Why don’t schools have stronger policies about redshirting?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To all the pro-RS people claiming their choice doesn’t affect anyone else’s kid—of course it does! It turns young kids who are sent on time into even more of an outlier if some of the kids are over 12 months older. So parents who don’t want to red shirt very much have a stake in the choice other parents on their community make.

I am so thankful that red shirting is uncommon in my area. My summer birthday son is petite for his age but academically advanced and was so ready to go to kindergarten at 5, and I’m glad that there are other boys similar to him in his class and no boys who are 12+ months older than him.

And if that is something you want to avoid, you have the same degree of parental choices as everyone else. My September birthday was in class with someone 12+ months older than her this year and as I mentioned I didn’t know that until well after the school year ended because normal parents make decisions for their kids unrelated to the choices of other parents.

You are making my point exactly—in a community where red shirting is common, I’d have to make the choice between holding my child back so that he fit in better from a size/maturity perspective but was unchallenged by the schoolwork, or sending him on time where he receives appropriate schoolwork but is in a class where he is smaller and less mature than the other kids. From my perspective, this is a lose/lose scenario. Luckily he goes to a private school where red shirting is not common so he is both academically challenged and fits in with his classmates in terms of size and maturity—win/win!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To all the pro-RS people claiming their choice doesn’t affect anyone else’s kid—of course it does! It turns young kids who are sent on time into even more of an outlier if some of the kids are over 12 months older. So parents who don’t want to red shirt very much have a stake in the choice other parents on their community make.

I am so thankful that red shirting is uncommon in my area. My summer birthday son is petite for his age but academically advanced and was so ready to go to kindergarten at 5, and I’m glad that there are other boys similar to him in his class and no boys who are 12+ months older than him.

And if that is something you want to avoid, you have the same degree of parental choices as everyone else. My September birthday was in class with someone 12+ months older than her this year and as I mentioned I didn’t know that until well after the school year ended because normal parents make decisions for their kids unrelated to the choices of other parents.

You are making my point exactly—in a community where red shirting is common, I’d have to make the choice between holding my child back so that he fit in better from a size/maturity perspective but was unchallenged by the schoolwork, or sending him on time where he receives appropriate schoolwork but is in a class where he is smaller and less mature than the other kids. From my perspective, this is a lose/lose scenario. Luckily he goes to a private school where red shirting is not common so he is both academically challenged and fits in with his classmates in terms of size and maturity—win/win!

You realize your exact scenario isn’t the same as everyone else’s? What if another kid was both small and challenged by the work? Or had fine motor delays? Or other issues? Everyone wants what’s best for their own kids. Including you. Tough choices all around.

[Anonymous]

I’m not sure where the multiple posters who are claiming that redshirting (within reason) has negative effects on the redshirted child are coming from. I went to a private school with a strict June 1 cutoff for K. I have a July birthday and was required to do a year of transitional K at the school before heading on to K as a new 6 YO. Academically, I was more than ready to start K at 5, and I STILL think that waiting the extra year had long-term benefits.

I was always very advanced in reading and writing (started reading at age 3), but I struggled more with math. It just didn’t come as naturally for me, and I had to work a lot harder to do well in math every single year from elementary school all the way through high school. I’m convinced that if I had been a year younger at each grade level, I probably would have been a B math student. Instead, with the benefit of an extra year, I was able to be an A- math student. (And I worked so much harder for those grades than I worked for any of my As in other subjects.) I ended up going to an Ivy League school for college. Would I have gotten in if I had a string of Bs in math on my HS transcript? Probably not.

Do I think that spring birthdays should be redshirted absent a compelling reason? No - otherwise the age differential in a class gets too wide. However, I think that the posters claiming that redshirting harms children or that being on the older end of the class isn’t actually an advantage are just telling themselves what they want to believe. In most cases, being a bit older absolutely is an advantage. I will likely redshirt my late August birthday daughter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To all the pro-RS people claiming their choice doesn’t affect anyone else’s kid—of course it does! It turns young kids who are sent on time into even more of an outlier if some of the kids are over 12 months older. So parents who don’t want to red shirt very much have a stake in the choice other parents on their community make.

I am so thankful that red shirting is uncommon in my area. My summer birthday son is petite for his age but academically advanced and was so ready to go to kindergarten at 5, and I’m glad that there are other boys similar to him in his class and no boys who are 12+ months older than him.

And if that is something you want to avoid, you have the same degree of parental choices as everyone else. My September birthday was in class with someone 12+ months older than her this year and as I mentioned I didn’t know that until well after the school year ended because normal parents make decisions for their kids unrelated to the choices of other parents.

You are making my point exactly—in a community where red shirting is common, I’d have to make the choice between holding my child back so that he fit in better from a size/maturity perspective but was unchallenged by the schoolwork, or sending him on time where he receives appropriate schoolwork but is in a class where he is smaller and less mature than the other kids. From my perspective, this is a lose/lose scenario. Luckily he goes to a private school where red shirting is not common so he is both academically challenged and fits in with his classmates in terms of size and maturity—win/win!

Plenty of on-time time kids are bored with kindergarten academically— you need to provide your kid appropriate enrichment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m not sure where the multiple posters who are claiming that redshirting (within reason) has negative effects on the redshirted child are coming from. I went to a private school with a strict June 1 cutoff for K. I have a July birthday and was required to do a year of transitional K at the school before heading on to K as a new 6 YO. Academically, I was more than ready to start K at 5, and I STILL think that waiting the extra year had long-term benefits.

I was always very advanced in reading and writing (started reading at age 3), but I struggled more with math. It just didn’t come as naturally for me, and I had to work a lot harder to do well in math every single year from elementary school all the way through high school. I’m convinced that if I had been a year younger at each grade level, I probably would have been a B math student. Instead, with the benefit of an extra year, I was able to be an A- math student. (And I worked so much harder for those grades than I worked for any of my As in other subjects.) I ended up going to an Ivy League school for college. Would I have gotten in if I had a string of Bs in math on my HS transcript? Probably not.

Do I think that spring birthdays should be redshirted absent a compelling reason? No - otherwise the age differential in a class gets too wide. However, I think that the posters claiming that redshirting harms children or that being on the older end of the class isn’t actually an advantage are just telling themselves what they want to believe. In most cases, being a bit older absolutely is an advantage. I will likely redshirt my late August birthday daughter.

I'd take the other side of that. I'd rather have a kid be the youngest than the oldest. If I'm trying to get better at tennis, I never want to play someone who is worse than me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m not sure where the multiple posters who are claiming that redshirting (within reason) has negative effects on the redshirted child are coming from. I went to a private school with a strict June 1 cutoff for K. I have a July birthday and was required to do a year of transitional K at the school before heading on to K as a new 6 YO. Academically, I was more than ready to start K at 5, and I STILL think that waiting the extra year had long-term benefits.

I was always very advanced in reading and writing (started reading at age 3), but I struggled more with math. It just didn’t come as naturally for me, and I had to work a lot harder to do well in math every single year from elementary school all the way through high school. I’m convinced that if I had been a year younger at each grade level, I probably would have been a B math student. Instead, with the benefit of an extra year, I was able to be an A- math student. (And I worked so much harder for those grades than I worked for any of my As in other subjects.) I ended up going to an Ivy League school for college. Would I have gotten in if I had a string of Bs in math on my HS transcript? Probably not.

Do I think that spring birthdays should be redshirted absent a compelling reason? No - otherwise the age differential in a class gets too wide. However, I think that the posters claiming that redshirting harms children or that being on the older end of the class isn’t actually an advantage are just telling themselves what they want to believe. In most cases, being a bit older absolutely is an advantage. I will likely redshirt my late August birthday daughter.

Those aren't really benefits. You had some learning needs and needed more support. A tutor and working with you at home would have kept you up with A's. You would have done just fine going on time and this sounds liek a justification.

In HS there is a huge age range. In math, gym and electives you have freshmen through seniors in the classes at the large schools so you have 13-19 year olds in classes.

It sounds like you are holding back your child for your needs, not hers.

Its really not an advantage to kids who get support at school and outside of school. To me what you are saying is you want to make it easier on everyone so you don't have to provide the extra supports and that's really unfortunate for your child. Delaying school doesn't make you smarter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m not sure where the multiple posters who are claiming that redshirting (within reason) has negative effects on the redshirted child are coming from. I went to a private school with a strict June 1 cutoff for K. I have a July birthday and was required to do a year of transitional K at the school before heading on to K as a new 6 YO. Academically, I was more than ready to start K at 5, and I STILL think that waiting the extra year had long-term benefits.

I was always very advanced in reading and writing (started reading at age 3), but I struggled more with math. It just didn’t come as naturally for me, and I had to work a lot harder to do well in math every single year from elementary school all the way through high school. I’m convinced that if I had been a year younger at each grade level, I probably would have been a B math student. Instead, with the benefit of an extra year, I was able to be an A- math student. (And I worked so much harder for those grades than I worked for any of my As in other subjects.) I ended up going to an Ivy League school for college. Would I have gotten in if I had a string of Bs in math on my HS transcript? Probably not.

Do I think that spring birthdays should be redshirted absent a compelling reason? No - otherwise the age differential in a class gets too wide. However, I think that the posters claiming that redshirting harms children or that being on the older end of the class isn’t actually an advantage are just telling themselves what they want to believe. In most cases, being a bit older absolutely is an advantage. I will likely redshirt my late August birthday daughter.

I'd take the other side of that. I'd rather have a kid be the youngest than the oldest. If I'm trying to get better at tennis, I never want to play someone who is worse than me.

That's my logic and mine is one of the youngest. They are taking advanced classes on top of being the youngest. If they struggle, we help or get them the help they need. Struggling is ok.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To all the pro-RS people claiming their choice doesn’t affect anyone else’s kid—of course it does! It turns young kids who are sent on time into even more of an outlier if some of the kids are over 12 months older. So parents who don’t want to red shirt very much have a stake in the choice other parents on their community make.

I am so thankful that red shirting is uncommon in my area. My summer birthday son is petite for his age but academically advanced and was so ready to go to kindergarten at 5, and I’m glad that there are other boys similar to him in his class and no boys who are 12+ months older than him.

And if that is something you want to avoid, you have the same degree of parental choices as everyone else. My September birthday was in class with someone 12+ months older than her this year and as I mentioned I didn’t know that until well after the school year ended because normal parents make decisions for their kids unrelated to the choices of other parents.

You are making my point exactly—in a community where red shirting is common, I’d have to make the choice between holding my child back so that he fit in better from a size/maturity perspective but was unchallenged by the schoolwork, or sending him on time where he receives appropriate schoolwork but is in a class where he is smaller and less mature than the other kids. From my perspective, this is a lose/lose scenario. Luckily he goes to a private school where red shirting is not common so he is both academically challenged and fits in with his classmates in terms of size and maturity—win/win!

Plenty of on-time time kids are bored with kindergarten academically— you need to provide your kid appropriate enrichment.

Kids like mine are bored as they were prepared for K, and have to go through school with kids who weren't prepared and they teach to the lowest kids. These play based preschools don't prepare kids and many parents don't work with their kids at home so for those of us who send our kids to more academic preschools and work with them at home, have kids more "advanced" when they really aren't more advanced or smarter, but had more opportunities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To all the pro-RS people claiming their choice doesn’t affect anyone else’s kid—of course it does! It turns young kids who are sent on time into even more of an outlier if some of the kids are over 12 months older. So parents who don’t want to red shirt very much have a stake in the choice other parents on their community make.

I am so thankful that red shirting is uncommon in my area. My summer birthday son is petite for his age but academically advanced and was so ready to go to kindergarten at 5, and I’m glad that there are other boys similar to him in his class and no boys who are 12+ months older than him.

And if that is something you want to avoid, you have the same degree of parental choices as everyone else. My September birthday was in class with someone 12+ months older than her this year and as I mentioned I didn’t know that until well after the school year ended because normal parents make decisions for their kids unrelated to the choices of other parents.

You are making my point exactly—in a community where red shirting is common, I’d have to make the choice between holding my child back so that he fit in better from a size/maturity perspective but was unchallenged by the schoolwork, or sending him on time where he receives appropriate schoolwork but is in a class where he is smaller and less mature than the other kids. From my perspective, this is a lose/lose scenario. Luckily he goes to a private school where red shirting is not common so he is both academically challenged and fits in with his classmates in terms of size and maturity—win/win!

Plenty of on-time time kids are bored with kindergarten academically— you need to provide your kid appropriate enrichment.

Kids like mine are bored as they were prepared for K, and have to go through school with kids who weren't prepared and they teach to the lowest kids. These play based preschools don't prepare kids and many parents don't work with their kids at home so for those of us who send our kids to more academic preschools and work with them at home, have kids more "advanced" when they really aren't more advanced or smarter, but had more opportunities.

And, a 5-6-7-8 year old should not be "mature" and I'm not even sure what that means for those age kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m not sure where the multiple posters who are claiming that redshirting (within reason) has negative effects on the redshirted child are coming from. I went to a private school with a strict June 1 cutoff for K. I have a July birthday and was required to do a year of transitional K at the school before heading on to K as a new 6 YO. Academically, I was more than ready to start K at 5, and I STILL think that waiting the extra year had long-term benefits.

I was always very advanced in reading and writing (started reading at age 3), but I struggled more with math. It just didn’t come as naturally for me, and I had to work a lot harder to do well in math every single year from elementary school all the way through high school. I’m convinced that if I had been a year younger at each grade level, I probably would have been a B math student. Instead, with the benefit of an extra year, I was able to be an A- math student. (And I worked so much harder for those grades than I worked for any of my As in other subjects.) I ended up going to an Ivy League school for college. Would I have gotten in if I had a string of Bs in math on my HS transcript? Probably not.

Do I think that spring birthdays should be redshirted absent a compelling reason? No - otherwise the age differential in a class gets too wide. However, I think that the posters claiming that redshirting harms children or that being on the older end of the class isn’t actually an advantage are just telling themselves what they want to believe. In most cases, being a bit older absolutely is an advantage. I will likely redshirt my late August birthday daughter.

I'd take the other side of that. I'd rather have a kid be the youngest than the oldest. If I'm trying to get better at tennis, I never want to play someone who is worse than me.

That's my logic and mine is one of the youngest. They are taking advanced classes on top of being the youngest. If they struggle, we help or get them the help they need. Struggling is ok.

The help some need is simply more time. That’s it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m not sure where the multiple posters who are claiming that redshirting (within reason) has negative effects on the redshirted child are coming from. I went to a private school with a strict June 1 cutoff for K. I have a July birthday and was required to do a year of transitional K at the school before heading on to K as a new 6 YO. Academically, I was more than ready to start K at 5, and I STILL think that waiting the extra year had long-term benefits.

I was always very advanced in reading and writing (started reading at age 3), but I struggled more with math. It just didn’t come as naturally for me, and I had to work a lot harder to do well in math every single year from elementary school all the way through high school. I’m convinced that if I had been a year younger at each grade level, I probably would have been a B math student. Instead, with the benefit of an extra year, I was able to be an A- math student. (And I worked so much harder for those grades than I worked for any of my As in other subjects.) I ended up going to an Ivy League school for college. Would I have gotten in if I had a string of Bs in math on my HS transcript? Probably not.

Do I think that spring birthdays should be redshirted absent a compelling reason? No - otherwise the age differential in a class gets too wide. However, I think that the posters claiming that redshirting harms children or that being on the older end of the class isn’t actually an advantage are just telling themselves what they want to believe. In most cases, being a bit older absolutely is an advantage. I will likely redshirt my late August birthday daughter.

I'd take the other side of that. I'd rather have a kid be the youngest than the oldest. If I'm trying to get better at tennis, I never want to play someone who is worse than me.

That's my logic and mine is one of the youngest. They are taking advanced classes on top of being the youngest. If they struggle, we help or get them the help they need. Struggling is ok.

And I bet they get a big confidence boost knowing they are doing better in class than kids who are older than them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m not sure where the multiple posters who are claiming that redshirting (within reason) has negative effects on the redshirted child are coming from. I went to a private school with a strict June 1 cutoff for K. I have a July birthday and was required to do a year of transitional K at the school before heading on to K as a new 6 YO. Academically, I was more than ready to start K at 5, and I STILL think that waiting the extra year had long-term benefits.

I was always very advanced in reading and writing (started reading at age 3), but I struggled more with math. It just didn’t come as naturally for me, and I had to work a lot harder to do well in math every single year from elementary school all the way through high school. I’m convinced that if I had been a year younger at each grade level, I probably would have been a B math student. Instead, with the benefit of an extra year, I was able to be an A- math student. (And I worked so much harder for those grades than I worked for any of my As in other subjects.) I ended up going to an Ivy League school for college. Would I have gotten in if I had a string of Bs in math on my HS transcript? Probably not.

Do I think that spring birthdays should be redshirted absent a compelling reason? No - otherwise the age differential in a class gets too wide. However, I think that the posters claiming that redshirting harms children or that being on the older end of the class isn’t actually an advantage are just telling themselves what they want to believe. In most cases, being a bit older absolutely is an advantage. I will likely redshirt my late August birthday daughter.

I'd take the other side of that. I'd rather have a kid be the youngest than the oldest. If I'm trying to get better at tennis, I never want to play someone who is worse than me.

That's my logic and mine is one of the youngest. They are taking advanced classes on top of being the youngest. If they struggle, we help or get them the help they need. Struggling is ok.

And I bet they get a big confidence boost knowing they are doing better in class than kids who are older than them.

I’m glad to know people have come around to supporting redshirting. Everyone wins!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m not sure where the multiple posters who are claiming that redshirting (within reason) has negative effects on the redshirted child are coming from. I went to a private school with a strict June 1 cutoff for K. I have a July birthday and was required to do a year of transitional K at the school before heading on to K as a new 6 YO. Academically, I was more than ready to start K at 5, and I STILL think that waiting the extra year had long-term benefits.

I was always very advanced in reading and writing (started reading at age 3), but I struggled more with math. It just didn’t come as naturally for me, and I had to work a lot harder to do well in math every single year from elementary school all the way through high school. I’m convinced that if I had been a year younger at each grade level, I probably would have been a B math student. Instead, with the benefit of an extra year, I was able to be an A- math student. (And I worked so much harder for those grades than I worked for any of my As in other subjects.) I ended up going to an Ivy League school for college. Would I have gotten in if I had a string of Bs in math on my HS transcript? Probably not.

Do I think that spring birthdays should be redshirted absent a compelling reason? No - otherwise the age differential in a class gets too wide. However, I think that the posters claiming that redshirting harms children or that being on the older end of the class isn’t actually an advantage are just telling themselves what they want to believe. In most cases, being a bit older absolutely is an advantage. I will likely redshirt my late August birthday daughter.

I'd take the other side of that. I'd rather have a kid be the youngest than the oldest. If I'm trying to get better at tennis, I never want to play someone who is worse than me.

That's my logic and mine is one of the youngest. They are taking advanced classes on top of being the youngest. If they struggle, we help or get them the help they need. Struggling is ok.

And I bet they get a big confidence boost knowing they are doing better in class than kids who are older than them.

I’m glad to know people have come around to supporting redshirting. Everyone wins!

Well, it sucks for the older kid in this scenario, the one who was redshirted. It's got to a blow to a kid's confidence knowing younger kids are doing better than he or she.

[Anonymous]

Sorry but my son (August 30) wasn't ready for K at 5. Maybe if schools were different, he would have been. But he wasn't ready to sit on a laptop 5 hours a day, 30 min recess, he couldn't read yet, still wore a pullup at night. If K had been anything like his high quality, play based Pre-K I would have sent him.

At 6 he was perfectly ready for school. He felt confident and a leader in class. He could read, no pullups. Teachers praised his ability to sit still and control himself all year in K.

FWIW I sent my August dd to school on time. She was ready and school is more designed for girls IMO.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m not sure where the multiple posters who are claiming that redshirting (within reason) has negative effects on the redshirted child are coming from. I went to a private school with a strict June 1 cutoff for K. I have a July birthday and was required to do a year of transitional K at the school before heading on to K as a new 6 YO. Academically, I was more than ready to start K at 5, and I STILL think that waiting the extra year had long-term benefits.

I was always very advanced in reading and writing (started reading at age 3), but I struggled more with math. It just didn’t come as naturally for me, and I had to work a lot harder to do well in math every single year from elementary school all the way through high school. I’m convinced that if I had been a year younger at each grade level, I probably would have been a B math student. Instead, with the benefit of an extra year, I was able to be an A- math student. (And I worked so much harder for those grades than I worked for any of my As in other subjects.) I ended up going to an Ivy League school for college. Would I have gotten in if I had a string of Bs in math on my HS transcript? Probably not.

Do I think that spring birthdays should be redshirted absent a compelling reason? No - otherwise the age differential in a class gets too wide. However, I think that the posters claiming that redshirting harms children or that being on the older end of the class isn’t actually an advantage are just telling themselves what they want to believe. In most cases, being a bit older absolutely is an advantage. I will likely redshirt my late August birthday daughter.

I'd take the other side of that. I'd rather have a kid be the youngest than the oldest. If I'm trying to get better at tennis, I never want to play someone who is worse than me.

That's my logic and mine is one of the youngest. They are taking advanced classes on top of being the youngest. If they struggle, we help or get them the help they need. Struggling is ok.

And I bet they get a big confidence boost knowing they are doing better in class than kids who are older than them.

I’m glad to know people have come around to supporting redshirting. Everyone wins!

Well, it sucks for the older kid in this scenario, the one who was redshirted. It's got to a blow to a kid's confidence knowing younger kids are doing better than he or she.

Maybe but that’s not really your business or concern. Do you worry about your own kids as much as you do others?