Redshirting consequences at Lafayette

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Redshirting was fine and nobody batted an eyelash until DEI came and said it inequitable and classist. As DEI wave is passing, in a year everyone will move on to something else and things will be back to redshirting being fine.

I am willing to bet that the Lafayette parents will get their way in the end.

This is simply not true but keep blaming every thing you don't like on minorities. I'm sure it'll go great for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Redshirting was fine and nobody batted an eyelash until DEI came and said it inequitable and classist. As DEI wave is passing, in a year everyone will move on to something else and things will be back to redshirting being fine.

I am willing to bet that the Lafayette parents will get their way in the end.

This is simply not true but keep blaming every thing you don't like on minorities. I'm sure it'll go great for you.

Not PP. I didn’t think PP was blaming it on minorities. I think PP was blaming it on equity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Redshirting was fine and nobody batted an eyelash until DEI came and said it inequitable and classist. As DEI wave is passing, in a year everyone will move on to something else and things will be back to redshirting being fine.

I am willing to bet that the Lafayette parents will get their way in the end.

This is simply not true but keep blaming every thing you don't like on minorities. I'm sure it'll go great for you.

Not PP. I didn’t think PP was blaming it on minorities. I think PP was blaming it on equity.

I am a UMC white mom. I don’t think folks should be able to redshirt at will. It has nothing to do with equity and everything to do with needing to have a firm rule to create cohesive classes. Redshirting — or, more likely, retaining -/— with the support of the school for kid-specific developmental reasons? 100% fine. DC is a town of crazies and no age policy would mean 20 months’ spread of kids in each class. That’s not actually good for anyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Redshirting was fine and nobody batted an eyelash until DEI came and said it inequitable and classist. As DEI wave is passing, in a year everyone will move on to something else and things will be back to redshirting being fine.

I am willing to bet that the Lafayette parents will get their way in the end.

This is simply not true but keep blaming every thing you don't like on minorities. I'm sure it'll go great for you.

Not PP. I didn’t think PP was blaming it on minorities. I think PP was blaming it on equity.

I am a UMC white mom. I don’t think folks should be able to redshirt at will. It has nothing to do with equity and everything to do with needing to have a firm rule to create cohesive classes. Redshirting — or, more likely, retaining -/— with the support of the school for kid-specific developmental reasons? 100% fine. DC is a town of crazies and no age policy would mean 20 months’ spread of kids in each class. That’s not actually good for anyone.

Its normally wealthier white do it, not minorities. In HS it creates a bigger divide as many classes are mixed with freshman to seniors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:An eleven month old and a 13 month old might both be early walkers. If you’re having a class for early walkers, it would make sense for the 10 month old and 13 month old to start together. (Not that this class would exist. It would be silly).

If you’re teaching math, it would make sense to have all the kids ready to learn the same concepts at the same time in the same way with the same attention. This is what private schools do that apparently is beyond the comprehension of public school age advocates. This is why the classrooms are so much more chaotic than private. Because the people designing them are not focused on learning.

A private school is able to have smaller classrooms and not admit or kick out kids with behavioral or learning disabilities. And they absolutely do. A lot. Same with charters. Your local DCPS school cannot. Of course private schools can skew classes, and do, in no small part to help themselves and their test scores and rankings and alumni donations.

Comparing what a private school can do with how a public school manages to try and find a balance is counterproductive to your argument.

No one, and I mean no one, is telling Lafayette parents they can't send their six year olds to private kindergarten. They are welcome to do whatever with private school tuition they please. But there are so many functional and logistical differences it's silly and offensive to claim that because a private school does something a public school should do the same.

Also public schools do have different levels of math and reading they teach to kids within one grade? Whittier, for example, uses Title 1 funding to pay for both a reading acceleration and separate reading intervention teacher to address needs of both students. And the age, which yeah there has to be some kind of cutoff, is not what places kids in either.

Fine, there are a million kids public schools have to take, but they don’t have to take a disruptive child who would not be disruptive if put just one class down. They don’t have to make their lives more challenging than it is. Many public school systems make his adjustment easily. In fact many public schools will also accelerate kids that are ready. This is just red tape that DCPS is taping themselves with.

And this is why public loses support, because it tapes itself with red tape that doesn’t benefit education.

I don't think anyone has a problem with the school taking these things into account and making these kinds of decisions. What people have a problem with is parents unilaterally making the decision based on vibes and no actual criteria. Some of those decisions — not all, but certainly at least some — are fundamentally based on wanting to give their kids an advantage in academics, sports, or for something like the equitable access preference — which absolutely should not be available to kids who are voluntarily redshirted without some sort of documented issue.

We were pushed to redshirt one child who, at the time, we did not want to redshirt. In the words of the teacher, "I cannot have one child over there unable to sit while the rest of the children are in circle time." Our child is neurotypical with no documentable issues. Our child's due date was right after the cutoff. However, our child was born early, several weeks before the cutoff. Our child was technically full term and was not placed in the ICU. Was she right? I don't know. What I do know is that we did redshirt our child, and our child's classroom has been fine.

Is it possible that some parents redshirt to give their kids an advantage? Yes. Is it possible that other kids are redshirted, because they're not right for the class? Also yes. How do you get this perfect? You absolutely can't. So let the parents, teachers and administration in tandem make the best decisions they can for the edge cases and move onto solving the real problem, which is mold in the elementary schools EOTP. This amount of effort to exert control is counterproductive and is literally backfiring. Support for public education over policies like this is dying even amongst teachers.

We were pushed to hold back. I said no and pushed them ahead. They did have SN but we got therapies and worked with them at home. No regrets and child is glad I didn't hold back as they are in the most advanced classes and the only one in their grade in the math class. Sounds like a bad teacher if they are saying they cannot manage their classroom. Kids will learn and need to be taught but also a proper preschool teaches that. I think the play based fail kids but not having structure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:An eleven month old and a 13 month old might both be early walkers. If you’re having a class for early walkers, it would make sense for the 10 month old and 13 month old to start together. (Not that this class would exist. It would be silly).

If you’re teaching math, it would make sense to have all the kids ready to learn the same concepts at the same time in the same way with the same attention. This is what private schools do that apparently is beyond the comprehension of public school age advocates. This is why the classrooms are so much more chaotic than private. Because the people designing them are not focused on learning.

A private school is able to have smaller classrooms and not admit or kick out kids with behavioral or learning disabilities. And they absolutely do. A lot. Same with charters. Your local DCPS school cannot. Of course private schools can skew classes, and do, in no small part to help themselves and their test scores and rankings and alumni donations.

Comparing what a private school can do with how a public school manages to try and find a balance is counterproductive to your argument.

No one, and I mean no one, is telling Lafayette parents they can't send their six year olds to private kindergarten. They are welcome to do whatever with private school tuition they please. But there are so many functional and logistical differences it's silly and offensive to claim that because a private school does something a public school should do the same.

Also public schools do have different levels of math and reading they teach to kids within one grade? Whittier, for example, uses Title 1 funding to pay for both a reading acceleration and separate reading intervention teacher to address needs of both students. And the age, which yeah there has to be some kind of cutoff, is not what places kids in either.

Fine, there are a million kids public schools have to take, but they don’t have to take a disruptive child who would not be disruptive if put just one class down. They don’t have to make their lives more challenging than it is. Many public school systems make his adjustment easily. In fact many public schools will also accelerate kids that are ready. This is just red tape that DCPS is taping themselves with.

And this is why public loses support, because it tapes itself with red tape that doesn’t benefit education.

I don't think anyone has a problem with the school taking these things into account and making these kinds of decisions. What people have a problem with is parents unilaterally making the decision based on vibes and no actual criteria. Some of those decisions — not all, but certainly at least some — are fundamentally based on wanting to give their kids an advantage in academics, sports, or for something like the equitable access preference — which absolutely should not be available to kids who are voluntarily redshirted without some sort of documented issue.

We were pushed to redshirt one child who, at the time, we did not want to redshirt. In the words of the teacher, "I cannot have one child over there unable to sit while the rest of the children are in circle time." Our child is neurotypical with no documentable issues. Our child's due date was right after the cutoff. However, our child was born early, several weeks before the cutoff. Our child was technically full term and was not placed in the ICU. Was she right? I don't know. What I do know is that we did redshirt our child, and our child's classroom has been fine.

Is it possible that some parents redshirt to give their kids an advantage? Yes. Is it possible that other kids are redshirted, because they're not right for the class? Also yes. How do you get this perfect? You absolutely can't. So let the parents, teachers and administration in tandem make the best decisions they can for the edge cases and move onto solving the real problem, which is mold in the elementary schools EOTP. This amount of effort to exert control is counterproductive and is literally backfiring. Support for public education over policies like this is dying even amongst teachers.

We were pushed to hold back. I said no and pushed them ahead. They did have SN but we got therapies and worked with them at home. No regrets and child is glad I didn't hold back as they are in the most advanced classes and the only one in their grade in the math class. Sounds like a bad teacher if they are saying they cannot manage their classroom. Kids will learn and need to be taught but also a proper preschool teaches that. I think the play based fail kids but not having structure.

Yes so you do you and others will do themselves. For years, I’ve voted to increase my own taxes for the benefit of others, but with arguments like these, good riddance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Redshirting was fine and nobody batted an eyelash until DEI came and said it inequitable and classist. As DEI wave is passing, in a year everyone will move on to something else and things will be back to redshirting being fine.

I am willing to bet that the Lafayette parents will get their way in the end.

This is simply not true but keep blaming every thing you don't like on minorities. I'm sure it'll go great for you.

Not PP. I didn’t think PP was blaming it on minorities. I think PP was blaming it on equity.

I am a UMC white mom. I don’t think folks should be able to redshirt at will. It has nothing to do with equity and everything to do with needing to have a firm rule to create cohesive classes. Redshirting — or, more likely, retaining -/— with the support of the school for kid-specific developmental reasons? 100% fine. DC is a town of crazies and no age policy would mean 20 months’ spread of kids in each class. That’s not actually good for anyone.

What is a cohesive class? People of all ages mix in the workplace and in college. Somehow that’s a no-no for high school, and kids need to be within a narrow 12 moth age of each other otherwise bad things will happen. Not buying it. My kids friends are two-three years older and younger, tall and short, not really an issue at all.

Parents know best if they want to redshirt or not, some kids need a little more time to get there. The really strict redshirting rules are stupid, how are they going to know what’s right for your child? I mean, if a parent is determined there’s not much the school district can do. You can do kindergarten and first grade in private, homeschooling for a year, retain and retake kindergarten for two years in public etc., or just push hard against the silly rules. If I thought it helped my child I’d do it.

[Anonymous]

If DCPS retains and allows students who are struggling academically to repeat their classes, this age divide would have been normalized and prevalent. However, this would also have created a societal stigma about failing that has the potential to improve the standards overall and push students to be more studious than the current status quo.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Redshirting was fine and nobody batted an eyelash until DEI came and said it inequitable and classist. As DEI wave is passing, in a year everyone will move on to something else and things will be back to redshirting being fine.

I am willing to bet that the Lafayette parents will get their way in the end.

This is simply not true but keep blaming every thing you don't like on minorities. I'm sure it'll go great for you.

Not PP. I didn’t think PP was blaming it on minorities. I think PP was blaming it on equity.

I am a UMC white mom. I don’t think folks should be able to redshirt at will. It has nothing to do with equity and everything to do with needing to have a firm rule to create cohesive classes. Redshirting — or, more likely, retaining -/— with the support of the school for kid-specific developmental reasons? 100% fine. DC is a town of crazies and no age policy would mean 20 months’ spread of kids in each class. That’s not actually good for anyone.

What is a cohesive class? People of all ages mix in the workplace and in college. Somehow that’s a no-no for high school, and kids need to be within a narrow 12 moth age of each other otherwise bad things will happen. Not buying it. My kids friends are two-three years older and younger, tall and short, not really an issue at all.

Parents know best if they want to redshirt or not, some kids need a little more time to get there. The really strict redshirting rules are stupid, how are they going to know what’s right for your child? I mean, if a parent is determined there’s not much the school district can do. You can do kindergarten and first grade in private, homeschooling for a year, retain and retake kindergarten for two years in public etc., or just push hard against the silly rules. If I thought it helped my child I’d do it.

The workplace is not a good argument in this case. There are maturity gaps here that do not exist in the same way when a 25 year old has to work with a 32 year old. But in HS there is a huge maturity gap between a 14 year old and a 17 year old. It is obvious and can create issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If DCPS retains and allows students who are struggling academically to repeat their classes, this age divide would have been normalized and prevalent. However, this would also have created a societal stigma about failing that has the potential to improve the standards overall and push students to be more studious than the current status quo.

Maybe DCPS should have students who are not ready repeat a year. This is also something privates do. My nibbling has repeated first grade without stigma.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And it sounds like one of the families moved into DC over a year ago and is trying to use that as an excuse. No explanation why they didn’t enroll in K this year.

They complain a lot that they didn’t learn that the school wouldn’t let them enroll in K next year until just months ago (so they didn’t have a chance to choose to enroll in K at the beginning of last year) — but did any of them check with the school that they could hold their kid back? It sounds like they all just unilaterally decided to redshirt and now are surprised pikachus.

Or you could just mind your own business and not worry about other people’s kids.

I don’t understand what the big deal is. Let them redshirt if they want to. Pages and pages of nothing burger.

So, my kid who is on the young side but fits the age criteria has to be a confidence-builder prop for your redshirted kid who is 13 months older. Eff that, go to private school if you want to play games like that.

Exactly. Absent a genuine developmental reason, redshirting disadvantages the kids who enroll when they are supposed to.

How are those kids disadvantaged? They know what they know, focus more on your kids knowledge instead of their rank in the class.

I’d rather my kid is average in a class of brilliant kids rather than the smartest in a class full of dummies.

The held back kids are also at a disadvantage as they are not with age appropriate expectations or academics.

The expectations and academics of the modern-day kindergarten classroom are not age appropriate. That's the issue.

Of course they are? My kid has sn and if anything it helped. Why did you not prepare your kids if you thought it would be too hard for them?

It's not that it's too hard, it's not developmentally appropriate. 5 year olds should still be painting, playing with play dough, yes, learning to read, but also playing blocks, dress up, etc.

My DCPS kindergarten did all of these things.

Great for you. All the ones I've been in don't. It's 98% seat work. It's abysmal.

[Anonymous]

Those who are anti red-shirting, do they support the current social promotion approach in our public schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Redshirting was fine and nobody batted an eyelash until DEI came and said it inequitable and classist. As DEI wave is passing, in a year everyone will move on to something else and things will be back to redshirting being fine.

I am willing to bet that the Lafayette parents will get their way in the end.

This is simply not true but keep blaming every thing you don't like on minorities. I'm sure it'll go great for you.

Not PP. I didn’t think PP was blaming it on minorities. I think PP was blaming it on equity.

I am a UMC white mom. I don’t think folks should be able to redshirt at will. It has nothing to do with equity and everything to do with needing to have a firm rule to create cohesive classes. Redshirting — or, more likely, retaining -/— with the support of the school for kid-specific developmental reasons? 100% fine. DC is a town of crazies and no age policy would mean 20 months’ spread of kids in each class. That’s not actually good for anyone.

What is a cohesive class? People of all ages mix in the workplace and in college. Somehow that’s a no-no for high school, and kids need to be within a narrow 12 moth age of each other otherwise bad things will happen. Not buying it. My kids friends are two-three years older and younger, tall and short, not really an issue at all.

Parents know best if they want to redshirt or not, some kids need a little more time to get there. The really strict redshirting rules are stupid, how are they going to know what’s right for your child? I mean, if a parent is determined there’s not much the school district can do. You can do kindergarten and first grade in private, homeschooling for a year, retain and retake kindergarten for two years in public etc., or just push hard against the silly rules. If I thought it helped my child I’d do it.

The workplace is not a good argument in this case. There are maturity gaps here that do not exist in the same way when a 25 year old has to work with a 32 year old. But in HS there is a huge maturity gap between a 14 year old and a 17 year old. It is obvious and can create issues.

Does your child have a 17-year-old freshman?

What about those stories of elderly people who go back to high school and get degrees: https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/amp/living/video/79-year-back-school-high-school-diploma-103131274

Do you have a problem with that person?

Stop trying to legislate edge cases. In fact, stop wasting the school’s very finite attention with this. Schools have real problems to solve.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Redshirting was fine and nobody batted an eyelash until DEI came and said it inequitable and classist. As DEI wave is passing, in a year everyone will move on to something else and things will be back to redshirting being fine.

I am willing to bet that the Lafayette parents will get their way in the end.

This is simply not true but keep blaming every thing you don't like on minorities. I'm sure it'll go great for you.

Not PP. I didn’t think PP was blaming it on minorities. I think PP was blaming it on equity.

I am a UMC white mom. I don’t think folks should be able to redshirt at will. It has nothing to do with equity and everything to do with needing to have a firm rule to create cohesive classes. Redshirting — or, more likely, retaining -/— with the support of the school for kid-specific developmental reasons? 100% fine. DC is a town of crazies and no age policy would mean 20 months’ spread of kids in each class. That’s not actually good for anyone.

What is a cohesive class? People of all ages mix in the workplace and in college. Somehow that’s a no-no for high school, and kids need to be within a narrow 12 moth age of each other otherwise bad things will happen. Not buying it. My kids friends are two-three years older and younger, tall and short, not really an issue at all.

Parents know best if they want to redshirt or not, some kids need a little more time to get there. The really strict redshirting rules are stupid, how are they going to know what’s right for your child? I mean, if a parent is determined there’s not much the school district can do. You can do kindergarten and first grade in private, homeschooling for a year, retain and retake kindergarten for two years in public etc., or just push hard against the silly rules. If I thought it helped my child I’d do it.

The workplace is not a good argument in this case. There are maturity gaps here that do not exist in the same way when a 25 year old has to work with a 32 year old. But in HS there is a huge maturity gap between a 14 year old and a 17 year old. It is obvious and can create issues.

Plenty of high school students work in part time jobs, I’m talking about settings a high school student does encounter outside the class. What do you do with volunteering and extracurriculars, bar seniors from attending club meetings because they are too old? You don’t need to be within 12 months of everyone for orchestra auditions or the robotics tournament. No friends older or younger than a year? It’s getting stupid real fast. Students take electives with a larger age gap all the time and the sky isn’t falling.

How about returning students or dual enrollment at community college, is it “fair” to take the chemistry class with the 25 year old who worked as a lab technician for a few years? It’s ok to take classes when the other students are better because of an “unfair” advantage, like taking Spanish or Chinese with native speakers, who will skew the “expectations” in the class.

All the antiredshirting fracas is just silly noise, made up by helicopter super competitive parents and is actually misplaced.focus on your kid instead of others.

[Anonymous]

I thought of redshirting as a silly exercise by wrestling parents (a cult!), but hadn’t really ever thought of it in terms of schools no longer holding kids back. If they stopped social promotion- which they should stop- you would get a pretty wide range of ages by high school pretty naturally.