Enough is enough with the redshirting!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Public schools aren’t retaining anyone because that costs $$$. I’ve only heard of retention being offered when a kid missed a lot of a grade due to something like a serious medical issue, or at the end of the Covid school years - 2019-20 or 2020-21 - if a kid didn’t progress during the closures. My neighbor had a young for grade 1st grader in 20-21 and FCPS did offer to let her repeat 1st in person.

But let this thread be a heads up to everyone: redshirting is common, perhaps even expected, in private schools, especially for the younger for grade kids. So plan accordingly.

+1, and I would say it’s increasingly common in public school among parents who read the data on developmentally appropriate settings for 4-5. So, assume if you send a four year old they’ll be youngest by a year+, and an early five year old by a year. None of this is secret, or unavailable information to you.

Since most public schools do an age cut off around September 1st, the number of kids attending K at age 4 is very small (and even people who complain about excessive redshirting don't complain about redshirting a kid who would be 4 during the "normal" cut off). In NY (which is the only place with a midyear cut off that results in a lot of 4 year olds being eligible for K) it's common for people to redshirt those kids and no one complains about it.

The only redshirting people complain about is when people start redshirting kids who would be well over 5 when starting K but they hold them back anyway. Yes, in some privates that's common place, but the school generally encourages it and everyone has a chance to do it -- they like having an older class of K students and often they will strongly encourage redshirting summer or late spring birthdays. Some schools even offer a transitional year for young K students before taking the regular K class, so you still wind up with a fairly age-homogenous class.

But in public that's not the case, and when some parents start deciding their April or May birthday kid needs another year, it can leave other parents stuck with the consequences of those actions without warning. No one is going to get mad that a parent redshirted so their kid could start K at 5, but when you see kids starting K at 6 and a half, it becomes an issue.

Please yell at me now and tell me I'm a "crazy anti-redshirter" for agreeing this specific issue is a problem.

As someone with a young for grade kid, I think it is absolutely insane to consider this a problem whatsoever, and really makes you sound like someone who has no experience with any real problems in life.

My kid with an August birthday who I sent on time (she started K at 5 but was among the youngest in her grade) was viciously bullied by a redshirted child in 1st grade. My kid was 6 years old for the entirety of 1st grade. The bullying child turned 8 in September and was signficantly bigger and taller. Redshirting played a major role in the bullying because while this one child was the leader, there were many older kids in the classroom due to redshirting and when the bully would attack/provoke my kid, she'd cry, and then all the older kids would round on her and call her a baby and tease her for being small and young (she is average height for her age).

I had no idea how prevalent redshirting was when I enrolled my kid in K. She was academically and socially ready for a K classroom full of 5 and 6 year old children. In fact she continues to be at the top of her grade academically and she is well liked by teachers for being a good listener who follows directions and is helpful and kind in the classroom (something that apparently the extra years of preschool or staying home did not help instill in these redshirted kids who are merely bigger and older, not more mature).

I absolutely resent that my child's classroom environment has been dominated by older children who I think should have spent their 5/6 year in K learning out to function in elementary school, but instead spent it elsewhere and arrived at elementary school with their own ideas about how school should work. I resent how common bullying and relational aggression are at the school because of these older-but-less-mature kids.

Call me a crazy anti-redshirted if you want. I think redshirting sucks. Kids should start school at the same age so that they learn the same skills and are generally at the same developmental level. Kids with developmental delays can/should be held back to accommodate their delays, but it shouldn't be at the parents' discretion.

We will be moving school districts before these older kids hit puberty in 3rd grade and we have to deal with that.

This is a great, great example of why redshirting policies are determined at the school and district level and not at the parent level.

Your resentment? Only applies to you.

Yes, your child was ready for a 5/6 year
old classroom and you didn’t realize that some kids would turn seven. You didn’t realize. So instead of seeing your role here, you’ve made a litany of resentment.

I think a lot of parents resent…having a four or five year old sit in a classroom all day when it’s not developmentally appropriate.

I think a lot of parents resent a school system which isn’t responsive to individual needs and so parents are only given one chance to determine their kids placement.

I think a lot of parents resent having kids indoors all day with so little physical stimulation.

But none of them would be justified in blaming other parents for those resentments. You aren’t either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Public schools aren’t retaining anyone because that costs $$$. I’ve only heard of retention being offered when a kid missed a lot of a grade due to something like a serious medical issue, or at the end of the Covid school years - 2019-20 or 2020-21 - if a kid didn’t progress during the closures. My neighbor had a young for grade 1st grader in 20-21 and FCPS did offer to let her repeat 1st in person.

But let this thread be a heads up to everyone: redshirting is common, perhaps even expected, in private schools, especially for the younger for grade kids. So plan accordingly.

+1, and I would say it’s increasingly common in public school among parents who read the data on developmentally appropriate settings for 4-5. So, assume if you send a four year old they’ll be youngest by a year+, and an early five year old by a year. None of this is secret, or unavailable information to you.

Since most public schools do an age cut off around September 1st, the number of kids attending K at age 4 is very small (and even people who complain about excessive redshirting don't complain about redshirting a kid who would be 4 during the "normal" cut off). In NY (which is the only place with a midyear cut off that results in a lot of 4 year olds being eligible for K) it's common for people to redshirt those kids and no one complains about it.

The only redshirting people complain about is when people start redshirting kids who would be well over 5 when starting K but they hold them back anyway. Yes, in some privates that's common place, but the school generally encourages it and everyone has a chance to do it -- they like having an older class of K students and often they will strongly encourage redshirting summer or late spring birthdays. Some schools even offer a transitional year for young K students before taking the regular K class, so you still wind up with a fairly age-homogenous class.

But in public that's not the case, and when some parents start deciding their April or May birthday kid needs another year, it can leave other parents stuck with the consequences of those actions without warning. No one is going to get mad that a parent redshirted so their kid could start K at 5, but when you see kids starting K at 6 and a half, it becomes an issue.

Please yell at me now and tell me I'm a "crazy anti-redshirter" for agreeing this specific issue is a problem.

As someone with a young for grade kid, I think it is absolutely insane to consider this a problem whatsoever, and really makes you sound like someone who has no experience with any real problems in life.

My kid with an August birthday who I sent on time (she started K at 5 but was among the youngest in her grade) was viciously bullied by a redshirted child in 1st grade. My kid was 6 years old for the entirety of 1st grade. The bullying child turned 8 in September and was signficantly bigger and taller. Redshirting played a major role in the bullying because while this one child was the leader, there were many older kids in the classroom due to redshirting and when the bully would attack/provoke my kid, she'd cry, and then all the older kids would round on her and call her a baby and tease her for being small and young (she is average height for her age).

I had no idea how prevalent redshirting was when I enrolled my kid in K. She was academically and socially ready for a K classroom full of 5 and 6 year old children. In fact she continues to be at the top of her grade academically and she is well liked by teachers for being a good listener who follows directions and is helpful and kind in the classroom (something that apparently the extra years of preschool or staying home did not help instill in these redshirted kids who are merely bigger and older, not more mature).

I absolutely resent that my child's classroom environment has been dominated by older children who I think should have spent their 5/6 year in K learning out to function in elementary school, but instead spent it elsewhere and arrived at elementary school with their own ideas about how school should work. I resent how common bullying and relational aggression are at the school because of these older-but-less-mature kids.

Call me a crazy anti-redshirted if you want. I think redshirting sucks. Kids should start school at the same age so that they learn the same skills and are generally at the same developmental level. Kids with developmental delays can/should be held back to accommodate their delays, but it shouldn't be at the parents' discretion.

We will be moving school districts before these older kids hit puberty in 3rd grade and we have to deal with that.

Your new school district will also have kids whose parents chose to start them later, your daughter will still be small/young, and bullies will still tease children who cry easily.

Your complaint is with the school for not addressing bullying, but you want to attack the parents who made what they considered the best choices for their kids. Why did the school fail to act? They are accountable to you in a way that other parents simply are not.

The new school district does not have the same issues with redshirting. There is some redshirting of summer birthdays but they don't allow this kind of extreme redshirting where kids are permitted to start K at 6.5 or above. I know because we discussed this issue explicitly with schools when we toured them this fall.

Also yes, of course my complaint is with the school. But not just for the bullying (they did an okay job addressing the bullying and at least my kid is not in a classroom with any of the bullies this year). I take issue with the school permitting such a wide range of ages in the same grade cohort, and for allowing parents to game the redshirting rules to send their kids to school very late. And I also think the school has done too little to address what are clearly social deficits in many of the redshirted kids. My issue is 100% with the school for not enforcing its enrollment rules and for the way they handle the redshirted kids. That's why we are changing schools to one where they handle this situation better.

The kids held back are less mature than the kids who are age appropiate for the grade. It's not the schools responsibility, it's the parents but these are parents who generally would rather ignore the problems than adress it. The big issue is the age appropiate behaviors and academics are skewed to the older kids, not the younger ones who are in their proper grade.

It's the school's responsibility to make sure enrollment policies create appropriately aged cohorts that put all the kid's in the best position for success.

I do think there's a conversation to be had about how to design kindergarten to appropriately meet the developmental needs of "on time" kids. Parents shouldn't feel like they have to redshirt because their 5 yr old is energetic and easily distracted -- that's developmentally normal and K should accommodate that. Making K super academic and expecting kids to sit still for hours on end is unrealistic and not really good for any of the kids, even the ones who seem fine with it.

At the same time, parents need to consider that immaturity is often solved by school. Delaying K because your kids seems socially immature can really backfire -- those are often the kids who NEED the structure of school and especially the exposure to (same age, same size) peers. Holding a kindergartener back because he seems socially immature may actually have the opposite effect you want -- it just further delays the maturity that happens when a kid is given higher behavioral expectations.

It's kind of a push-pull. We didn't do Montessori but I do think this is something Montessori schools do well. The environment accommodates movement, outdoor times, and varying developmental levels. But behavioral expectations are actually pretty high -- kids are expected to be able to listen and follow directions, to clean up after themselves and take responsibility for themselves and their belongings. It's a good balance. We were able to get our kids the same skills while they attended traditional public school, but a lot of their classmates did NOT attain these skills.

I sometimes wonder if public PKs and Ks should consider adopting a kind of Montessori-lite approach, incorporating more of the Montessori concepts. Instead of focusing so much on academics which I think are unnecessary for 4 and 5 year olds. Kids need to learn basic life skills first.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Public schools aren’t retaining anyone because that costs $$$. I’ve only heard of retention being offered when a kid missed a lot of a grade due to something like a serious medical issue, or at the end of the Covid school years - 2019-20 or 2020-21 - if a kid didn’t progress during the closures. My neighbor had a young for grade 1st grader in 20-21 and FCPS did offer to let her repeat 1st in person.

But let this thread be a heads up to everyone: redshirting is common, perhaps even expected, in private schools, especially for the younger for grade kids. So plan accordingly.

+1, and I would say it’s increasingly common in public school among parents who read the data on developmentally appropriate settings for 4-5. So, assume if you send a four year old they’ll be youngest by a year+, and an early five year old by a year. None of this is secret, or unavailable information to you.

Since most public schools do an age cut off around September 1st, the number of kids attending K at age 4 is very small (and even people who complain about excessive redshirting don't complain about redshirting a kid who would be 4 during the "normal" cut off). In NY (which is the only place with a midyear cut off that results in a lot of 4 year olds being eligible for K) it's common for people to redshirt those kids and no one complains about it.

The only redshirting people complain about is when people start redshirting kids who would be well over 5 when starting K but they hold them back anyway. Yes, in some privates that's common place, but the school generally encourages it and everyone has a chance to do it -- they like having an older class of K students and often they will strongly encourage redshirting summer or late spring birthdays. Some schools even offer a transitional year for young K students before taking the regular K class, so you still wind up with a fairly age-homogenous class.

But in public that's not the case, and when some parents start deciding their April or May birthday kid needs another year, it can leave other parents stuck with the consequences of those actions without warning. No one is going to get mad that a parent redshirted so their kid could start K at 5, but when you see kids starting K at 6 and a half, it becomes an issue.

Please yell at me now and tell me I'm a "crazy anti-redshirter" for agreeing this specific issue is a problem.

As someone with a young for grade kid, I think it is absolutely insane to consider this a problem whatsoever, and really makes you sound like someone who has no experience with any real problems in life.

My kid with an August birthday who I sent on time (she started K at 5 but was among the youngest in her grade) was viciously bullied by a redshirted child in 1st grade. My kid was 6 years old for the entirety of 1st grade. The bullying child turned 8 in September and was signficantly bigger and taller. Redshirting played a major role in the bullying because while this one child was the leader, there were many older kids in the classroom due to redshirting and when the bully would attack/provoke my kid, she'd cry, and then all the older kids would round on her and call her a baby and tease her for being small and young (she is average height for her age).

I had no idea how prevalent redshirting was when I enrolled my kid in K. She was academically and socially ready for a K classroom full of 5 and 6 year old children. In fact she continues to be at the top of her grade academically and she is well liked by teachers for being a good listener who follows directions and is helpful and kind in the classroom (something that apparently the extra years of preschool or staying home did not help instill in these redshirted kids who are merely bigger and older, not more mature).

I absolutely resent that my child's classroom environment has been dominated by older children who I think should have spent their 5/6 year in K learning out to function in elementary school, but instead spent it elsewhere and arrived at elementary school with their own ideas about how school should work. I resent how common bullying and relational aggression are at the school because of these older-but-less-mature kids.

Call me a crazy anti-redshirted if you want. I think redshirting sucks. Kids should start school at the same age so that they learn the same skills and are generally at the same developmental level. Kids with developmental delays can/should be held back to accommodate their delays, but it shouldn't be at the parents' discretion.

We will be moving school districts before these older kids hit puberty in 3rd grade and we have to deal with that.

This is a great, great example of why redshirting policies are determined at the school and district level and not at the parent level.

Your resentment? Only applies to you.

Yes, your child was ready for a 5/6 year
old classroom and you didn’t realize that some kids would turn seven. You didn’t realize. So instead of seeing your role here, you’ve made a litany of resentment.

I think a lot of parents resent…having a four or five year old sit in a classroom all day when it’s not developmentally appropriate.

I think a lot of parents resent a school system which isn’t responsive to individual needs and so parents are only given one chance to determine their kids placement.

I think a lot of parents resent having kids indoors all day with so little physical stimulation.

But none of them would be justified in blaming other parents for those resentments. You aren’t either.

This is so circular. First of all, as I've already stated, I don't resent other parents -- I resent the school and school district for creating this cluster by failing to either (1) actually enforce age cutoffs such that K classrooms are actually filled primarily with kids who are actually in the designated age cohort according to all their published enrollment guidelines, OR (2) creating a curriculum and environment that can actually handle the broader range of ages they are allowing to enroll in the same cohort.

The school does neither and it has a concrete, negative impact on children, including mine.

For the record I would love more outdoor time, more physical activity, and classrooms that actually respond to the varied individual needs of kids. I would happily band together with other parents to demand those things. At our school, some of the teachers actually deliver on this while others don't, and I think we could actually make great strides if we lobbied together for these things.

The problem with redshirting is that it's an attempt to make an endrun around these issues (by delaying the day when that specific child will be sitting in a K classroom with too little outdoor time, physical exercise, or customized instruction) but doesn't actually solve it. It's the same K classroom, but now it has a bunch of 7 year olds in it? Does this actually benefit anyone's kids? No.

Also if you want more individualized instruction, you should not advocate for a policy that enables such a broad range of ages in one classroom. Because that makes it much harder to tailor instruction to individual kids' needs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Public schools aren’t retaining anyone because that costs $$$. I’ve only heard of retention being offered when a kid missed a lot of a grade due to something like a serious medical issue, or at the end of the Covid school years - 2019-20 or 2020-21 - if a kid didn’t progress during the closures. My neighbor had a young for grade 1st grader in 20-21 and FCPS did offer to let her repeat 1st in person.

But let this thread be a heads up to everyone: redshirting is common, perhaps even expected, in private schools, especially for the younger for grade kids. So plan accordingly.

+1, and I would say it’s increasingly common in public school among parents who read the data on developmentally appropriate settings for 4-5. So, assume if you send a four year old they’ll be youngest by a year+, and an early five year old by a year. None of this is secret, or unavailable information to you.

Since most public schools do an age cut off around September 1st, the number of kids attending K at age 4 is very small (and even people who complain about excessive redshirting don't complain about redshirting a kid who would be 4 during the "normal" cut off). In NY (which is the only place with a midyear cut off that results in a lot of 4 year olds being eligible for K) it's common for people to redshirt those kids and no one complains about it.

The only redshirting people complain about is when people start redshirting kids who would be well over 5 when starting K but they hold them back anyway. Yes, in some privates that's common place, but the school generally encourages it and everyone has a chance to do it -- they like having an older class of K students and often they will strongly encourage redshirting summer or late spring birthdays. Some schools even offer a transitional year for young K students before taking the regular K class, so you still wind up with a fairly age-homogenous class.

But in public that's not the case, and when some parents start deciding their April or May birthday kid needs another year, it can leave other parents stuck with the consequences of those actions without warning. No one is going to get mad that a parent redshirted so their kid could start K at 5, but when you see kids starting K at 6 and a half, it becomes an issue.

Please yell at me now and tell me I'm a "crazy anti-redshirter" for agreeing this specific issue is a problem.

As someone with a young for grade kid, I think it is absolutely insane to consider this a problem whatsoever, and really makes you sound like someone who has no experience with any real problems in life.

My kid with an August birthday who I sent on time (she started K at 5 but was among the youngest in her grade) was viciously bullied by a redshirted child in 1st grade. My kid was 6 years old for the entirety of 1st grade. The bullying child turned 8 in September and was signficantly bigger and taller. Redshirting played a major role in the bullying because while this one child was the leader, there were many older kids in the classroom due to redshirting and when the bully would attack/provoke my kid, she'd cry, and then all the older kids would round on her and call her a baby and tease her for being small and young (she is average height for her age).

I had no idea how prevalent redshirting was when I enrolled my kid in K. She was academically and socially ready for a K classroom full of 5 and 6 year old children. In fact she continues to be at the top of her grade academically and she is well liked by teachers for being a good listener who follows directions and is helpful and kind in the classroom (something that apparently the extra years of preschool or staying home did not help instill in these redshirted kids who are merely bigger and older, not more mature).

I absolutely resent that my child's classroom environment has been dominated by older children who I think should have spent their 5/6 year in K learning out to function in elementary school, but instead spent it elsewhere and arrived at elementary school with their own ideas about how school should work. I resent how common bullying and relational aggression are at the school because of these older-but-less-mature kids.

Call me a crazy anti-redshirted if you want. I think redshirting sucks. Kids should start school at the same age so that they learn the same skills and are generally at the same developmental level. Kids with developmental delays can/should be held back to accommodate their delays, but it shouldn't be at the parents' discretion.

We will be moving school districts before these older kids hit puberty in 3rd grade and we have to deal with that.

This is a great, great example of why redshirting policies are determined at the school and district level and not at the parent level.

Your resentment? Only applies to you.

Yes, your child was ready for a 5/6 year
old classroom and you didn’t realize that some kids would turn seven. You didn’t realize. So instead of seeing your role here, you’ve made a litany of resentment.

I think a lot of parents resent…having a four or five year old sit in a classroom all day when it’s not developmentally appropriate.

I think a lot of parents resent a school system which isn’t responsive to individual needs and so parents are only given one chance to determine their kids placement.

I think a lot of parents resent having kids indoors all day with so little physical stimulation.

But none of them would be justified in blaming other parents for those resentments. You aren’t either.

This is so circular. First of all, as I've already stated, I don't resent other parents -- I resent the school and school district for creating this cluster by failing to either (1) actually enforce age cutoffs such that K classrooms are actually filled primarily with kids who are actually in the designated age cohort according to all their published enrollment guidelines, OR (2) creating a curriculum and environment that can actually handle the broader range of ages they are allowing to enroll in the same cohort.

The school does neither and it has a concrete, negative impact on children, including mine.

For the record I would love more outdoor time, more physical activity, and classrooms that actually respond to the varied individual needs of kids. I would happily band together with other parents to demand those things. At our school, some of the teachers actually deliver on this while others don't, and I think we could actually make great strides if we lobbied together for these things.

The problem with redshirting is that it's an attempt to make an endrun around these issues (by delaying the day when that specific child will be sitting in a K classroom with too little outdoor time, physical exercise, or customized instruction) but doesn't actually solve it. It's the same K classroom, but now it has a bunch of 7 year olds in it? Does this actually benefit anyone's kids? No.

Also if you want more individualized instruction, you should not advocate for a policy that enables such a broad range of ages in one classroom. Because that makes it much harder to tailor instruction to individual kids' needs.

The bolded is already being done. In my county you have to enroll your child by six (by law) if they are transferring at seven they are in first grade. So yes kindergarten needs to be designed for kids from 4 (August and September birthdays) to potentially 6 and 11 months (a redshirted October 1 birthday). That’s what kindergarten is in 2024. That isn’t going away.

So parents have to decide: what is the best age for my kid[b] to be in a 4-7 classroom where *most kids* will be 5-6 but some will be 4 for a month or two and some will be 7 for a few months. You decided that age was 5. Others might decide 4. Others might decide 6. Personally I think it’s more developmentally appropriate for a seven year old to sit in a classroom than a four year old.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Public schools aren’t retaining anyone because that costs $$$. I’ve only heard of retention being offered when a kid missed a lot of a grade due to something like a serious medical issue, or at the end of the Covid school years - 2019-20 or 2020-21 - if a kid didn’t progress during the closures. My neighbor had a young for grade 1st grader in 20-21 and FCPS did offer to let her repeat 1st in person.

But let this thread be a heads up to everyone: redshirting is common, perhaps even expected, in private schools, especially for the younger for grade kids. So plan accordingly.

+1, and I would say it’s increasingly common in public school among parents who read the data on developmentally appropriate settings for 4-5. So, assume if you send a four year old they’ll be youngest by a year+, and an early five year old by a year. None of this is secret, or unavailable information to you.

Since most public schools do an age cut off around September 1st, the number of kids attending K at age 4 is very small (and even people who complain about excessive redshirting don't complain about redshirting a kid who would be 4 during the "normal" cut off). In NY (which is the only place with a midyear cut off that results in a lot of 4 year olds being eligible for K) it's common for people to redshirt those kids and no one complains about it.

The only redshirting people complain about is when people start redshirting kids who would be well over 5 when starting K but they hold them back anyway. Yes, in some privates that's common place, but the school generally encourages it and everyone has a chance to do it -- they like having an older class of K students and often they will strongly encourage redshirting summer or late spring birthdays. Some schools even offer a transitional year for young K students before taking the regular K class, so you still wind up with a fairly age-homogenous class.

But in public that's not the case, and when some parents start deciding their April or May birthday kid needs another year, it can leave other parents stuck with the consequences of those actions without warning. No one is going to get mad that a parent redshirted so their kid could start K at 5, but when you see kids starting K at 6 and a half, it becomes an issue.

Please yell at me now and tell me I'm a "crazy anti-redshirter" for agreeing this specific issue is a problem.

As someone with a young for grade kid, I think it is absolutely insane to consider this a problem whatsoever, and really makes you sound like someone who has no experience with any real problems in life.

My kid with an August birthday who I sent on time (she started K at 5 but was among the youngest in her grade) was viciously bullied by a redshirted child in 1st grade. My kid was 6 years old for the entirety of 1st grade. The bullying child turned 8 in September and was signficantly bigger and taller. Redshirting played a major role in the bullying because while this one child was the leader, there were many older kids in the classroom due to redshirting and when the bully would attack/provoke my kid, she'd cry, and then all the older kids would round on her and call her a baby and tease her for being small and young (she is average height for her age).

I had no idea how prevalent redshirting was when I enrolled my kid in K. She was academically and socially ready for a K classroom full of 5 and 6 year old children. In fact she continues to be at the top of her grade academically and she is well liked by teachers for being a good listener who follows directions and is helpful and kind in the classroom (something that apparently the extra years of preschool or staying home did not help instill in these redshirted kids who are merely bigger and older, not more mature).

I absolutely resent that my child's classroom environment has been dominated by older children who I think should have spent their 5/6 year in K learning out to function in elementary school, but instead spent it elsewhere and arrived at elementary school with their own ideas about how school should work. I resent how common bullying and relational aggression are at the school because of these older-but-less-mature kids.

Call me a crazy anti-redshirted if you want. I think redshirting sucks. Kids should start school at the same age so that they learn the same skills and are generally at the same developmental level. Kids with developmental delays can/should be held back to accommodate their delays, but it shouldn't be at the parents' discretion.

We will be moving school districts before these older kids hit puberty in 3rd grade and we have to deal with that.

This is a great, great example of why redshirting policies are determined at the school and district level and not at the parent level.

Your resentment? Only applies to you.

Yes, your child was ready for a 5/6 year
old classroom and you didn’t realize that some kids would turn seven. You didn’t realize. So instead of seeing your role here, you’ve made a litany of resentment.

I think a lot of parents resent…having a four or five year old sit in a classroom all day when it’s not developmentally appropriate.

I think a lot of parents resent a school system which isn’t responsive to individual needs and so parents are only given one chance to determine their kids placement.

I think a lot of parents resent having kids indoors all day with so little physical stimulation.

But none of them would be justified in blaming other parents for those resentments. You aren’t either.

This is so circular. First of all, as I've already stated, I don't resent other parents -- I resent the school and school district for creating this cluster by failing to either (1) actually enforce age cutoffs such that K classrooms are actually filled primarily with kids who are actually in the designated age cohort according to all their published enrollment guidelines, OR (2) creating a curriculum and environment that can actually handle the broader range of ages they are allowing to enroll in the same cohort.

The school does neither and it has a concrete, negative impact on children, including mine.

For the record I would love more outdoor time, more physical activity, and classrooms that actually respond to the varied individual needs of kids. I would happily band together with other parents to demand those things. At our school, some of the teachers actually deliver on this while others don't, and I think we could actually make great strides if we lobbied together for these things.

The problem with redshirting is that it's an attempt to make an endrun around these issues (by delaying the day when that specific child will be sitting in a K classroom with too little outdoor time, physical exercise, or customized instruction) but doesn't actually solve it. It's the same K classroom, but now it has a bunch of 7 year olds in it? Does this actually benefit anyone's kids? No.

Also if you want more individualized instruction, you should not advocate for a policy that enables such a broad range of ages in one classroom. Because that makes it much harder to tailor instruction to individual kids' needs.

The bolded is already being done. In my county you have to enroll your child by six (by law) if they are transferring at seven they are in first grade. So yes kindergarten needs to be designed for kids from 4 (August and September birthdays) to potentially 6 and 11 months (a redshirted October 1 birthday). That’s what kindergarten is in 2024. That isn’t going away.

So parents have to decide: what is the best age for my kid[b] to be in a 4-7 classroom where *most kids* will be 5-6 but some will be 4 for a month or two and some will be 7 for a few months. You decided that age was 5. Others might decide 4. Others might decide 6. Personally I think it’s more developmentally appropriate for a seven year old to sit in a classroom than a four year old.

But there are so many people that are not in the position to make that decision. They cannot afford another year of preschool, nanny, daycare, exc.

Their kids now have to be compared and graded against a kid that could be 18 months older than theirs.

Yet somehow this is all ok because "parents have to decide" as you pat yourself on the back from your privileged perch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Public schools aren’t retaining anyone because that costs $$$. I’ve only heard of retention being offered when a kid missed a lot of a grade due to something like a serious medical issue, or at the end of the Covid school years - 2019-20 or 2020-21 - if a kid didn’t progress during the closures. My neighbor had a young for grade 1st grader in 20-21 and FCPS did offer to let her repeat 1st in person.

But let this thread be a heads up to everyone: redshirting is common, perhaps even expected, in private schools, especially for the younger for grade kids. So plan accordingly.

+1, and I would say it’s increasingly common in public school among parents who read the data on developmentally appropriate settings for 4-5. So, assume if you send a four year old they’ll be youngest by a year+, and an early five year old by a year. None of this is secret, or unavailable information to you.

Since most public schools do an age cut off around September 1st, the number of kids attending K at age 4 is very small (and even people who complain about excessive redshirting don't complain about redshirting a kid who would be 4 during the "normal" cut off). In NY (which is the only place with a midyear cut off that results in a lot of 4 year olds being eligible for K) it's common for people to redshirt those kids and no one complains about it.

The only redshirting people complain about is when people start redshirting kids who would be well over 5 when starting K but they hold them back anyway. Yes, in some privates that's common place, but the school generally encourages it and everyone has a chance to do it -- they like having an older class of K students and often they will strongly encourage redshirting summer or late spring birthdays. Some schools even offer a transitional year for young K students before taking the regular K class, so you still wind up with a fairly age-homogenous class.

But in public that's not the case, and when some parents start deciding their April or May birthday kid needs another year, it can leave other parents stuck with the consequences of those actions without warning. No one is going to get mad that a parent redshirted so their kid could start K at 5, but when you see kids starting K at 6 and a half, it becomes an issue.

Please yell at me now and tell me I'm a "crazy anti-redshirter" for agreeing this specific issue is a problem.

As someone with a young for grade kid, I think it is absolutely insane to consider this a problem whatsoever, and really makes you sound like someone who has no experience with any real problems in life.

My kid with an August birthday who I sent on time (she started K at 5 but was among the youngest in her grade) was viciously bullied by a redshirted child in 1st grade. My kid was 6 years old for the entirety of 1st grade. The bullying child turned 8 in September and was signficantly bigger and taller. Redshirting played a major role in the bullying because while this one child was the leader, there were many older kids in the classroom due to redshirting and when the bully would attack/provoke my kid, she'd cry, and then all the older kids would round on her and call her a baby and tease her for being small and young (she is average height for her age).

I had no idea how prevalent redshirting was when I enrolled my kid in K. She was academically and socially ready for a K classroom full of 5 and 6 year old children. In fact she continues to be at the top of her grade academically and she is well liked by teachers for being a good listener who follows directions and is helpful and kind in the classroom (something that apparently the extra years of preschool or staying home did not help instill in these redshirted kids who are merely bigger and older, not more mature).

I absolutely resent that my child's classroom environment has been dominated by older children who I think should have spent their 5/6 year in K learning out to function in elementary school, but instead spent it elsewhere and arrived at elementary school with their own ideas about how school should work. I resent how common bullying and relational aggression are at the school because of these older-but-less-mature kids.

Call me a crazy anti-redshirted if you want. I think redshirting sucks. Kids should start school at the same age so that they learn the same skills and are generally at the same developmental level. Kids with developmental delays can/should be held back to accommodate their delays, but it shouldn't be at the parents' discretion.

We will be moving school districts before these older kids hit puberty in 3rd grade and we have to deal with that.

This is a great, great example of why redshirting policies are determined at the school and district level and not at the parent level.

Your resentment? Only applies to you.

Yes, your child was ready for a 5/6 year
old classroom and you didn’t realize that some kids would turn seven. You didn’t realize. So instead of seeing your role here, you’ve made a litany of resentment.

I think a lot of parents resent…having a four or five year old sit in a classroom all day when it’s not developmentally appropriate.

I think a lot of parents resent a school system which isn’t responsive to individual needs and so parents are only given one chance to determine their kids placement.

I think a lot of parents resent having kids indoors all day with so little physical stimulation.

But none of them would be justified in blaming other parents for those resentments. You aren’t either.

This is so circular. First of all, as I've already stated, I don't resent other parents -- I resent the school and school district for creating this cluster by failing to either (1) actually enforce age cutoffs such that K classrooms are actually filled primarily with kids who are actually in the designated age cohort according to all their published enrollment guidelines, OR (2) creating a curriculum and environment that can actually handle the broader range of ages they are allowing to enroll in the same cohort.

The school does neither and it has a concrete, negative impact on children, including mine.

For the record I would love more outdoor time, more physical activity, and classrooms that actually respond to the varied individual needs of kids. I would happily band together with other parents to demand those things. At our school, some of the teachers actually deliver on this while others don't, and I think we could actually make great strides if we lobbied together for these things.

The problem with redshirting is that it's an attempt to make an endrun around these issues (by delaying the day when that specific child will be sitting in a K classroom with too little outdoor time, physical exercise, or customized instruction) but doesn't actually solve it. It's the same K classroom, but now it has a bunch of 7 year olds in it? Does this actually benefit anyone's kids? No.

Also if you want more individualized instruction, you should not advocate for a policy that enables such a broad range of ages in one classroom. Because that makes it much harder to tailor instruction to individual kids' needs.

The bolded is already being done. In my county you have to enroll your child by six (by law) if they are transferring at seven they are in first grade. So yes kindergarten needs to be designed for kids from 4 (August and September birthdays) to potentially 6 and 11 months (a redshirted October 1 birthday). That’s what kindergarten is in 2024. That isn’t going away.

So parents have to decide: what is the best age for my kid to be in a 4-7 classroom where *most kids* will be 5-6 but some will be 4 for a month or two and some will be 7 for a few months. You decided that age was 5. Others might decide 4. Others might decide 6. Personally I think it’s more developmentally appropriate for a seven year old to sit in a classroom than a four year old.

Your county's rules aren't universal.

Our district has a 9/1 cut off and for a long time the only redshirting was of kids with late August birthdays in order for those kids not to start K at 4 (and no one minded). The expectation based on their enrollment cut off AND what people actually did was that K classrooms had kids who were 5 or 6. No 4 year olds and no 7 year olds. There may have been a few outliers here and there (a very precocious 4 year old with an 8/30 birthday who started on time, a kid with developmental delays who either repeated K on the school's recommendation or delayed K based on the preschool's/doctor's recommendation) but like 98% of kids were 5 or 6 years old in K.

It is only in the last 10 years that you start seeing more and more kids turning 7 in K. So now kids starting K at age 5, which used to be considered the norm even as little as a decade ago, are becoming outliers. All without the school district changing their published enrollment cutoffs or the messaging to parents. So it's very easy for parents to enroll their kids at age 5 assuming a 5/6 classroom and to be blindsided with a significantly older classroom.

If districts want to change these rules to what you are talking about -- a mixed-age classroom where parents decide independently when their kids should enter that mixed-age classroom,[b] the enrollment guidelines should clearly describe that arrangement and parents should be informed at open houses and information sessions that the school used a mixed-ages approach.

Also any public school doing this should need to be accountable for it by showing how/why their curriculum is appropriate for a mixed ages classroom. The school should be able to explain how gaps in maturity between students are addressed and how behavioral conflicts owing to varying ages and maturity levels will be handled. Because in traditional education models, mixed age classrooms are not the norm and most curriculums are not designed to accommodate it.

There are also private schools and charters who explicitly advocate for a mixed-age classroom approach (this is how Montessori works) so you can always look into these schools if this is appealing to you. Notably, Montessori schools require special certifications for teachers that train them in Montessori's mixed-ages approach. Last I checked, typical public school classroom teachers have no training or certification in a mixed-ages approach. Seems like a liability issue, frankly, especially when you are talking about very young children.

[Anonymous]

Redshirting seems like a great idea when they're little, but oh boy are many of my friends with 18 and 19 yo high school students going through it. Lots of "you can't tell me what to do anymore" type fights. Lots of "actually mom & dad, b/c of his age, we don't have to tell you anything" type situations too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Redshirting seems like a great idea when they're little, but oh boy are many of my friends with 18 and 19 yo high school students going through it. Lots of "you can't tell me what to do anymore" type fights. Lots of "actually mom & dad, b/c of his age, we don't have to tell you anything" type situations too.

Oh boy. I distinctly remember this as a 17yr old senior. It comes with the territory.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Public schools aren’t retaining anyone because that costs $$$. I’ve only heard of retention being offered when a kid missed a lot of a grade due to something like a serious medical issue, or at the end of the Covid school years - 2019-20 or 2020-21 - if a kid didn’t progress during the closures. My neighbor had a young for grade 1st grader in 20-21 and FCPS did offer to let her repeat 1st in person.

But let this thread be a heads up to everyone: redshirting is common, perhaps even expected, in private schools, especially for the younger for grade kids. So plan accordingly.

+1, and I would say it’s increasingly common in public school among parents who read the data on developmentally appropriate settings for 4-5. So, assume if you send a four year old they’ll be youngest by a year+, and an early five year old by a year. None of this is secret, or unavailable information to you.

Since most public schools do an age cut off around September 1st, the number of kids attending K at age 4 is very small (and even people who complain about excessive redshirting don't complain about redshirting a kid who would be 4 during the "normal" cut off). In NY (which is the only place with a midyear cut off that results in a lot of 4 year olds being eligible for K) it's common for people to redshirt those kids and no one complains about it.

The only redshirting people complain about is when people start redshirting kids who would be well over 5 when starting K but they hold them back anyway. Yes, in some privates that's common place, but the school generally encourages it and everyone has a chance to do it -- they like having an older class of K students and often they will strongly encourage redshirting summer or late spring birthdays. Some schools even offer a transitional year for young K students before taking the regular K class, so you still wind up with a fairly age-homogenous class.

But in public that's not the case, and when some parents start deciding their April or May birthday kid needs another year, it can leave other parents stuck with the consequences of those actions without warning. No one is going to get mad that a parent redshirted so their kid could start K at 5, but when you see kids starting K at 6 and a half, it becomes an issue.

Please yell at me now and tell me I'm a "crazy anti-redshirter" for agreeing this specific issue is a problem.

As someone with a young for grade kid, I think it is absolutely insane to consider this a problem whatsoever, and really makes you sound like someone who has no experience with any real problems in life.

My kid with an August birthday who I sent on time (she started K at 5 but was among the youngest in her grade) was viciously bullied by a redshirted child in 1st grade. My kid was 6 years old for the entirety of 1st grade. The bullying child turned 8 in September and was signficantly bigger and taller. Redshirting played a major role in the bullying because while this one child was the leader, there were many older kids in the classroom due to redshirting and when the bully would attack/provoke my kid, she'd cry, and then all the older kids would round on her and call her a baby and tease her for being small and young (she is average height for her age).

I had no idea how prevalent redshirting was when I enrolled my kid in K. She was academically and socially ready for a K classroom full of 5 and 6 year old children. In fact she continues to be at the top of her grade academically and she is well liked by teachers for being a good listener who follows directions and is helpful and kind in the classroom (something that apparently the extra years of preschool or staying home did not help instill in these redshirted kids who are merely bigger and older, not more mature).

I absolutely resent that my child's classroom environment has been dominated by older children who I think should have spent their 5/6 year in K learning out to function in elementary school, but instead spent it elsewhere and arrived at elementary school with their own ideas about how school should work. I resent how common bullying and relational aggression are at the school because of these older-but-less-mature kids.

Call me a crazy anti-redshirted if you want. I think redshirting sucks. Kids should start school at the same age so that they learn the same skills and are generally at the same developmental level. Kids with developmental delays can/should be held back to accommodate their delays, but it shouldn't be at the parents' discretion.

We will be moving school districts before these older kids hit puberty in 3rd grade and we have to deal with that.

This is a great, great example of why redshirting policies are determined at the school and district level and not at the parent level.

Your resentment? Only applies to you.

Yes, your child was ready for a 5/6 year
old classroom and you didn’t realize that some kids would turn seven. You didn’t realize. So instead of seeing your role here, you’ve made a litany of resentment.

I think a lot of parents resent…having a four or five year old sit in a classroom all day when it’s not developmentally appropriate.

I think a lot of parents resent a school system which isn’t responsive to individual needs and so parents are only given one chance to determine their kids placement.

I think a lot of parents resent having kids indoors all day with so little physical stimulation.

But none of them would be justified in blaming other parents for those resentments. You aren’t either.

This is so circular. First of all, as I've already stated, I don't resent other parents -- I resent the school and school district for creating this cluster by failing to either (1) actually enforce age cutoffs such that K classrooms are actually filled primarily with kids who are actually in the designated age cohort according to all their published enrollment guidelines, OR (2) creating a curriculum and environment that can actually handle the broader range of ages they are allowing to enroll in the same cohort.

The school does neither and it has a concrete, negative impact on children, including mine.

For the record I would love more outdoor time, more physical activity, and classrooms that actually respond to the varied individual needs of kids. I would happily band together with other parents to demand those things. At our school, some of the teachers actually deliver on this while others don't, and I think we could actually make great strides if we lobbied together for these things.

The problem with redshirting is that it's an attempt to make an endrun around these issues (by delaying the day when that specific child will be sitting in a K classroom with too little outdoor time, physical exercise, or customized instruction) but doesn't actually solve it. It's the same K classroom, but now it has a bunch of 7 year olds in it? Does this actually benefit anyone's kids? No.

Also if you want more individualized instruction, you should not advocate for a policy that enables such a broad range of ages in one classroom. Because that makes it much harder to tailor instruction to individual kids' needs.

The bolded is already being done. In my county you have to enroll your child by six (by law) if they are transferring at seven they are in first grade. So yes kindergarten needs to be designed for kids from 4 (August and September birthdays) to potentially 6 and 11 months (a redshirted October 1 birthday). That’s what kindergarten is in 2024. That isn’t going away.

So parents have to decide: what is the best age for my kid[b] to be in a 4-7 classroom where *most kids* will be 5-6 but some will be 4 for a month or two and some will be 7 for a few months. You decided that age was 5. Others might decide 4. Others might decide 6. Personally I think it’s more developmentally appropriate for a seven year old to sit in a classroom than a four year old.

But there are so many people that are not in the position to make that decision. They cannot afford another year of preschool, nanny, daycare, exc.

Their kids now have to be compared and graded against a kid that could be 18 months older than theirs.

Yet somehow this is all ok because "parents have to decide" as you pat yourself on the back from your privileged perch.

This has always been true. Four year olds starting “on time” while kids transferring from out of district are joining later.

I will also say when I was in Kindergarten it was half day until January— meaning no four year old went to sit in a classroom all day. As kindergarten becomes less appropriate for young kids, the parents of young kids will opt out. Not doing so doesn’t help anyone, and certainly doesn’t help a classmate from less well-resourced background.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Public schools aren’t retaining anyone because that costs $$$. I’ve only heard of retention being offered when a kid missed a lot of a grade due to something like a serious medical issue, or at the end of the Covid school years - 2019-20 or 2020-21 - if a kid didn’t progress during the closures. My neighbor had a young for grade 1st grader in 20-21 and FCPS did offer to let her repeat 1st in person.

But let this thread be a heads up to everyone: redshirting is common, perhaps even expected, in private schools, especially for the younger for grade kids. So plan accordingly.

+1, and I would say it’s increasingly common in public school among parents who read the data on developmentally appropriate settings for 4-5. So, assume if you send a four year old they’ll be youngest by a year+, and an early five year old by a year. None of this is secret, or unavailable information to you.

Since most public schools do an age cut off around September 1st, the number of kids attending K at age 4 is very small (and even people who complain about excessive redshirting don't complain about redshirting a kid who would be 4 during the "normal" cut off). In NY (which is the only place with a midyear cut off that results in a lot of 4 year olds being eligible for K) it's common for people to redshirt those kids and no one complains about it.

The only redshirting people complain about is when people start redshirting kids who would be well over 5 when starting K but they hold them back anyway. Yes, in some privates that's common place, but the school generally encourages it and everyone has a chance to do it -- they like having an older class of K students and often they will strongly encourage redshirting summer or late spring birthdays. Some schools even offer a transitional year for young K students before taking the regular K class, so you still wind up with a fairly age-homogenous class.

But in public that's not the case, and when some parents start deciding their April or May birthday kid needs another year, it can leave other parents stuck with the consequences of those actions without warning. No one is going to get mad that a parent redshirted so their kid could start K at 5, but when you see kids starting K at 6 and a half, it becomes an issue.

Please yell at me now and tell me I'm a "crazy anti-redshirter" for agreeing this specific issue is a problem.

As someone with a young for grade kid, I think it is absolutely insane to consider this a problem whatsoever, and really makes you sound like someone who has no experience with any real problems in life.

My kid with an August birthday who I sent on time (she started K at 5 but was among the youngest in her grade) was viciously bullied by a redshirted child in 1st grade. My kid was 6 years old for the entirety of 1st grade. The bullying child turned 8 in September and was signficantly bigger and taller. Redshirting played a major role in the bullying because while this one child was the leader, there were many older kids in the classroom due to redshirting and when the bully would attack/provoke my kid, she'd cry, and then all the older kids would round on her and call her a baby and tease her for being small and young (she is average height for her age).

I had no idea how prevalent redshirting was when I enrolled my kid in K. She was academically and socially ready for a K classroom full of 5 and 6 year old children. In fact she continues to be at the top of her grade academically and she is well liked by teachers for being a good listener who follows directions and is helpful and kind in the classroom (something that apparently the extra years of preschool or staying home did not help instill in these redshirted kids who are merely bigger and older, not more mature).

I absolutely resent that my child's classroom environment has been dominated by older children who I think should have spent their 5/6 year in K learning out to function in elementary school, but instead spent it elsewhere and arrived at elementary school with their own ideas about how school should work. I resent how common bullying and relational aggression are at the school because of these older-but-less-mature kids.

Call me a crazy anti-redshirted if you want. I think redshirting sucks. Kids should start school at the same age so that they learn the same skills and are generally at the same developmental level. Kids with developmental delays can/should be held back to accommodate their delays, but it shouldn't be at the parents' discretion.

We will be moving school districts before these older kids hit puberty in 3rd grade and we have to deal with that.

This is a great, great example of why redshirting policies are determined at the school and district level and not at the parent level.

Your resentment? Only applies to you.

Yes, your child was ready for a 5/6 year
old classroom and you didn’t realize that some kids would turn seven. You didn’t realize. So instead of seeing your role here, you’ve made a litany of resentment.

I think a lot of parents resent…having a four or five year old sit in a classroom all day when it’s not developmentally appropriate.

I think a lot of parents resent a school system which isn’t responsive to individual needs and so parents are only given one chance to determine their kids placement.

I think a lot of parents resent having kids indoors all day with so little physical stimulation.

But none of them would be justified in blaming other parents for those resentments. You aren’t either.

This is so circular. First of all, as I've already stated, I don't resent other parents -- I resent the school and school district for creating this cluster by failing to either (1) actually enforce age cutoffs such that K classrooms are actually filled primarily with kids who are actually in the designated age cohort according to all their published enrollment guidelines, OR (2) creating a curriculum and environment that can actually handle the broader range of ages they are allowing to enroll in the same cohort.

The school does neither and it has a concrete, negative impact on children, including mine.

For the record I would love more outdoor time, more physical activity, and classrooms that actually respond to the varied individual needs of kids. I would happily band together with other parents to demand those things. At our school, some of the teachers actually deliver on this while others don't, and I think we could actually make great strides if we lobbied together for these things.

The problem with redshirting is that it's an attempt to make an endrun around these issues (by delaying the day when that specific child will be sitting in a K classroom with too little outdoor time, physical exercise, or customized instruction) but doesn't actually solve it. It's the same K classroom, but now it has a bunch of 7 year olds in it? Does this actually benefit anyone's kids? No.

Also if you want more individualized instruction, you should not advocate for a policy that enables such a broad range of ages in one classroom. Because that makes it much harder to tailor instruction to individual kids' needs.

The bolded is already being done. In my county you have to enroll your child by six (by law) if they are transferring at seven they are in first grade. So yes kindergarten needs to be designed for kids from 4 (August and September birthdays) to potentially 6 and 11 months (a redshirted October 1 birthday). That’s what kindergarten is in 2024. That isn’t going away.

So parents have to decide: what is the best age for my kid to be in a 4-7 classroom where *most kids* will be 5-6 but some will be 4 for a month or two and some will be 7 for a few months. You decided that age was 5. Others might decide 4. Others might decide 6. Personally I think it’s more developmentally appropriate for a seven year old to sit in a classroom than a four year old.

Your county's rules aren't universal.

Our district has a 9/1 cut off and for a long time the only redshirting was of kids with late August birthdays in order for those kids not to start K at 4 (and no one minded). The expectation based on their enrollment cut off AND what people actually did was that K classrooms had kids who were 5 or 6. No 4 year olds and no 7 year olds. There may have been a few outliers here and there (a very precocious 4 year old with an 8/30 birthday who started on time, a kid with developmental delays who either repeated K on the school's recommendation or delayed K based on the preschool's/doctor's recommendation) but like 98% of kids were 5 or 6 years old in K.

It is only in the last 10 years that you start seeing more and more kids turning 7 in K. So now kids starting K at age 5, which used to be considered the norm even as little as a decade ago, are becoming outliers. All without the school district changing their published enrollment cutoffs or the messaging to parents. So it's very easy for parents to enroll their kids at age 5 assuming a 5/6 classroom and to be blindsided with a significantly older classroom.

If districts want to change these rules to what you are talking about -- a mixed-age classroom where parents decide independently when their kids should enter that mixed-age classroom,[b] the enrollment guidelines should clearly describe that arrangement and parents should be informed at open houses and information sessions that the school used a mixed-ages approach.

Also any public school doing this should need to be accountable for it by showing how/why their curriculum is appropriate for a mixed ages classroom. The school should be able to explain how gaps in maturity between students are addressed and how behavioral conflicts owing to varying ages and maturity levels will be handled. Because in traditional education models, mixed age classrooms are not the norm and most curriculums are not designed to accommodate it.

There are also private schools and charters who explicitly advocate for a mixed-age classroom approach (this is how Montessori works) so you can always look into these schools if this is appealing to you. Notably, Montessori schools require special certifications for teachers that train them in Montessori's mixed-ages approach. Last I checked, typical public school classroom teachers have no training or certification in a mixed-ages approach. Seems like a liability issue, frankly, especially when you are talking about very young children.

Districts don’t have to change their rules to what I’m talking about. That is the present outcome of the current rules which require enrollment by six. Parents decide independently when to enroll their child— no earlier than the four year old with the Sept. 29 birthday and no later than 6 years 11 months with the Oct 1
Birthday. That’s the reality, those are the rules, make the best decision for your kids within the rules but they’re not a secret from anyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Public schools aren’t retaining anyone because that costs $$$. I’ve only heard of retention being offered when a kid missed a lot of a grade due to something like a serious medical issue, or at the end of the Covid school years - 2019-20 or 2020-21 - if a kid didn’t progress during the closures. My neighbor had a young for grade 1st grader in 20-21 and FCPS did offer to let her repeat 1st in person.

But let this thread be a heads up to everyone: redshirting is common, perhaps even expected, in private schools, especially for the younger for grade kids. So plan accordingly.

+1, and I would say it’s increasingly common in public school among parents who read the data on developmentally appropriate settings for 4-5. So, assume if you send a four year old they’ll be youngest by a year+, and an early five year old by a year. None of this is secret, or unavailable information to you.

Since most public schools do an age cut off around September 1st, the number of kids attending K at age 4 is very small (and even people who complain about excessive redshirting don't complain about redshirting a kid who would be 4 during the "normal" cut off). In NY (which is the only place with a midyear cut off that results in a lot of 4 year olds being eligible for K) it's common for people to redshirt those kids and no one complains about it.

The only redshirting people complain about is when people start redshirting kids who would be well over 5 when starting K but they hold them back anyway. Yes, in some privates that's common place, but the school generally encourages it and everyone has a chance to do it -- they like having an older class of K students and often they will strongly encourage redshirting summer or late spring birthdays. Some schools even offer a transitional year for young K students before taking the regular K class, so you still wind up with a fairly age-homogenous class.

But in public that's not the case, and when some parents start deciding their April or May birthday kid needs another year, it can leave other parents stuck with the consequences of those actions without warning. No one is going to get mad that a parent redshirted so their kid could start K at 5, but when you see kids starting K at 6 and a half, it becomes an issue.

Please yell at me now and tell me I'm a "crazy anti-redshirter" for agreeing this specific issue is a problem.

As someone with a young for grade kid, I think it is absolutely insane to consider this a problem whatsoever, and really makes you sound like someone who has no experience with any real problems in life.

My kid with an August birthday who I sent on time (she started K at 5 but was among the youngest in her grade) was viciously bullied by a redshirted child in 1st grade. My kid was 6 years old for the entirety of 1st grade. The bullying child turned 8 in September and was signficantly bigger and taller. Redshirting played a major role in the bullying because while this one child was the leader, there were many older kids in the classroom due to redshirting and when the bully would attack/provoke my kid, she'd cry, and then all the older kids would round on her and call her a baby and tease her for being small and young (she is average height for her age).

I had no idea how prevalent redshirting was when I enrolled my kid in K. She was academically and socially ready for a K classroom full of 5 and 6 year old children. In fact she continues to be at the top of her grade academically and she is well liked by teachers for being a good listener who follows directions and is helpful and kind in the classroom (something that apparently the extra years of preschool or staying home did not help instill in these redshirted kids who are merely bigger and older, not more mature).

I absolutely resent that my child's classroom environment has been dominated by older children who I think should have spent their 5/6 year in K learning out to function in elementary school, but instead spent it elsewhere and arrived at elementary school with their own ideas about how school should work. I resent how common bullying and relational aggression are at the school because of these older-but-less-mature kids.

Call me a crazy anti-redshirted if you want. I think redshirting sucks. Kids should start school at the same age so that they learn the same skills and are generally at the same developmental level. Kids with developmental delays can/should be held back to accommodate their delays, but it shouldn't be at the parents' discretion.

We will be moving school districts before these older kids hit puberty in 3rd grade and we have to deal with that.

Your new school district will also have kids whose parents chose to start them later, your daughter will still be small/young, and bullies will still tease children who cry easily.

Your complaint is with the school for not addressing bullying, but you want to attack the parents who made what they considered the best choices for their kids. Why did the school fail to act? They are accountable to you in a way that other parents simply are not.

The new school district does not have the same issues with redshirting. There is some redshirting of summer birthdays but they don't allow this kind of extreme redshirting where kids are permitted to start K at 6.5 or above. I know because we discussed this issue explicitly with schools when we toured them this fall.

Also yes, of course my complaint is with the school. But not just for the bullying (they did an okay job addressing the bullying and at least my kid is not in a classroom with any of the bullies this year). I take issue with the school permitting such a wide range of ages in the same grade cohort, and for allowing parents to game the redshirting rules to send their kids to school very late. And I also think the school has done too little to address what are clearly social deficits in many of the redshirted kids. My issue is 100% with the school for not enforcing its enrollment rules and for the way they handle the redshirted kids. That's why we are changing schools to one where they handle this situation better.

The kids held back are less mature than the kids who are age appropiate for the grade. It's not the schools responsibility, it's the parents but these are parents who generally would rather ignore the problems than adress it. The big issue is the age appropiate behaviors and academics are skewed to the older kids, not the younger ones who are in their proper grade.

I do think there's a conversation to be had about how to design kindergarten to appropriately meet the developmental needs of "on time" kids. Parents shouldn't feel like they have to redshirt because their 5 yr old is energetic and easily distracted -- that's developmentally normal and K should accommodate that. Making K super academic and expecting kids to sit still for hours on end is unrealistic and not really good for any of the kids, even the ones who seem fine with it.

Redshirt debate aside, this is an excellent point and a discussion that should be had.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Public schools aren’t retaining anyone because that costs $$$. I’ve only heard of retention being offered when a kid missed a lot of a grade due to something like a serious medical issue, or at the end of the Covid school years - 2019-20 or 2020-21 - if a kid didn’t progress during the closures. My neighbor had a young for grade 1st grader in 20-21 and FCPS did offer to let her repeat 1st in person.

But let this thread be a heads up to everyone: redshirting is common, perhaps even expected, in private schools, especially for the younger for grade kids. So plan accordingly.

+1, and I would say it’s increasingly common in public school among parents who read the data on developmentally appropriate settings for 4-5. So, assume if you send a four year old they’ll be youngest by a year+, and an early five year old by a year. None of this is secret, or unavailable information to you.

Since most public schools do an age cut off around September 1st, the number of kids attending K at age 4 is very small (and even people who complain about excessive redshirting don't complain about redshirting a kid who would be 4 during the "normal" cut off). In NY (which is the only place with a midyear cut off that results in a lot of 4 year olds being eligible for K) it's common for people to redshirt those kids and no one complains about it.

The only redshirting people complain about is when people start redshirting kids who would be well over 5 when starting K but they hold them back anyway. Yes, in some privates that's common place, but the school generally encourages it and everyone has a chance to do it -- they like having an older class of K students and often they will strongly encourage redshirting summer or late spring birthdays. Some schools even offer a transitional year for young K students before taking the regular K class, so you still wind up with a fairly age-homogenous class.

But in public that's not the case, and when some parents start deciding their April or May birthday kid needs another year, it can leave other parents stuck with the consequences of those actions without warning. No one is going to get mad that a parent redshirted so their kid could start K at 5, but when you see kids starting K at 6 and a half, it becomes an issue.

Please yell at me now and tell me I'm a "crazy anti-redshirter" for agreeing this specific issue is a problem.

As someone with a young for grade kid, I think it is absolutely insane to consider this a problem whatsoever, and really makes you sound like someone who has no experience with any real problems in life.

My kid with an August birthday who I sent on time (she started K at 5 but was among the youngest in her grade) was viciously bullied by a redshirted child in 1st grade. My kid was 6 years old for the entirety of 1st grade. The bullying child turned 8 in September and was signficantly bigger and taller. Redshirting played a major role in the bullying because while this one child was the leader, there were many older kids in the classroom due to redshirting and when the bully would attack/provoke my kid, she'd cry, and then all the older kids would round on her and call her a baby and tease her for being small and young (she is average height for her age).

I had no idea how prevalent redshirting was when I enrolled my kid in K. She was academically and socially ready for a K classroom full of 5 and 6 year old children. In fact she continues to be at the top of her grade academically and she is well liked by teachers for being a good listener who follows directions and is helpful and kind in the classroom (something that apparently the extra years of preschool or staying home did not help instill in these redshirted kids who are merely bigger and older, not more mature).

I absolutely resent that my child's classroom environment has been dominated by older children who I think should have spent their 5/6 year in K learning out to function in elementary school, but instead spent it elsewhere and arrived at elementary school with their own ideas about how school should work. I resent how common bullying and relational aggression are at the school because of these older-but-less-mature kids.

Call me a crazy anti-redshirted if you want. I think redshirting sucks. Kids should start school at the same age so that they learn the same skills and are generally at the same developmental level. Kids with developmental delays can/should be held back to accommodate their delays, but it shouldn't be at the parents' discretion.

We will be moving school districts before these older kids hit puberty in 3rd grade and we have to deal with that.

This is a great, great example of why redshirting policies are determined at the school and district level and not at the parent level.

Your resentment? Only applies to you.

Yes, your child was ready for a 5/6 year
old classroom and you didn’t realize that some kids would turn seven. You didn’t realize. So instead of seeing your role here, you’ve made a litany of resentment.

I think a lot of parents resent…having a four or five year old sit in a classroom all day when it’s not developmentally appropriate.

I think a lot of parents resent a school system which isn’t responsive to individual needs and so parents are only given one chance to determine their kids placement.

I think a lot of parents resent having kids indoors all day with so little physical stimulation.

But none of them would be justified in blaming other parents for those resentments. You aren’t either.

This is so circular. First of all, as I've already stated, I don't resent other parents -- I resent the school and school district for creating this cluster by failing to either (1) actually enforce age cutoffs such that K classrooms are actually filled primarily with kids who are actually in the designated age cohort according to all their published enrollment guidelines, OR (2) creating a curriculum and environment that can actually handle the broader range of ages they are allowing to enroll in the same cohort.

The school does neither and it has a concrete, negative impact on children, including mine.

For the record I would love more outdoor time, more physical activity, and classrooms that actually respond to the varied individual needs of kids. I would happily band together with other parents to demand those things. At our school, some of the teachers actually deliver on this while others don't, and I think we could actually make great strides if we lobbied together for these things.

The problem with redshirting is that it's an attempt to make an endrun around these issues (by delaying the day when that specific child will be sitting in a K classroom with too little outdoor time, physical exercise, or customized instruction) but doesn't actually solve it. It's the same K classroom, but now it has a bunch of 7 year olds in it? Does this actually benefit anyone's kids? No.

Also if you want more individualized instruction, you should not advocate for a policy that enables such a broad range of ages in one classroom. Because that makes it much harder to tailor instruction to individual kids' needs.

The bolded is already being done. In my county you have to enroll your child by six (by law) if they are transferring at seven they are in first grade. So yes kindergarten needs to be designed for kids from 4 (August and September birthdays) to potentially 6 and 11 months (a redshirted October 1 birthday). That’s what kindergarten is in 2024. That isn’t going away.

So parents have to decide: what is the best age for my kid[b] to be in a 4-7 classroom where *most kids* will be 5-6 but some will be 4 for a month or two and some will be 7 for a few months. You decided that age was 5. Others might decide 4. Others might decide 6. Personally I think it’s more developmentally appropriate for a seven year old to sit in a classroom than a four year old.

But there are so many people that are not in the position to make that decision. They cannot afford another year of preschool, nanny, daycare, exc.

Their kids now have to be compared and graded against a kid that could be 18 months older than theirs.

Yet somehow this is all ok because "parents have to decide" as you pat yourself on the back from your privileged perch.

All kids are being offered the same free K-12 education and all parents are invited to work with the school district to determine what the cut offs for each district should be. Beyond that, it’s up to a vote and your view apparently isn’t as widespread as you think, given that the school board isn’t being pressured to change it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Public schools aren’t retaining anyone because that costs $$$. I’ve only heard of retention being offered when a kid missed a lot of a grade due to something like a serious medical issue, or at the end of the Covid school years - 2019-20 or 2020-21 - if a kid didn’t progress during the closures. My neighbor had a young for grade 1st grader in 20-21 and FCPS did offer to let her repeat 1st in person.

But let this thread be a heads up to everyone: redshirting is common, perhaps even expected, in private schools, especially for the younger for grade kids. So plan accordingly.

+1, and I would say it’s increasingly common in public school among parents who read the data on developmentally appropriate settings for 4-5. So, assume if you send a four year old they’ll be youngest by a year+, and an early five year old by a year. None of this is secret, or unavailable information to you.

Since most public schools do an age cut off around September 1st, the number of kids attending K at age 4 is very small (and even people who complain about excessive redshirting don't complain about redshirting a kid who would be 4 during the "normal" cut off). In NY (which is the only place with a midyear cut off that results in a lot of 4 year olds being eligible for K) it's common for people to redshirt those kids and no one complains about it.

The only redshirting people complain about is when people start redshirting kids who would be well over 5 when starting K but they hold them back anyway. Yes, in some privates that's common place, but the school generally encourages it and everyone has a chance to do it -- they like having an older class of K students and often they will strongly encourage redshirting summer or late spring birthdays. Some schools even offer a transitional year for young K students before taking the regular K class, so you still wind up with a fairly age-homogenous class.

But in public that's not the case, and when some parents start deciding their April or May birthday kid needs another year, it can leave other parents stuck with the consequences of those actions without warning. No one is going to get mad that a parent redshirted so their kid could start K at 5, but when you see kids starting K at 6 and a half, it becomes an issue.

Please yell at me now and tell me I'm a "crazy anti-redshirter" for agreeing this specific issue is a problem.

As someone with a young for grade kid, I think it is absolutely insane to consider this a problem whatsoever, and really makes you sound like someone who has no experience with any real problems in life.

My kid with an August birthday who I sent on time (she started K at 5 but was among the youngest in her grade) was viciously bullied by a redshirted child in 1st grade. My kid was 6 years old for the entirety of 1st grade. The bullying child turned 8 in September and was signficantly bigger and taller. Redshirting played a major role in the bullying because while this one child was the leader, there were many older kids in the classroom due to redshirting and when the bully would attack/provoke my kid, she'd cry, and then all the older kids would round on her and call her a baby and tease her for being small and young (she is average height for her age).

I had no idea how prevalent redshirting was when I enrolled my kid in K. She was academically and socially ready for a K classroom full of 5 and 6 year old children. In fact she continues to be at the top of her grade academically and she is well liked by teachers for being a good listener who follows directions and is helpful and kind in the classroom (something that apparently the extra years of preschool or staying home did not help instill in these redshirted kids who are merely bigger and older, not more mature).

I absolutely resent that my child's classroom environment has been dominated by older children who I think should have spent their 5/6 year in K learning out to function in elementary school, but instead spent it elsewhere and arrived at elementary school with their own ideas about how school should work. I resent how common bullying and relational aggression are at the school because of these older-but-less-mature kids.

Call me a crazy anti-redshirted if you want. I think redshirting sucks. Kids should start school at the same age so that they learn the same skills and are generally at the same developmental level. Kids with developmental delays can/should be held back to accommodate their delays, but it shouldn't be at the parents' discretion.

We will be moving school districts before these older kids hit puberty in 3rd grade and we have to deal with that.

Your new school district will also have kids whose parents chose to start them later, your daughter will still be small/young, and bullies will still tease children who cry easily.

Your complaint is with the school for not addressing bullying, but you want to attack the parents who made what they considered the best choices for their kids. Why did the school fail to act? They are accountable to you in a way that other parents simply are not.

The new school district does not have the same issues with redshirting. There is some redshirting of summer birthdays but they don't allow this kind of extreme redshirting where kids are permitted to start K at 6.5 or above. I know because we discussed this issue explicitly with schools when we toured them this fall.

Also yes, of course my complaint is with the school. But not just for the bullying (they did an okay job addressing the bullying and at least my kid is not in a classroom with any of the bullies this year). I take issue with the school permitting such a wide range of ages in the same grade cohort, and for allowing parents to game the redshirting rules to send their kids to school very late. And I also think the school has done too little to address what are clearly social deficits in many of the redshirted kids. My issue is 100% with the school for not enforcing its enrollment rules and for the way they handle the redshirted kids. That's why we are changing schools to one where they handle this situation better.

The kids held back are less mature than the kids who are age appropiate for the grade. It's not the schools responsibility, it's the parents but these are parents who generally would rather ignore the problems than adress it. The big issue is the age appropiate behaviors and academics are skewed to the older kids, not the younger ones who are in their proper grade.

I do think there's a conversation to be had about how to design kindergarten to appropriately meet the developmental needs of "on time" kids. Parents shouldn't feel like they have to redshirt because their 5 yr old is energetic and easily distracted -- that's developmentally normal and K should accommodate that. Making K super academic and expecting kids to sit still for hours on end is unrealistic and not really good for any of the kids, even the ones who seem fine with it.

Redshirt debate aside, this is an excellent point and a discussion that should be had.

I agree with you, but that discussion will need to precede any discussion on redshirting. No responsible parent sends their kid into a developmentally inappropriate setting if they can avoid it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Redshirting seems like a great idea when they're little, but oh boy are many of my friends with 18 and 19 yo high school students going through it. Lots of "you can't tell me what to do anymore" type fights. Lots of "actually mom & dad, b/c of his age, we don't have to tell you anything" type situations too.

Right on time with the dark fairy tales.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Redshirting seems like a great idea when they're little, but oh boy are many of my friends with 18 and 19 yo high school students going through it. Lots of "you can't tell me what to do anymore" type fights. Lots of "actually mom & dad, b/c of his age, we don't have to tell you anything" type situations too.

Oh boy. I distinctly remember this as a 17yr old senior. It comes with the territory.

I have a kid who was 18 most of senior year (no redshirting involved) and this wasn’t a thing.