Redshirting consequences at Lafayette

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

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


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


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


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


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

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


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


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

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

Do you have a problem with that person?

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


This.

Especially since you can just go to private kindergarten for one year for about $5k, and voila you just redshirted your kid. But it’s irritating to have to do that when my property tax money supports the very school that doesn’t want to accommodate the needs of my child.

Btw I voted to increase my own taxes for extra funding of our schools. After the pandemic, won’t ever do this again. Happy to support the charter school where my kid is going, they have been really supportive in anything I ask.


Please find me a private kindergarten for $5k/year.

My property taxes support a lot of stuff, including your kid's charter, that I don't like. I think charters are overall a terrible thing for a country's education system and create inequalities with little oversight. We're seeing folks try and use charters to set up free religious schools. But it's not a donation to my alma mater, I don't get to tick a box and say I don't want my taxes going to this program.

A school is a space to educate and help students grow. It really shouldn't accommodate everything parents wish for because sometimes we as parents are wrong and just being told I'll do whatever a parent asks isn't always in the best interest of the child.


Sure we can be wrong as parents so we should let all the decisions up to someone who barely knows your kid by name.

My beef with the public school was that they wouldn’t accelerate my kid in math even when it was clear he should have been a few grades above. At the charter it only took a meeting with the principal, they MAP tested my kid and placed him two grades above a week after school start.

I’m guessing parents that want to redshirt would receive the same treatment, and I suspect a couple of boys in my kids class were redshirted. Choice is great.


My kid's DCPS accelerated him in math without us even requesting it. They came to us with a plan. Very unclear why you think your experience with exactly one DCPS and one charter school is particularly relevant.


If you’re fine with your kid being accelerated in math to accommodate his needs, you should also be fine with holding back kids to accommodate theirs. Yours was ready to learn above grade, other are not ready and need more time. Why are you ok with 2-3 years age difference in math classes but not elsewhere? If you want to hold the age cohort within one year, everyone should take the same classes K through 12, problem solved. No acceleration, no APs, no electives. But as soon as your child is disadvantaged you’ll scream the loudest.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Redshirting was fine and nobody batted an eyelash until DEI came and said it inequitable and classist. As DEI wave is passing, in a year everyone will move on to something else and things will be back to redshirting being fine.

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


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


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


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


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

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


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


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

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

Do you have a problem with that person?

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


This.

Especially since you can just go to private kindergarten for one year for about $5k, and voila you just redshirted your kid. But it’s irritating to have to do that when my property tax money supports the very school that doesn’t want to accommodate the needs of my child.

Btw I voted to increase my own taxes for extra funding of our schools. After the pandemic, won’t ever do this again. Happy to support the charter school where my kid is going, they have been really supportive in anything I ask.


Please find me a private kindergarten for $5k/year.

My property taxes support a lot of stuff, including your kid's charter, that I don't like. I think charters are overall a terrible thing for a country's education system and create inequalities with little oversight. We're seeing folks try and use charters to set up free religious schools. But it's not a donation to my alma mater, I don't get to tick a box and say I don't want my taxes going to this program.

A school is a space to educate and help students grow. It really shouldn't accommodate everything parents wish for because sometimes we as parents are wrong and just being told I'll do whatever a parent asks isn't always in the best interest of the child.


Sure we can be wrong as parents so we should let all the decisions up to someone who barely knows your kid by name.

My beef with the public school was that they wouldn’t accelerate my kid in math even when it was clear he should have been a few grades above. At the charter it only took a meeting with the principal, they MAP tested my kid and placed him two grades above a week after school start.

I’m guessing parents that want to redshirt would receive the same treatment, and I suspect a couple of boys in my kids class were redshirted. Choice is great.


My kid's DCPS accelerated him in math without us even requesting it. They came to us with a plan. Very unclear why you think your experience with exactly one DCPS and one charter school is particularly relevant.


If you’re fine with your kid being accelerated in math to accommodate his needs, you should also be fine with holding back kids to accommodate theirs. Yours was ready to learn above grade, other are not ready and need more time. Why are you ok with 2-3 years age difference in math classes but not elsewhere? If you want to hold the age cohort within one year, everyone should take the same classes K through 12, problem solved. No acceleration, no APs, no electives. But as soon as your child is disadvantaged you’ll scream the loudest.


This thread is about Lafayette parents wanting to redshirt their six year olds into kindergarten not about whether any kid should be allowed to be held back in any grade. These parents want to basically make this solely about birthdays giving them flexibility and not about the assessments of teachers and staff. That's why they themselves have a May 31st and then June 30th flexible cutoffs in their own proposal. Which given the two different dates over two different years seems to be crafting a policy entirely built around their children alone.

Nowhere in the discussion from Lafayette parents did they themselves push for more intervention funding for students who need extra help. What if you need extra help but your birthday is April or February or even October? This policy and lobbying doesn't help that.

Now we can absolutely have a conversation about schools, including DCPS and charters, who fail miserably at addressing kids who need early intervention. And it may be behavioral or subject specific. But again that's not what these parents are asking for.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Redshirting was fine and nobody batted an eyelash until DEI came and said it inequitable and classist. As DEI wave is passing, in a year everyone will move on to something else and things will be back to redshirting being fine.

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


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


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


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


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

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


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


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

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

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


People are aware the folks who made the redshirting issue a public issue are the ones who wanted the special exemption for their kids and when the new principal and DCPS said no started screaming into every tv camera that would point their direction, right? No one went on a crusade against it so much as once these entitled Lafayette parents started screaming about how unfair life is because they can't buy their way into something the rest of us went yeah no you're right you can't and shouldn't be able to.

Like this thread re-upped in part because Lafayette parents went yelling to other white UMC class PTOs for their support in wasting time and resources to debate this at the BOE hearings.


It’s their local school supported with their tax money and they are entitled to advocate for their children however they see fit. You can also do the same. Who is the school responsible to, if not to the parents in the community?

I am certain they’ll get their way in the end and I actually agree with it. If the parents have the energy to go to the media, that’s definitely going to be on the school board radar with an eye towards upcoming elections.


It's all of our local tax dollars. Not just theirs. Your tax dollars aren't marked by your IB school zip code. And when they waste time so they can carve out a redshirt exemption for their kids they waste our tax dollars too.

The school and the system are responsible to the kids. Schools are not meant for parent they are there for the students.

Also the DCBOE is an entirely toothless body so no I don't think they're going to bend over backwards or care much for the exact same parents who four months ago were screaming at the principal about the playground.


You can make the same stupid argument about anything you’d like the school to offer but currently doesn’t. Taxes are not marked for that little thing you care about therefore it’s a waste of time and taxpayer money to even discuss it. If you want it, you’re entitled. If there enough community demand for redshirting, which from the news it looks like there is, the school should at least consider it.

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

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


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


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


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


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

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


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


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

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

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


People are aware the folks who made the redshirting issue a public issue are the ones who wanted the special exemption for their kids and when the new principal and DCPS said no started screaming into every tv camera that would point their direction, right? No one went on a crusade against it so much as once these entitled Lafayette parents started screaming about how unfair life is because they can't buy their way into something the rest of us went yeah no you're right you can't and shouldn't be able to.

Like this thread re-upped in part because Lafayette parents went yelling to other white UMC class PTOs for their support in wasting time and resources to debate this at the BOE hearings.


It’s their local school supported with their tax money and they are entitled to advocate for their children however they see fit. You can also do the same. Who is the school responsible to, if not to the parents in the community?

I am certain they’ll get their way in the end and I actually agree with it. If the parents have the energy to go to the media, that’s definitely going to be on the school board radar with an eye towards upcoming elections.


It's all of our local tax dollars. Not just theirs. Your tax dollars aren't marked by your IB school zip code. And when they waste time so they can carve out a redshirt exemption for their kids they waste our tax dollars too.

The school and the system are responsible to the kids. Schools are not meant for parent they are there for the students.

Also the DCBOE is an entirely toothless body so no I don't think they're going to bend over backwards or care much for the exact same parents who four months ago were screaming at the principal about the playground.


If they aren’t servicing the IB kids, then the school shouldn’t exist. If every IB kid is going private, then the school should just close.


Lafayette has a high IB attendance rate. A couple of angry parents are not going to suddenly close a school of over 900 that's like 3/4 white.

I realize it seems like an issue because this is 25 pages long but I'd venture to guess these parents don't even have that many allies at their own school if they're out there soliciting from others.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Redshirting was fine and nobody batted an eyelash until DEI came and said it inequitable and classist. As DEI wave is passing, in a year everyone will move on to something else and things will be back to redshirting being fine.

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


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


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


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


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

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


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


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

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

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


People are aware the folks who made the redshirting issue a public issue are the ones who wanted the special exemption for their kids and when the new principal and DCPS said no started screaming into every tv camera that would point their direction, right? No one went on a crusade against it so much as once these entitled Lafayette parents started screaming about how unfair life is because they can't buy their way into something the rest of us went yeah no you're right you can't and shouldn't be able to.

Like this thread re-upped in part because Lafayette parents went yelling to other white UMC class PTOs for their support in wasting time and resources to debate this at the BOE hearings.


It’s their local school supported with their tax money and they are entitled to advocate for their children however they see fit. You can also do the same. Who is the school responsible to, if not to the parents in the community?

I am certain they’ll get their way in the end and I actually agree with it. If the parents have the energy to go to the media, that’s definitely going to be on the school board radar with an eye towards upcoming elections.


It's all of our local tax dollars. Not just theirs. Your tax dollars aren't marked by your IB school zip code. And when they waste time so they can carve out a redshirt exemption for their kids they waste our tax dollars too.

The school and the system are responsible to the kids. Schools are not meant for parent they are there for the students.

Also the DCBOE is an entirely toothless body so no I don't think they're going to bend over backwards or care much for the exact same parents who four months ago were screaming at the principal about the playground.


You can make the same stupid argument about anything you’d like the school to offer but currently doesn’t. Taxes are not marked for that little thing you care about therefore it’s a waste of time and taxpayer money to even discuss it. If you want it, you’re entitled. If there enough community demand for redshirting, which from the news it looks like there is, the school should at least consider it.

The hypocrisy of antiredshirters is truly astounding.


What news and significant community support suggests there is a lot of support for this? Genuinely curious.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Redshirting was fine and nobody batted an eyelash until DEI came and said it inequitable and classist. As DEI wave is passing, in a year everyone will move on to something else and things will be back to redshirting being fine.

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


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


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


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


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

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


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


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

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

Do you have a problem with that person?

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


This.

Especially since you can just go to private kindergarten for one year for about $5k, and voila you just redshirted your kid. But it’s irritating to have to do that when my property tax money supports the very school that doesn’t want to accommodate the needs of my child.

Btw I voted to increase my own taxes for extra funding of our schools. After the pandemic, won’t ever do this again. Happy to support the charter school where my kid is going, they have been really supportive in anything I ask.


Please find me a private kindergarten for $5k/year.

My property taxes support a lot of stuff, including your kid's charter, that I don't like. I think charters are overall a terrible thing for a country's education system and create inequalities with little oversight. We're seeing folks try and use charters to set up free religious schools. But it's not a donation to my alma mater, I don't get to tick a box and say I don't want my taxes going to this program.

A school is a space to educate and help students grow. It really shouldn't accommodate everything parents wish for because sometimes we as parents are wrong and just being told I'll do whatever a parent asks isn't always in the best interest of the child.


Sure we can be wrong as parents so we should let all the decisions up to someone who barely knows your kid by name.

My beef with the public school was that they wouldn’t accelerate my kid in math even when it was clear he should have been a few grades above. At the charter it only took a meeting with the principal, they MAP tested my kid and placed him two grades above a week after school start.

I’m guessing parents that want to redshirt would receive the same treatment, and I suspect a couple of boys in my kids class were redshirted. Choice is great.


My kid's DCPS accelerated him in math without us even requesting it. They came to us with a plan. Very unclear why you think your experience with exactly one DCPS and one charter school is particularly relevant.


If you’re fine with your kid being accelerated in math to accommodate his needs, you should also be fine with holding back kids to accommodate theirs. Yours was ready to learn above grade, other are not ready and need more time. Why are you ok with 2-3 years age difference in math classes but not elsewhere? If you want to hold the age cohort within one year, everyone should take the same classes K through 12, problem solved. No acceleration, no APs, no electives. But as soon as your child is disadvantaged you’ll scream the loudest.


No. I think the parent should not get 100% say in these decisions. *That* is what these parents are asking for. I don't think I should get to opt into whatever math class I feel like.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Redshirting was fine and nobody batted an eyelash until DEI came and said it inequitable and classist. As DEI wave is passing, in a year everyone will move on to something else and things will be back to redshirting being fine.

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


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


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


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


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

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


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


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

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

Do you have a problem with that person?

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


This.

Especially since you can just go to private kindergarten for one year for about $5k, and voila you just redshirted your kid. But it’s irritating to have to do that when my property tax money supports the very school that doesn’t want to accommodate the needs of my child.

Btw I voted to increase my own taxes for extra funding of our schools. After the pandemic, won’t ever do this again. Happy to support the charter school where my kid is going, they have been really supportive in anything I ask.


Please find me a private kindergarten for $5k/year.

My property taxes support a lot of stuff, including your kid's charter, that I don't like. I think charters are overall a terrible thing for a country's education system and create inequalities with little oversight. We're seeing folks try and use charters to set up free religious schools. But it's not a donation to my alma mater, I don't get to tick a box and say I don't want my taxes going to this program.

A school is a space to educate and help students grow. It really shouldn't accommodate everything parents wish for because sometimes we as parents are wrong and just being told I'll do whatever a parent asks isn't always in the best interest of the child.


Sure we can be wrong as parents so we should let all the decisions up to someone who barely knows your kid by name.

My beef with the public school was that they wouldn’t accelerate my kid in math even when it was clear he should have been a few grades above. At the charter it only took a meeting with the principal, they MAP tested my kid and placed him two grades above a week after school start.

I’m guessing parents that want to redshirt would receive the same treatment, and I suspect a couple of boys in my kids class were redshirted. Choice is great.


My kid's DCPS accelerated him in math without us even requesting it. They came to us with a plan. Very unclear why you think your experience with exactly one DCPS and one charter school is particularly relevant.


If you’re fine with your kid being accelerated in math to accommodate his needs, you should also be fine with holding back kids to accommodate theirs. Yours was ready to learn above grade, other are not ready and need more time. Why are you ok with 2-3 years age difference in math classes but not elsewhere? If you want to hold the age cohort within one year, everyone should take the same classes K through 12, problem solved. No acceleration, no APs, no electives. But as soon as your child is disadvantaged you’ll scream the loudest.


This thread is about Lafayette parents wanting to redshirt their six year olds into kindergarten not about whether any kid should be allowed to be held back in any grade. These parents want to basically make this solely about birthdays giving them flexibility and not about the assessments of teachers and staff. That's why they themselves have a May 31st and then June 30th flexible cutoffs in their own proposal. Which given the two different dates over two different years seems to be crafting a policy entirely built around their children alone.

Nowhere in the discussion from Lafayette parents did they themselves push for more intervention funding for students who need extra help. What if you need extra help but your birthday is April or February or even October? This policy and lobbying doesn't help that.

Now we can absolutely have a conversation about schools, including DCPS and charters, who fail miserably at addressing kids who need early intervention. And it may be behavioral or subject specific. But again that's not what these parents are asking for.


Ok got it, you’re ok with age differences of 2-3 years in accelerated math as long as your kid benefits, and you approve with the rationale for mixing kids of different ages, because of “assessments”.

Then if you don’t like the Lafayette parents reasoning, ie the kid is not emotionally mature, doesn’t have the executive function etc, then their sole motivation is based on birthdate alone and they are just looking for unfair advantages and “flexibility” because you said so.

To turn the redshirting arguments around, if other parents don’t like your kid in accelerated math because the impact the other kids “self esteem”, or they are not ready and the teacher expectation are skewed and curriculum is watered down, then you know what, they should go to private if they don’t like how the public is run. Public is for kids to grow, learn and flourish, particularly yours. Cognitive dissonance much?

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

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


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


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


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


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

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


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


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

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

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


People are aware the folks who made the redshirting issue a public issue are the ones who wanted the special exemption for their kids and when the new principal and DCPS said no started screaming into every tv camera that would point their direction, right? No one went on a crusade against it so much as once these entitled Lafayette parents started screaming about how unfair life is because they can't buy their way into something the rest of us went yeah no you're right you can't and shouldn't be able to.

Like this thread re-upped in part because Lafayette parents went yelling to other white UMC class PTOs for their support in wasting time and resources to debate this at the BOE hearings.


It’s their local school supported with their tax money and they are entitled to advocate for their children however they see fit. You can also do the same. Who is the school responsible to, if not to the parents in the community?

I am certain they’ll get their way in the end and I actually agree with it. If the parents have the energy to go to the media, that’s definitely going to be on the school board radar with an eye towards upcoming elections.


It's all of our local tax dollars. Not just theirs. Your tax dollars aren't marked by your IB school zip code. And when they waste time so they can carve out a redshirt exemption for their kids they waste our tax dollars too.

The school and the system are responsible to the kids. Schools are not meant for parent they are there for the students.

Also the DCBOE is an entirely toothless body so no I don't think they're going to bend over backwards or care much for the exact same parents who four months ago were screaming at the principal about the playground.


You can make the same stupid argument about anything you’d like the school to offer but currently doesn’t. Taxes are not marked for that little thing you care about therefore it’s a waste of time and taxpayer money to even discuss it. If you want it, you’re entitled. If there enough community demand for redshirting, which from the news it looks like there is, the school should at least consider it.

The hypocrisy of antiredshirters is truly astounding.


What news and significant community support suggests there is a lot of support for this? Genuinely curious.
l

Fact: these parents are perceived by their peers as selfish entitled brats.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Redshirting was fine and nobody batted an eyelash until DEI came and said it inequitable and classist. As DEI wave is passing, in a year everyone will move on to something else and things will be back to redshirting being fine.

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


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


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


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


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

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


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


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

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

Do you have a problem with that person?

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


This.

Especially since you can just go to private kindergarten for one year for about $5k, and voila you just redshirted your kid. But it’s irritating to have to do that when my property tax money supports the very school that doesn’t want to accommodate the needs of my child.

Btw I voted to increase my own taxes for extra funding of our schools. After the pandemic, won’t ever do this again. Happy to support the charter school where my kid is going, they have been really supportive in anything I ask.


Please find me a private kindergarten for $5k/year.

My property taxes support a lot of stuff, including your kid's charter, that I don't like. I think charters are overall a terrible thing for a country's education system and create inequalities with little oversight. We're seeing folks try and use charters to set up free religious schools. But it's not a donation to my alma mater, I don't get to tick a box and say I don't want my taxes going to this program.

A school is a space to educate and help students grow. It really shouldn't accommodate everything parents wish for because sometimes we as parents are wrong and just being told I'll do whatever a parent asks isn't always in the best interest of the child.


Sure we can be wrong as parents so we should let all the decisions up to someone who barely knows your kid by name.

My beef with the public school was that they wouldn’t accelerate my kid in math even when it was clear he should have been a few grades above. At the charter it only took a meeting with the principal, they MAP tested my kid and placed him two grades above a week after school start.

I’m guessing parents that want to redshirt would receive the same treatment, and I suspect a couple of boys in my kids class were redshirted. Choice is great.


My kid's DCPS accelerated him in math without us even requesting it. They came to us with a plan. Very unclear why you think your experience with exactly one DCPS and one charter school is particularly relevant.


If you’re fine with your kid being accelerated in math to accommodate his needs, you should also be fine with holding back kids to accommodate theirs. Yours was ready to learn above grade, other are not ready and need more time. Why are you ok with 2-3 years age difference in math classes but not elsewhere? If you want to hold the age cohort within one year, everyone should take the same classes K through 12, problem solved. No acceleration, no APs, no electives. But as soon as your child is disadvantaged you’ll scream the loudest.


This thread is about Lafayette parents wanting to redshirt their six year olds into kindergarten not about whether any kid should be allowed to be held back in any grade. These parents want to basically make this solely about birthdays giving them flexibility and not about the assessments of teachers and staff. That's why they themselves have a May 31st and then June 30th flexible cutoffs in their own proposal. Which given the two different dates over two different years seems to be crafting a policy entirely built around their children alone.

Nowhere in the discussion from Lafayette parents did they themselves push for more intervention funding for students who need extra help. What if you need extra help but your birthday is April or February or even October? This policy and lobbying doesn't help that.

Now we can absolutely have a conversation about schools, including DCPS and charters, who fail miserably at addressing kids who need early intervention. And it may be behavioral or subject specific. But again that's not what these parents are asking for.


Ok got it, you’re ok with age differences of 2-3 years in accelerated math as long as your kid benefits, and you approve with the rationale for mixing kids of different ages, because of “assessments”.

Then if you don’t like the Lafayette parents reasoning, ie the kid is not emotionally mature, doesn’t have the executive function etc, then their sole motivation is based on birthdate alone and they are just looking for unfair advantages and “flexibility” because you said so.

To turn the redshirting arguments around, if other parents don’t like your kid in accelerated math because the impact the other kids “self esteem”, or they are not ready and the teacher expectation are skewed and curriculum is watered down, then you know what, they should go to private if they don’t like how the public is run. Public is for kids to grow, learn and flourish, particularly yours. Cognitive dissonance much?

Your whole argument is rooted in ferocious selfishness.


Again no one is arguing against holding kids back when appropriate. But by giving two different still arbitrary dates that parents can flexibly redshirt their kids these parents aren't advocating for others they're advocating to codify their own personal interests potentially at the expense of others who do need to be held back but whose birthdays are before May 30th.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Redshirting was fine and nobody batted an eyelash until DEI came and said it inequitable and classist. As DEI wave is passing, in a year everyone will move on to something else and things will be back to redshirting being fine.

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


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


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


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


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

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


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


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

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

Do you have a problem with that person?

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


This.

Especially since you can just go to private kindergarten for one year for about $5k, and voila you just redshirted your kid. But it’s irritating to have to do that when my property tax money supports the very school that doesn’t want to accommodate the needs of my child.

Btw I voted to increase my own taxes for extra funding of our schools. After the pandemic, won’t ever do this again. Happy to support the charter school where my kid is going, they have been really supportive in anything I ask.


Please find me a private kindergarten for $5k/year.

My property taxes support a lot of stuff, including your kid's charter, that I don't like. I think charters are overall a terrible thing for a country's education system and create inequalities with little oversight. We're seeing folks try and use charters to set up free religious schools. But it's not a donation to my alma mater, I don't get to tick a box and say I don't want my taxes going to this program.

A school is a space to educate and help students grow. It really shouldn't accommodate everything parents wish for because sometimes we as parents are wrong and just being told I'll do whatever a parent asks isn't always in the best interest of the child.


Sure we can be wrong as parents so we should let all the decisions up to someone who barely knows your kid by name.

My beef with the public school was that they wouldn’t accelerate my kid in math even when it was clear he should have been a few grades above. At the charter it only took a meeting with the principal, they MAP tested my kid and placed him two grades above a week after school start.

I’m guessing parents that want to redshirt would receive the same treatment, and I suspect a couple of boys in my kids class were redshirted. Choice is great.


My kid's DCPS accelerated him in math without us even requesting it. They came to us with a plan. Very unclear why you think your experience with exactly one DCPS and one charter school is particularly relevant.


If you’re fine with your kid being accelerated in math to accommodate his needs, you should also be fine with holding back kids to accommodate theirs. Yours was ready to learn above grade, other are not ready and need more time. Why are you ok with 2-3 years age difference in math classes but not elsewhere? If you want to hold the age cohort within one year, everyone should take the same classes K through 12, problem solved. No acceleration, no APs, no electives. But as soon as your child is disadvantaged you’ll scream the loudest.


This thread is about Lafayette parents wanting to redshirt their six year olds into kindergarten not about whether any kid should be allowed to be held back in any grade. These parents want to basically make this solely about birthdays giving them flexibility and not about the assessments of teachers and staff. That's why they themselves have a May 31st and then June 30th flexible cutoffs in their own proposal. Which given the two different dates over two different years seems to be crafting a policy entirely built around their children alone.

Nowhere in the discussion from Lafayette parents did they themselves push for more intervention funding for students who need extra help. What if you need extra help but your birthday is April or February or even October? This policy and lobbying doesn't help that.

Now we can absolutely have a conversation about schools, including DCPS and charters, who fail miserably at addressing kids who need early intervention. And it may be behavioral or subject specific. But again that's not what these parents are asking for.


These are rich parents who can afford private interventions or their insurance can pay depending on the diagnosis. These is no diagnoses for them. Low income kids can get therapies through Medicaid. There are also universities and other programs that have more affordable therapies, which is particularly what we did.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Redshirting was fine and nobody batted an eyelash until DEI came and said it inequitable and classist. As DEI wave is passing, in a year everyone will move on to something else and things will be back to redshirting being fine.

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


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


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


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


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

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


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


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

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

Do you have a problem with that person?

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


This.

Especially since you can just go to private kindergarten for one year for about $5k, and voila you just redshirted your kid. But it’s irritating to have to do that when my property tax money supports the very school that doesn’t want to accommodate the needs of my child.

Btw I voted to increase my own taxes for extra funding of our schools. After the pandemic, won’t ever do this again. Happy to support the charter school where my kid is going, they have been really supportive in anything I ask.


Please find me a private kindergarten for $5k/year.

My property taxes support a lot of stuff, including your kid's charter, that I don't like. I think charters are overall a terrible thing for a country's education system and create inequalities with little oversight. We're seeing folks try and use charters to set up free religious schools. But it's not a donation to my alma mater, I don't get to tick a box and say I don't want my taxes going to this program.

A school is a space to educate and help students grow. It really shouldn't accommodate everything parents wish for because sometimes we as parents are wrong and just being told I'll do whatever a parent asks isn't always in the best interest of the child.


Sure we can be wrong as parents so we should let all the decisions up to someone who barely knows your kid by name.

My beef with the public school was that they wouldn’t accelerate my kid in math even when it was clear he should have been a few grades above. At the charter it only took a meeting with the principal, they MAP tested my kid and placed him two grades above a week after school start.

I’m guessing parents that want to redshirt would receive the same treatment, and I suspect a couple of boys in my kids class were redshirted. Choice is great.


My kid's DCPS accelerated him in math without us even requesting it. They came to us with a plan. Very unclear why you think your experience with exactly one DCPS and one charter school is particularly relevant.


If you’re fine with your kid being accelerated in math to accommodate his needs, you should also be fine with holding back kids to accommodate theirs. Yours was ready to learn above grade, other are not ready and need more time. Why are you ok with 2-3 years age difference in math classes but not elsewhere? If you want to hold the age cohort within one year, everyone should take the same classes K through 12, problem solved. No acceleration, no APs, no electives. But as soon as your child is disadvantaged you’ll scream the loudest.


This thread is about Lafayette parents wanting to redshirt their six year olds into kindergarten not about whether any kid should be allowed to be held back in any grade. These parents want to basically make this solely about birthdays giving them flexibility and not about the assessments of teachers and staff. That's why they themselves have a May 31st and then June 30th flexible cutoffs in their own proposal. Which given the two different dates over two different years seems to be crafting a policy entirely built around their children alone.

Nowhere in the discussion from Lafayette parents did they themselves push for more intervention funding for students who need extra help. What if you need extra help but your birthday is April or February or even October? This policy and lobbying doesn't help that.

Now we can absolutely have a conversation about schools, including DCPS and charters, who fail miserably at addressing kids who need early intervention. And it may be behavioral or subject specific. But again that's not what these parents are asking for.


Ok got it, you’re ok with age differences of 2-3 years in accelerated math as long as your kid benefits, and you approve with the rationale for mixing kids of different ages, because of “assessments”.

Then if you don’t like the Lafayette parents reasoning, ie the kid is not emotionally mature, doesn’t have the executive function etc, then their sole motivation is based on birthdate alone and they are just looking for unfair advantages and “flexibility” because you said so.

To turn the redshirting arguments around, if other parents don’t like your kid in accelerated math because the impact the other kids “self esteem”, or they are not ready and the teacher expectation are skewed and curriculum is watered down, then you know what, they should go to private if they don’t like how the public is run. Public is for kids to grow, learn and flourish, particularly yours. Cognitive dissonance much?

Your whole argument is rooted in ferocious selfishness.


If there is a special need, yes but that’s not what’s happening. And, the issue comes into play in high school where you have 13-14 year olds in the same class as 18-19 year olds. Some older kids are great, some bully. I have the young for the grade, as in a fall birthday in some advanced classes so as a freshman they were with mostly juniors and seniors for art, pe and math. Sophomore year they are the only sophomore in their math class. Your older held back kid is not more advanced as they are not with age appropriate peers or the age appropriate grade. They are on target for the grade level they should be in, not the one you choose for them. My kid is accelerated, your is not.
Anonymous
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Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Redshirting was fine and nobody batted an eyelash until DEI came and said it inequitable and classist. As DEI wave is passing, in a year everyone will move on to something else and things will be back to redshirting being fine.

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


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


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


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


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

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


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


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

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

Do you have a problem with that person?

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


This.

Especially since you can just go to private kindergarten for one year for about $5k, and voila you just redshirted your kid. But it’s irritating to have to do that when my property tax money supports the very school that doesn’t want to accommodate the needs of my child.

Btw I voted to increase my own taxes for extra funding of our schools. After the pandemic, won’t ever do this again. Happy to support the charter school where my kid is going, they have been really supportive in anything I ask.


Please find me a private kindergarten for $5k/year.

My property taxes support a lot of stuff, including your kid's charter, that I don't like. I think charters are overall a terrible thing for a country's education system and create inequalities with little oversight. We're seeing folks try and use charters to set up free religious schools. But it's not a donation to my alma mater, I don't get to tick a box and say I don't want my taxes going to this program.

A school is a space to educate and help students grow. It really shouldn't accommodate everything parents wish for because sometimes we as parents are wrong and just being told I'll do whatever a parent asks isn't always in the best interest of the child.


Sure we can be wrong as parents so we should let all the decisions up to someone who barely knows your kid by name.

My beef with the public school was that they wouldn’t accelerate my kid in math even when it was clear he should have been a few grades above. At the charter it only took a meeting with the principal, they MAP tested my kid and placed him two grades above a week after school start.

I’m guessing parents that want to redshirt would receive the same treatment, and I suspect a couple of boys in my kids class were redshirted. Choice is great.


My kid's DCPS accelerated him in math without us even requesting it. They came to us with a plan. Very unclear why you think your experience with exactly one DCPS and one charter school is particularly relevant.


If you’re fine with your kid being accelerated in math to accommodate his needs, you should also be fine with holding back kids to accommodate theirs. Yours was ready to learn above grade, other are not ready and need more time. Why are you ok with 2-3 years age difference in math classes but not elsewhere? If you want to hold the age cohort within one year, everyone should take the same classes K through 12, problem solved. No acceleration, no APs, no electives. But as soon as your child is disadvantaged you’ll scream the loudest.


This thread is about Lafayette parents wanting to redshirt their six year olds into kindergarten not about whether any kid should be allowed to be held back in any grade. These parents want to basically make this solely about birthdays giving them flexibility and not about the assessments of teachers and staff. That's why they themselves have a May 31st and then June 30th flexible cutoffs in their own proposal. Which given the two different dates over two different years seems to be crafting a policy entirely built around their children alone.

Nowhere in the discussion from Lafayette parents did they themselves push for more intervention funding for students who need extra help. What if you need extra help but your birthday is April or February or even October? This policy and lobbying doesn't help that.

Now we can absolutely have a conversation about schools, including DCPS and charters, who fail miserably at addressing kids who need early intervention. And it may be behavioral or subject specific. But again that's not what these parents are asking for.


Ok got it, you’re ok with age differences of 2-3 years in accelerated math as long as your kid benefits, and you approve with the rationale for mixing kids of different ages, because of “assessments”.

Then if you don’t like the Lafayette parents reasoning, ie the kid is not emotionally mature, doesn’t have the executive function etc, then their sole motivation is based on birthdate alone and they are just looking for unfair advantages and “flexibility” because you said so.

To turn the redshirting arguments around, if other parents don’t like your kid in accelerated math because the impact the other kids “self esteem”, or they are not ready and the teacher expectation are skewed and curriculum is watered down, then you know what, they should go to private if they don’t like how the public is run. Public is for kids to grow, learn and flourish, particularly yours. Cognitive dissonance much?

Your whole argument is rooted in ferocious selfishness.


If there is a special need, yes but that’s not what’s happening. And, the issue comes into play in high school where you have 13-14 year olds in the same class as 18-19 year olds. Some older kids are great, some bully. I have the young for the grade, as in a fall birthday in some advanced classes so as a freshman they were with mostly juniors and seniors for art, pe and math. Sophomore year they are the only sophomore in their math class. Your older held back kid is not more advanced as they are not with age appropriate peers or the age appropriate grade. They are on target for the grade level they should be in, not the one you choose for them. My kid is accelerated, your is not.


Astounding that you don’t see how it’s the same argument you’re making.

On one hand you object to kids being too far apart in age due to redshirting, because it skews the expectations of the teacher and affects the self esteem of the other kids. At the same time you’re happy to send your kid to advanced math where the age difference is even larger, 4-5 years. You’re not worried about bullying anymore, and age differences are fine as long as your kid benefits from that setting. According to you, advanced kids can mix with different aged kids, but non-advanced kids can’t, they should stay in the grade level they’re assigned, you can only mix up in age.

What if the parents at your school would complain that your child in advanced math is ruining their kids self esteem, that it skews the expectations of teachers and colleges, arguments you made against red shirting. Your kid is not with age appropriate peers and in the age appropriate class! Or if you’ll be told to go to private if you want accelerated math, because the school doesn’t have the resources to waste on these things, and that you do all this because you want unfair advantages for your child.

You really are ferociously selfish!
Anonymous
Look, there are places where redshirting is broadly accepted or even encouraged. Including in this area at many private schools and in some of the suburban districts.

DCPS is not one of those places. They take a pretty hardline on redshirting for better or worse. There are a handful of upper NW schools that have had principals who turned a blind eye to it when it happened, largely for political and "keep the peace" reasons. But those were outliers and it makes sense to bring Lafayette into line with the rest of the district where this practice is simply not allowed at parents' discretion (there are situations where it is permitted because of demonstrated need -- I know parents who have delayed school because their kids had diagnosed delays and it made sense for them, but those parents jumped through hoops to make it happen and it wasn't just "eh I don't want my kid to be the youngest or smallest").

That's just how it is. I'm sorry these parents thought that this little exception would continue to apply at this one school after the old principal left and they screwed up. Sometimes that happens. I screwed up with a decision related to my kid in K (was offered a lottery spot at another school but decided to stay out our IB and later regretted it) and it's hard to accept you messed that up. But parents make mistakes. You accept it, do what you can to address it, and move on.

What you don't do is throw a giant hissy fit in the media and demand the entire district change its age policies to accommodate your mess up. Come on. These parents made a mistake and I'm not going to indict them for that but they are taking it WAY too far. Your kid will recover from missing K (especially given their SES and the high education levels of parents) but at this point these people are embarrassing themselves.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Redshirting was fine and nobody batted an eyelash until DEI came and said it inequitable and classist. As DEI wave is passing, in a year everyone will move on to something else and things will be back to redshirting being fine.

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


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


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


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


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

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


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


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

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

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


People are aware the folks who made the redshirting issue a public issue are the ones who wanted the special exemption for their kids and when the new principal and DCPS said no started screaming into every tv camera that would point their direction, right? No one went on a crusade against it so much as once these entitled Lafayette parents started screaming about how unfair life is because they can't buy their way into something the rest of us went yeah no you're right you can't and shouldn't be able to.

Like this thread re-upped in part because Lafayette parents went yelling to other white UMC class PTOs for their support in wasting time and resources to debate this at the BOE hearings.


It’s their local school supported with their tax money and they are entitled to advocate for their children however they see fit. You can also do the same. Who is the school responsible to, if not to the parents in the community?

I am certain they’ll get their way in the end and I actually agree with it. If the parents have the energy to go to the media, that’s definitely going to be on the school board radar with an eye towards upcoming elections.


It's all of our local tax dollars. Not just theirs. Your tax dollars aren't marked by your IB school zip code. And when they waste time so they can carve out a redshirt exemption for their kids they waste our tax dollars too.

The school and the system are responsible to the kids. Schools are not meant for parent they are there for the students.

Also the DCBOE is an entirely toothless body so no I don't think they're going to bend over backwards or care much for the exact same parents who four months ago were screaming at the principal about the playground.


You can make the same stupid argument about anything you’d like the school to offer but currently doesn’t. Taxes are not marked for that little thing you care about therefore it’s a waste of time and taxpayer money to even discuss it. If you want it, you’re entitled. If there enough community demand for redshirting, which from the news it looks like there is, the school should at least consider it.

The hypocrisy of antiredshirters is truly astounding.


No, they shouldn’t as it’s not healthy or developmentally appropriate. Your entitlement is astonishing. Follow the rules or homeschool or pay for private. The rest of us follow the rules. Why can’t you?
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Redshirting was fine and nobody batted an eyelash until DEI came and said it inequitable and classist. As DEI wave is passing, in a year everyone will move on to something else and things will be back to redshirting being fine.

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


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


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


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


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

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


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


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

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

Do you have a problem with that person?

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


This.

Especially since you can just go to private kindergarten for one year for about $5k, and voila you just redshirted your kid. But it’s irritating to have to do that when my property tax money supports the very school that doesn’t want to accommodate the needs of my child.

Btw I voted to increase my own taxes for extra funding of our schools. After the pandemic, won’t ever do this again. Happy to support the charter school where my kid is going, they have been really supportive in anything I ask.


Please find me a private kindergarten for $5k/year.

My property taxes support a lot of stuff, including your kid's charter, that I don't like. I think charters are overall a terrible thing for a country's education system and create inequalities with little oversight. We're seeing folks try and use charters to set up free religious schools. But it's not a donation to my alma mater, I don't get to tick a box and say I don't want my taxes going to this program.

A school is a space to educate and help students grow. It really shouldn't accommodate everything parents wish for because sometimes we as parents are wrong and just being told I'll do whatever a parent asks isn't always in the best interest of the child.


Sure we can be wrong as parents so we should let all the decisions up to someone who barely knows your kid by name.

My beef with the public school was that they wouldn’t accelerate my kid in math even when it was clear he should have been a few grades above. At the charter it only took a meeting with the principal, they MAP tested my kid and placed him two grades above a week after school start.

I’m guessing parents that want to redshirt would receive the same treatment, and I suspect a couple of boys in my kids class were redshirted. Choice is great.


My kid's DCPS accelerated him in math without us even requesting it. They came to us with a plan. Very unclear why you think your experience with exactly one DCPS and one charter school is particularly relevant.


If you’re fine with your kid being accelerated in math to accommodate his needs, you should also be fine with holding back kids to accommodate theirs. Yours was ready to learn above grade, other are not ready and need more time. Why are you ok with 2-3 years age difference in math classes but not elsewhere? If you want to hold the age cohort within one year, everyone should take the same classes K through 12, problem solved. No acceleration, no APs, no electives. But as soon as your child is disadvantaged you’ll scream the loudest.


This thread is about Lafayette parents wanting to redshirt their six year olds into kindergarten not about whether any kid should be allowed to be held back in any grade. These parents want to basically make this solely about birthdays giving them flexibility and not about the assessments of teachers and staff. That's why they themselves have a May 31st and then June 30th flexible cutoffs in their own proposal. Which given the two different dates over two different years seems to be crafting a policy entirely built around their children alone.

Nowhere in the discussion from Lafayette parents did they themselves push for more intervention funding for students who need extra help. What if you need extra help but your birthday is April or February or even October? This policy and lobbying doesn't help that.

Now we can absolutely have a conversation about schools, including DCPS and charters, who fail miserably at addressing kids who need early intervention. And it may be behavioral or subject specific. But again that's not what these parents are asking for.


Ok got it, you’re ok with age differences of 2-3 years in accelerated math as long as your kid benefits, and you approve with the rationale for mixing kids of different ages, because of “assessments”.

Then if you don’t like the Lafayette parents reasoning, ie the kid is not emotionally mature, doesn’t have the executive function etc, then their sole motivation is based on birthdate alone and they are just looking for unfair advantages and “flexibility” because you said so.

To turn the redshirting arguments around, if other parents don’t like your kid in accelerated math because the impact the other kids “self esteem”, or they are not ready and the teacher expectation are skewed and curriculum is watered down, then you know what, they should go to private if they don’t like how the public is run. Public is for kids to grow, learn and flourish, particularly yours. Cognitive dissonance much?

Your whole argument is rooted in ferocious selfishness.


If there is a special need, yes but that’s not what’s happening. And, the issue comes into play in high school where you have 13-14 year olds in the same class as 18-19 year olds. Some older kids are great, some bully. I have the young for the grade, as in a fall birthday in some advanced classes so as a freshman they were with mostly juniors and seniors for art, pe and math. Sophomore year they are the only sophomore in their math class. Your older held back kid is not more advanced as they are not with age appropriate peers or the age appropriate grade. They are on target for the grade level they should be in, not the one you choose for them. My kid is accelerated, your is not.


Astounding that you don’t see how it’s the same argument you’re making.

On one hand you object to kids being too far apart in age due to redshirting, because it skews the expectations of the teacher and affects the self esteem of the other kids. At the same time you’re happy to send your kid to advanced math where the age difference is even larger, 4-5 years. You’re not worried about bullying anymore, and age differences are fine as long as your kid benefits from that setting. According to you, advanced kids can mix with different aged kids, but non-advanced kids can’t, they should stay in the grade level they’re assigned, you can only mix up in age.

What if the parents at your school would complain that your child in advanced math is ruining their kids self esteem, that it skews the expectations of teachers and colleges, arguments you made against red shirting. Your kid is not with age appropriate peers and in the age appropriate class! Or if you’ll be told to go to private if you want accelerated math, because the school doesn’t have the resources to waste on these things, and that you do all this because you want unfair advantages for your child.

You really are ferociously selfish!


What I am saying is the age differences are unhealthy and are difficult for most kids. You are selfish by not following the rules. Why don’t rules apply to you? The privates cannot accommodate the accelerated math. We tried to switch in middle school but the age difference and math were both issues. They did not have the advanced math in middle school

You are trying to get others to hold back their kids to justify you holding back yours. I don’t get why you’d do that to your child. You aren’t making them smarter, you are dumbing down a smart kid who deserves more.
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