Why is redshirting so common around here?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Delaying LD and SN kids is reasonable and appropriate

Nope. They are the ones who need to be in school and getting extra help. The ones that benefit are the young ones who are just a little immature socially.

Maybe so but glad our DD is not another grade ahead where she may feel even worse about her progress.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Multiple posters on this thread have posted very rational reasons against redshirting.

Your opinion. Most kids that are redshirted are on the cusp. Why do you object to that?

If redshirting truly only happened on the cusp, I doubt any of us would even realize it was occurring. You'd have, what, a couple weeks to a months worth of birthdays? That's not what's happening in some places. At my children's schools, all of the summer birthdays and most of the late spring birthdays are redshirted. That's hardly "the cusp."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Multiple posters on this thread have posted very rational reasons against redshirting.

Your opinion. Most kids that are redshirted are on the cusp. Why do you object to that?

Not that PP, but I object on principle to making personal exceptions that aren't warranted. I object especially to all the disingenuous reasons given. If your child's behavior or skills are delayed and he isn't where his classmates are, just admit it. And if he would be fine but you want him to have an advantage his peers don't have, admit that too. Only one poster has.

We redshirted DD. She is now in first and at the bottom of her class. Being evaluated for learning disabilities. We knew she was behind. And she continues to be behind. I'm really glad we made the decision we did.

Delaying LD and SN kids is reasonable and appropriate. The anti-r.s.'ing on here is aimed exclusively at parents who redshirt their kids to gain an advantage, not to mitigate real issues with their children's readiness. You sound like you made the right call for your DD and did not negatively impact the kids who started on time. Which is really the issue, obfuscation attempts by redshirters notwithstanding.

This is PP. We had to make the decision to hold her back based on very little information though. Kind of a gut feeling and backed up by her pre-k teacher. Unfortunately we've discovered she really is behind and there may be LD. But we did not know that for sure when we had to decide about K. It was an agonizing decision and we got lots of input from friends both positive and negative. It ends up that we did the right thing. But what if we'd done it and she caught right up by first grade. Would we then be considered disingenuous? Just some food for thought.

In your case, it may have been better for your child to go ahead rather than to stay in a school that missed clear signs that she had a LD and was behind. When my son was two, at his play based preschool, I could see something was "wrong" and the director and teacher kept telling me everything was fine. Well, it wasn't and if we had stayed and listened to them, my child would have missed the critical time in getting him help. In K., there are far more supports available to address the needs, than a private play based preschool, so my argument would have been to send your child and use the school supports available and supplement privately.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm curious if anyone can tells us if their on time child has been directly impacted by having a red shirted child in their class. And I mean a direct impact. Not some sort of theory.

It's only anecdata and it's not something pro-redshirters will accept.

There are both positive and negative consequences because of redshirting. My son attends a school where the summer children are routinely redshirted. The oldest children in his class have May birthdays normally appropriate for the year ahead. With his late August birthday, those children are 15 mos older. The children closest in age to my child are 3 mos older.

When my child was in early grades, his handwriting and ability to focus for long periods were considered poor. He was within normal parameters, if towards the poorer end. In comparison to his school peers, he looked significantly behind. We had parent-teacher conferences about his development, had to demonstrate he was within normal parameters on certain skills, and had to offer him regular support in accomplishing work that was slightly outside his independent reach.

My child's personality made this a good experience for him. Having him reach rather than achieve goals easily motivates him rather than convincing him he's incapable. His older sister's personality is the opposite, and being in the position he was would have negatively affected her self esteem. I can understand a parent making the protective decision to redshirt in that case, but I believe it just exacerbates the problem.

In middle school, my son was an average athlete. Being younger than his peers meant that instead of looking like an average athlete, he often looked like a poor athlete. It wasn't until he truly hit his physical stride in late middle/early high school that he began performing well enough to compete effectively with the average athletes in his class. For my son, this was motivation to work hard and it benefited him - in age based sports he went from being average to being above average, and I attribute it directly to competing with children 3-15 months older than him when engaging in grade based athletic activities. For another child, like my daughter, it would have led her to quit working at athletic activities because the public spectacle of "failure" would have been a disincentive.

If redshirting were a rare event, it would be nothing. In many areas it has become the norm, and that leads to noticeable shifts in expectations. If schools truly feel children with summer and late spring birthdays should not be in Kindergarten, they should shift the cut off dates. Make it May 1 or June 1. Except, then you'd see spring birthdays start to redshirt because there are going to be those kids who don't handle struggling well, and often the youngest will struggle a bit. That works for some kids (my son) and not for others (my daughter).

[Anonymous]

I'm curious, which school system are most people referring to? We are in mcps and, to my knowledge, you can only request the waiver of your child's birthday falls between June 1-sept 1. That means spring kids have to go on time. And doing k in private and them trying to register for k in mcps doesn't work because (again, to my knowledge) kids are then placed in the grade by age.
Are other md counties different? Is Va?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Multiple posters on this thread have posted very rational reasons against redshirting.

Your opinion. Most kids that are redshirted are on the cusp. Why do you object to that?

Not that PP, but I object on principle to making personal exceptions that aren't warranted. I object especially to all the disingenuous reasons given. If your child's behavior or skills are delayed and he isn't where his classmates are, just admit it. And if he would be fine but you want him to have an advantage his peers don't have, admit that too. Only one poster has.

We redshirted DD. She is now in first and at the bottom of her class. Being evaluated for learning disabilities. We knew she was behind. And she continues to be behind. I'm really glad we made the decision we did.

Delaying LD and SN kids is reasonable and appropriate. The anti-r.s.'ing on here is aimed exclusively at parents who redshirt their kids to gain an advantage, not to mitigate real issues with their children's readiness. You sound like you made the right call for your DD and did not negatively impact the kids who started on time. Which is really the issue, obfuscation attempts by redshirters notwithstanding.

This is PP. We had to make the decision to hold her back based on very little information though. Kind of a gut feeling and backed up by her pre-k teacher. Unfortunately we've discovered she really is behind and there may be LD. But we did not know that for sure when we had to decide about K. It was an agonizing decision and we got lots of input from friends both positive and negative. It ends up that we did the right thing. But what if we'd done it and she caught right up by first grade. Would we then be considered disingenuous? Just some food for thought.

In your case, it may have been better for your child to go ahead rather than to stay in a school that missed clear signs that she had a LD and was behind. When my son was two, at his play based preschool, I could see something was "wrong" and the director and teacher kept telling me everything was fine. Well, it wasn't and if we had stayed and listened to them, my child would have missed the critical time in getting him help. In K., there are far more supports available to address the needs, than a private play based preschool, so my argument would have been to send your child and use the school supports available and supplement privately.

We're happy with our decision and glad we held DD back. Her pre-K also advised us to hold back. I think she was too young at that point to really evaluate for LD. But they did indicated there may be issues. It was the right path for us.

[Anonymous]

A lot of preschools start at age 2.5. Preschool generally runs for two years, so those kids starting preschool on the younger side are either getting an extra third year of preschool or starting KG a few months early. Why you'd want your kid to do preschool for a third year in a row, I don't know, but maybe it's like how they used to have us do pre-Algebra for all three years of middle school math and now finally some one seems to have realized that was a waste of time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A lot of preschools start at age 2.5. Preschool generally runs for two years, so those kids starting preschool on the younger side are either getting an extra third year of preschool or starting KG a few months early. Why you'd want your kid to do preschool for a third year in a row, I don't know, but maybe it's like how they used to have us do pre-Algebra for all three years of middle school math and now finally some one seems to have realized that was a waste of time.

We are a September birthday and we changed preschools as the curriclum was too easy for age four, so not way would it have been a good fit for a five years old. It makes no sense to me to hold back so your kid is with younger kids that are not at the same level, nor should be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A lot of preschools start at age 2.5. Preschool generally runs for two years, so those kids starting preschool on the younger side are either getting an extra third year of preschool or starting KG a few months early. Why you'd want your kid to do preschool for a third year in a row, I don't know, but maybe it's like how they used to have us do pre-Algebra for all three years of middle school math and now finally some one seems to have realized that was a waste of time.

Who did pre-algebra for 3 years? I never even took pre-algebra. Just went straight to algebra. I will still redshirt my summer birthday boy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm curious, which school system are most people referring to? We are in mcps and, to my knowledge, you can only request the waiver of your child's birthday falls between June 1-sept 1. That means spring kids have to go on time. And doing k in private and them trying to register for k in mcps doesn't work because (again, to my knowledge) kids are then placed in the grade by age.
Are other md counties different? Is Va?

I don't believe VA has a waiver nor do they allow anyone to start early. I like the way MCPS does it. Allows children 2 months before and after the cutoff date to ask for a waiver to either delay or start early. I bet the redshirting isn't felt as much there as it is in VA.

[Anonymous]

My son has an October birthday. I hated the fact that he had to be an older kid. In my home state the cut off is December 1.

[Anonymous]

Everyone has a choice. I don't have much pity for parents of may kids claiming them to be the youngest in the class. Someone has to be the youngest. It is not a big deal. You had a choice too.

We sent July DD on time. We are so happy we had that choice. She is thriving and needs the older kids in her class. She is top of the class so to speak, excelling, and we could not imagine her in the grade below.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Multiple posters on this thread have posted very rational reasons against redshirting.

Your opinion. Most kids that are redshirted are on the cusp. Why do you object to that?

Not that PP, but I object on principle to making personal exceptions that aren't warranted. I object especially to all the disingenuous reasons given. If your child's behavior or skills are delayed and he isn't where his classmates are, just admit it. And if he would be fine but you want him to have an advantage his peers don't have, admit that too. Only one poster has.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Everyone has a choice. I don't have much pity for parents of may kids claiming them to be the youngest in the class. Someone has to be the youngest. It is not a big deal. You had a choice too.

We sent July DD on time. We are so happy we had that choice. She is thriving and needs the older kids in her class. She is top of the class so to speak, excelling, and we could not imagine her in the grade below.

No, not everybody has a choice. Some people can't afford to pay for an extra year of daycare (or for one parent to SAH an extra year) in order to redshirt their child.

[Anonymous]

It really depends on the immediate school environment, which differs a lot. I wouldn't have had my kid spend an extra year in preschool, although I know someone who did and was happy. But my kid's current (private) school is academically intense and believe me, he won't be bored during an extra year even though he's extremely bright. They encourage redshirting and I have no objection. And no, the the other kids aren't being disadvantaged in any way since anyone who attends this school either has plenty of scratch or (like us) gets plenty of financial aid.