with 1/1 birthdays would start to complain.