red shirting question

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A question about fairness!

How is it fair for red shirted kids to be in a class with my late June birthday kid? Developmentally they are going to be ahead, do the teachers care or take this into consideration?? It doesn't seem fair. Some can be almost 9 months older.

In a normal grade, kids should span 12 months. That is how school works.

+1000. There are always going to be kids born right before the cut-off and right after. Someone has to be the youngest and someone has to be the oldest in class. If OP is in a district with a typical Sep 1 cut-off date, why is she complaining about her June b-day kid? There will be younger July and August b-day kids who are not red-shirted.

I have September kid. So, a June kid held back is a big age difference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A question about fairness!

How is it fair for red shirted kids to be in a class with my late June birthday kid? Developmentally they are going to be ahead, do the teachers care or take this into consideration?? It doesn't seem fair. Some can be almost 9 months older.

Do you read to your child? Pay for supplements? Are you MC and above? Does your child have health insurance? Safe housing? Stable access to food?

If so, how is it fair for kids in your child’s class who don’t have the above to be in class with your child? Or do you not care about those kids?

Grow up. You are so embarrassing and ridiculous. I didn’t redshirt, I just cannot stand DCUMs whiny, narcissistic, and pathetic anti redshirters.

You are always the most vitriolic person on any red shirting thread. I mean, look at your language in this post, which is 10x more dramatic than anything anyone else has posted.

Usually when people object to red shirting, it's the situations in which it's fully discretionary. Like not situations where a child has an identified developmental disadvantage. It's the people who hold back their summer birthdays (usually boys) because they don't want their sons to be on the smaller side in school. There are also people who do it explicitly for advantages in athletics (and in fact that is where the word comes from, as it originally only described "red shirted" college freshman who would be recruited but not played their freshman year in order to give them time to get bigger/stronger/more competitive).

There are obviously fairness concerns with discretionary redshirting and they are never going to go away, no matter how angry and vicious you get on DCUM threads on the subject.

NP, and I agree with PP. Anti-redshirt parents always gloss over the other unfair, "discretionary" advantages their children have. Where they live, what school they go to, what they eat, what hobbies they have, what tutors they get, etc., etc. But somehow the terrible line in the sand is redshirting, which, incidentally, may be more accessible to some families than other advantages (i.e., if you already have a stay home parent or a family caregiver it doesn't cost extra to delay school entry for a year).

PP may have been a little harsh, but the whining is ridculous.

Some people who oppose redshirting oppose it specifically because they don't have those same discretionary advantages you are talking about. It really depends on the person.

One reason I oppose redshirting except in the instance of developmental delays is because my kid is already at a disadvantage versus kids who have a lot of resources, with parents who can afford tutoring and supplementing, kids who don't have ADHD, kids with more family and people in their corner helping them on. My kid doesn't have any of that stuff. But then on top of that, the really well-resourced families are ALSO the ones more likely to redshirt (because they know the system, because they can afford another year of childcare) so then in addition to their kids having more financial resources and family resources, their kids are also going to bigger and older than my kid all the way through school.

If redshirting was something that MC and LC families did to even the playing field, you might have a point. But redshirting (outside of developmental issues) is largely something that already-advantaged families do to increase their advantages.

So yeah: anti-redshirt.

Except that at age 3 or 4, when kids are getting ready to start school, many who will later be diagnosed with some sort of developmental disability haven't yet been identified. For example, my kid was born 3 days before the cut off in DC. Although she was later diagnosed with autism, all we knew at age 4, when we were deciding to send her to school was that she was barely potty trained, didn't talk to people outside her family, and still only parallel played. If red shirting had only been available to those with a known disability, she wouldn't have qualified.

Incidentally, because of the difference in cut offs between DC and Maryland, had we lived in Maryland, our decision wouldn't even have been considered red shirting.

You are describing developmental delays. Waiting to enroll your kid in K because of delays in potty training and socialization are exactly what people mean when they refer to developmental delays. No one is saying that only a child diagnosed with autism should be redshirted. When someone says that developmental delays are a valid reason to redshirt, they are talking about exactly the situation you are describing.

This is to distinguish from people who redshirt a kid who has no developmental delays (potty trained on time, socially comfortable with other kids, no physical delays, etc.) because they would prefer their kid be among the oldest and biggest in class, as opposed to among the smallest and youngest.

There are a lot of people who fully support redshirting for developmental delays but thinks that redshirting to give a developmentally normal (or even advanced!) kid an edge is unnecessarily aggressive and can ruin age cohorts by putting kids who could absolutely have started K on time in the next cohort, skewing the average (on size, development, academics, everything) unnecessarily.

That's the problem. Some redshirting makes total sense and is likely necessary, and some redshirting is obnoxious hyper competitive snowplow parenting. But when we talk about redshirting, the snowplow parents want to pretend it's all equal. They will use a parent like you, who had a totally valid and important reason to redshirt. It actually does a disservice to everyone.

That's why I think redshirting should require an assessment. I don't think it should be super strict, but I don't think you should be allowed to hold your kid back for K without having someone from the school district weigh in and at least conclude your kid is borderline for K-readiness.

Maybe it's my social circle, but I don't know a single person who held their child back "just because" or to get an advantage for a child about whom they didn't have any concerns. It feels like a straw man argument.

It is a straw man argument. I've never encountered redshirting-for-advantage in the wild but the perception endures. Frankly, if the schools got to decide, I would expect more redshirting -- not less -- particularly if the teachers of the not-ready kids got a say in it.

Not a straw man -- redshirting for competitive/athletic reasons absolutely happens. This thread is about redshirting older kids to gain an advantage, but if you think the people who do this don't also sometimes redshirt kindergarteners for the same reason, you are kidding yourself:

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1161632.page

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A question about fairness!

How is it fair for red shirted kids to be in a class with my late June birthday kid? Developmentally they are going to be ahead, do the teachers care or take this into consideration?? It doesn't seem fair. Some can be almost 9 months older.

In a normal grade, kids should span 12 months. That is how school works.

+1000. There are always going to be kids born right before the cut-off and right after. Someone has to be the youngest and someone has to be the oldest in class. If OP is in a district with a typical Sep 1 cut-off date, why is she complaining about her June b-day kid? There will be younger July and August b-day kids who are not red-shirted.

I have September kid. So, a June kid held back is a big age difference.

Right, the people who tend to be most bothered by redshirting are the parents of kids who are on the young end for the cut-off but don't redshirt.

The cutoff in our district is 9/30. I know a family that redshirted their kid with a May birthday, and that kid is in a classroom with several kids who have August and September birthdays but didn't redshirt. So the redshirted kid is 15-16 months older than the youngest kids in class. In this case, there were developmental reasons for redshirting this kid BUT that doesn't mean it doesn't create issues to have that age gap in class. There are some dynamics at play that are not great, due to this child being significantly bigger and older than a number of children in class.

And that's the rub. It's easy to say "you do what is right for your kid, and I'll do what's right for mine." But when kids share classrooms, your choices impact my kid.

[Anonymous]

It’s only unfair if you sent your kid to school to WIN AT EDUCATION, not to learn.

Multi-age classrooms are more normal throughout history than those arbitrarily confined to a 365 day span. Yes, there are notoriously some (hi, Natural Law Lady!) who believe that the earth’s rotation around the sun creates a natural law regarding the correct age span in a classroom. But there is actually no particular pedagogical reason to choose a 12 month span rather than 8 months or 14 months.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A question about fairness!

How is it fair for red shirted kids to be in a class with my late June birthday kid? Developmentally they are going to be ahead, do the teachers care or take this into consideration?? It doesn't seem fair. Some can be almost 9 months older.

You could naturally have kids who are 364 days apart. Redshirting adds a bit to this, but it’s usually not that far off — kids with Aug bdays holding off. Your kid will be fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A question about fairness!

How is it fair for red shirted kids to be in a class with my late June birthday kid? Developmentally they are going to be ahead, do the teachers care or take this into consideration?? It doesn't seem fair. Some can be almost 9 months older.

You could naturally have kids who are 364 days apart. Redshirting adds a bit to this, but it’s usually not that far off — kids with Aug bdays holding off. Your kid will be fine.

The problem comes in when kids are 14-18 month difference and the teachers are not looking at what's developmentally appropriate for too old for the grade kids as well as younger for the grade kids. My kid is absolutely fine but we've had teachers with unrealistic expectations when comparing the students, some who were 12-18 months older.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A question about fairness!

How is it fair for red shirted kids to be in a class with my late June birthday kid? Developmentally they are going to be ahead, do the teachers care or take this into consideration?? It doesn't seem fair. Some can be almost 9 months older.

You could naturally have kids who are 364 days apart. Redshirting adds a bit to this, but it’s usually not that far off — kids with Aug bdays holding off. Your kid will be fine.

The problem comes in when kids are 14-18 month difference and the teachers are not looking at what's developmentally appropriate for too old for the grade kids as well as younger for the grade kids. My kid is absolutely fine but we've had teachers with unrealistic expectations when comparing the students, some who were 12-18 months older.

+1, and this exacerbates an existing issue, which is that kindergarten curriculums are already increasingly not developmentally appropriate, with too many expectations for kids to sit quietly in chairs and work independently or focus on worksheets or instruction for long periods of time. This is not something that is reasonable to expect (or force on) the average 5 year old, but redshirting conceals how inappropriate these expectations are by putting a certain number of kids in the classroom who are a year older (actually 1st graders) and therefore do better with these parameters.

What we should be doing is shifting kindergarten expectations across the board to better meat 5/6 year old kids where they are at. Instead of leaving it to parents to hold their kids back in order on a case by case basis.

[Anonymous]

First Rule Of Parenting : You don't skew things to your kid's advantage.

(of course special needs require an individualized approach)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A question about fairness!

How is it fair for red shirted kids to be in a class with my late June birthday kid? Developmentally they are going to be ahead, do the teachers care or take this into consideration?? It doesn't seem fair. Some can be almost 9 months older.

Do you read to your child? Pay for supplements? Are you MC and above? Does your child have health insurance? Safe housing? Stable access to food?

If so, how is it fair for kids in your child’s class who don’t have the above to be in class with your child? Or do you not care about those kids?

Grow up. You are so embarrassing and ridiculous. I didn’t redshirt, I just cannot stand DCUMs whiny, narcissistic, and pathetic anti redshirters.

You are always the most vitriolic person on any red shirting thread. I mean, look at your language in this post, which is 10x more dramatic than anything anyone else has posted.

Usually when people object to red shirting, it's the situations in which it's fully discretionary. Like not situations where a child has an identified developmental disadvantage. It's the people who hold back their summer birthdays (usually boys) because they don't want their sons to be on the smaller side in school. There are also people who do it explicitly for advantages in athletics (and in fact that is where the word comes from, as it originally only described "red shirted" college freshman who would be recruited but not played their freshman year in order to give them time to get bigger/stronger/more competitive).

There are obviously fairness concerns with discretionary redshirting and they are never going to go away, no matter how angry and vicious you get on DCUM threads on the subject.

NP, and I agree with PP. Anti-redshirt parents always gloss over the other unfair, "discretionary" advantages their children have. Where they live, what school they go to, what they eat, what hobbies they have, what tutors they get, etc., etc. But somehow the terrible line in the sand is redshirting, which, incidentally, may be more accessible to some families than other advantages (i.e., if you already have a stay home parent or a family caregiver it doesn't cost extra to delay school entry for a year).

PP may have been a little harsh, but the whining is ridculous.

Agree.

In any event, that PP is probably whining and complaining about “vitriol” because that PP knows she’s been assessed accurately and it’s very uncomfortable for her to be seen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have no plans to redshirt. But I have a few thoughts

1) I can understand why people with notably immature children just shy of the cutoff redshirt. My son is a January baby, so he's on the older side (this is DC, 9/30 cutoff) and he felt just barely ready for PK3. If he was an August or September baby, I honestly don't know what we would have done. He walked late, he talked late, he potty trained late. The transition to PK3 was really rough on him at 3.5. This past spring he just was not ready, full stop. My daughter, on the other hand, is an August baby, and I have absolutely no qualms about sending her next year. She's honestly closer to ready now (at just over 2) than my son was when he'd just turned 3. Kid are different, and if you happen to have a slow to mature kid with a badly timed birthday, that really sucks and I feel for you.

2) There's huge class issues here. Especially in DC. Yes, our daughter will be ready, but if she wasn't? We'd honestly still probably have to send her. We can't spend $20k on another year of childcare when it's not absolutely necessary and there's a free option, whether it was best for her or not. So you've got to consider that side of it, too.

3) A lot of people just redshirt for the advantages and/or for not wanting their kid to be the youngest, and that's crappy. Someone has to be the youngest, suck it up.

Fully agree with all of this. I'm not anti-redshirting, but the way it plays out sometimes is, yes, unfair. And to respond to another PP -- of course other things are unfair. The world is not unfair. But redshirting is distinct from other aspects of unfairness in education, in that it's pretty easy to set a policy that makes redshirting hard, or makes it easy. It's really hard to address the impacts of income inequality on kids in public schools. But redshirting? It's pretty easy to create a policy that is anti-redshirt except in cases of developmental delays.

Question: would you support a ban on outside activities like Russian School of Math? Because those supplemental programs have a far more negative impact on poorer kids in a classroom than redshirting and they are also discretionary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:First Rule Of Parenting : You don't skew things to your kid's advantage.

(of course special needs require an individualized approach)

I hope you’ve never bought a house in a formerly redlined school district.

Oh wait. You almost certainly have. Are you planning to sell it to remove the enormous racist advantage you gave your child?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A question about fairness!

How is it fair for red shirted kids to be in a class with my late June birthday kid? Developmentally they are going to be ahead, do the teachers care or take this into consideration?? It doesn't seem fair. Some can be almost 9 months older.

Do you read to your child? Pay for supplements? Are you MC and above? Does your child have health insurance? Safe housing? Stable access to food?

If so, how is it fair for kids in your child’s class who don’t have the above to be in class with your child? Or do you not care about those kids?

Grow up. You are so embarrassing and ridiculous. I didn’t redshirt, I just cannot stand DCUMs whiny, narcissistic, and pathetic anti redshirters.

You are always the most vitriolic person on any red shirting thread. I mean, look at your language in this post, which is 10x more dramatic than anything anyone else has posted.

Usually when people object to red shirting, it's the situations in which it's fully discretionary. Like not situations where a child has an identified developmental disadvantage. It's the people who hold back their summer birthdays (usually boys) because they don't want their sons to be on the smaller side in school. There are also people who do it explicitly for advantages in athletics (and in fact that is where the word comes from, as it originally only described "red shirted" college freshman who would be recruited but not played their freshman year in order to give them time to get bigger/stronger/more competitive).

There are obviously fairness concerns with discretionary redshirting and they are never going to go away, no matter how angry and vicious you get on DCUM threads on the subject.

NP, and I agree with PP. Anti-redshirt parents always gloss over the other unfair, "discretionary" advantages their children have. Where they live, what school they go to, what they eat, what hobbies they have, what tutors they get, etc., etc. But somehow the terrible line in the sand is redshirting, which, incidentally, may be more accessible to some families than other advantages (i.e., if you already have a stay home parent or a family caregiver it doesn't cost extra to delay school entry for a year).

PP may have been a little harsh, but the whining is ridculous.

Some people who oppose redshirting oppose it specifically because they don't have those same discretionary advantages you are talking about. It really depends on the person.

One reason I oppose redshirting except in the instance of developmental delays is because my kid is already at a disadvantage versus kids who have a lot of resources, with parents who can afford tutoring and supplementing, kids who don't have ADHD, kids with more family and people in their corner helping them on. My kid doesn't have any of that stuff. But then on top of that, the really well-resourced families are ALSO the ones more likely to redshirt (because they know the system, because they can afford another year of childcare) so then in addition to their kids having more financial resources and family resources, their kids are also going to bigger and older than my kid all the way through school.

If redshirting was something that MC and LC families did to even the playing field, you might have a point. But redshirting (outside of developmental issues) is largely something that already-advantaged families do to increase their advantages.

So yeah: anti-redshirt.

Except that at age 3 or 4, when kids are getting ready to start school, many who will later be diagnosed with some sort of developmental disability haven't yet been identified. For example, my kid was born 3 days before the cut off in DC. Although she was later diagnosed with autism, all we knew at age 4, when we were deciding to send her to school was that she was barely potty trained, didn't talk to people outside her family, and still only parallel played. If red shirting had only been available to those with a known disability, she wouldn't have qualified.

Incidentally, because of the difference in cut offs between DC and Maryland, had we lived in Maryland, our decision wouldn't even have been considered red shirting.

You are describing developmental delays. Waiting to enroll your kid in K because of delays in potty training and socialization are exactly what people mean when they refer to developmental delays. No one is saying that only a child diagnosed with autism should be redshirted. When someone says that developmental delays are a valid reason to redshirt, they are talking about exactly the situation you are describing.

This is to distinguish from people who redshirt a kid who has no developmental delays (potty trained on time, socially comfortable with other kids, no physical delays, etc.) because they would prefer their kid be among the oldest and biggest in class, as opposed to among the smallest and youngest.

There are a lot of people who fully support redshirting for developmental delays but thinks that redshirting to give a developmentally normal (or even advanced!) kid an edge is unnecessarily aggressive and can ruin age cohorts by putting kids who could absolutely have started K on time in the next cohort, skewing the average (on size, development, academics, everything) unnecessarily.

That's the problem. Some redshirting makes total sense and is likely necessary, and some redshirting is obnoxious hyper competitive snowplow parenting. But when we talk about redshirting, the snowplow parents want to pretend it's all equal. They will use a parent like you, who had a totally valid and important reason to redshirt. It actually does a disservice to everyone.

That's why I think redshirting should require an assessment. I don't think it should be super strict, but I don't think you should be allowed to hold your kid back for K without having someone from the school district weigh in and at least conclude your kid is borderline for K-readiness.

I read this and all I can think is you have no experience whatsoever with developmental delays. None.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A question about fairness!

How is it fair for red shirted kids to be in a class with my late June birthday kid? Developmentally they are going to be ahead, do the teachers care or take this into consideration?? It doesn't seem fair. Some can be almost 9 months older.

In a normal grade, kids should span 12 months. That is how school works.

+1000. There are always going to be kids born right before the cut-off and right after. Someone has to be the youngest and someone has to be the oldest in class. If OP is in a district with a typical Sep 1 cut-off date, why is she complaining about her June b-day kid? There will be younger July and August b-day kids who are not red-shirted.

I have September kid. So, a June kid held back is a big age difference.

Right, the people who tend to be most bothered by redshirting are the parents of kids who are on the young end for the cut-off but don't redshirt.

The cutoff in our district is 9/30. I know a family that redshirted their kid with a May birthday, and that kid is in a classroom with several kids who have August and September birthdays but didn't redshirt. So the redshirted kid is 15-16 months older than the youngest kids in class. In this case, there were developmental reasons for redshirting this kid BUT that doesn't mean it doesn't create issues to have that age gap in class. There are some dynamics at play that are not great, due to this child being significantly bigger and older than a number of children in class.

And that's the rub. It's easy to say "you do what is right for your kid, and I'll do what's right for mine." But when kids share classrooms, your choices impact my kid.

It's nuts that schools even allow red shirting for spring b-days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A question about fairness!

How is it fair for red shirted kids to be in a class with my late June birthday kid? Developmentally they are going to be ahead, do the teachers care or take this into consideration?? It doesn't seem fair. Some can be almost 9 months older.

You could naturally have kids who are 364 days apart. Redshirting adds a bit to this, but it’s usually not that far off — kids with Aug bdays holding off. Your kid will be fine.

The problem comes in when kids are 14-18 month difference and the teachers are not looking at what's developmentally appropriate for too old for the grade kids as well as younger for the grade kids. My kid is absolutely fine but we've had teachers with unrealistic expectations when comparing the students, some who were 12-18 months older.

+1, and this exacerbates an existing issue, which is that kindergarten curriculums are already increasingly not developmentally appropriate, with too many expectations for kids to sit quietly in chairs and work independently or focus on worksheets or instruction for long periods of time. This is not something that is reasonable to expect (or force on) the average 5 year old, but redshirting conceals how inappropriate these expectations are by putting a certain number of kids in the classroom who are a year older (actually 1st graders) and therefore do better with these parameters.

What we should be doing is shifting kindergarten expectations across the board to better meat 5/6 year old kids where they are at. Instead of leaving it to parents to hold their kids back in order on a case by case basis.

-1 of course K is developmentally appropriate. My child technically started at 4 and had no issue doing the work or sitting. Why? Because we, the preschools and others adequately prepared the child. Sounds like you didn't prepare your child well if they were struggling that much. If kids have developmental delays all the more reason to start them so they are with age appropriate peers with an age appropriate curriculum and IEP/SPED services that they parents most likely aren't doing privately.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have no plans to redshirt. But I have a few thoughts

1) I can understand why people with notably immature children just shy of the cutoff redshirt. My son is a January baby, so he's on the older side (this is DC, 9/30 cutoff) and he felt just barely ready for PK3. If he was an August or September baby, I honestly don't know what we would have done. He walked late, he talked late, he potty trained late. The transition to PK3 was really rough on him at 3.5. This past spring he just was not ready, full stop. My daughter, on the other hand, is an August baby, and I have absolutely no qualms about sending her next year. She's honestly closer to ready now (at just over 2) than my son was when he'd just turned 3. Kid are different, and if you happen to have a slow to mature kid with a badly timed birthday, that really sucks and I feel for you.

2) There's huge class issues here. Especially in DC. Yes, our daughter will be ready, but if she wasn't? We'd honestly still probably have to send her. We can't spend $20k on another year of childcare when it's not absolutely necessary and there's a free option, whether it was best for her or not. So you've got to consider that side of it, too.

3) A lot of people just redshirt for the advantages and/or for not wanting their kid to be the youngest, and that's crappy. Someone has to be the youngest, suck it up.

Fully agree with all of this. I'm not anti-redshirting, but the way it plays out sometimes is, yes, unfair. And to respond to another PP -- of course other things are unfair. The world is not unfair. But redshirting is distinct from other aspects of unfairness in education, in that it's pretty easy to set a policy that makes redshirting hard, or makes it easy. It's really hard to address the impacts of income inequality on kids in public schools. But redshirting? It's pretty easy to create a policy that is anti-redshirt except in cases of developmental delays.

Question: would you support a ban on outside activities like Russian School of Math? Because those supplemental programs have a far more negative impact on poorer kids in a classroom than redshirting and they are also discretionary.

They don't have a negative impact. Any parent who wants to supplement can with free resources online or even workbooks from the dollar tree. We have one of the youngest and they did have significant developmental delays and one thing that helped was sending them so they'd have peer modeling.