Anonymous wrote:Public schools aren’t retaining anyone because that costs $$$. I’ve only heard of retention being offered when a kid missed a lot of a grade due to something like a serious medical issue, or at the end of the Covid school years - 2019-20 or 2020-21 - if a kid didn’t progress during the closures. My neighbor had a young for grade 1st grader in 20-21 and FCPS did offer to let her repeat 1st in person.
But let this thread be a heads up to everyone: redshirting is common, perhaps even expected, in private schools, especially for the younger for grade kids. So plan accordingly.
+1, and I would say it’s increasingly common in public school among parents who read the data on developmentally appropriate settings for 4-5. So, assume if you send a four year old they’ll be youngest by a year+, and an early five year old by a year. None of this is secret, or unavailable information to you.
Since most public schools do an age cut off around September 1st, the number of kids attending K at age 4 is very small (and even people who complain about excessive redshirting don't complain about redshirting a kid who would be 4 during the "normal" cut off). In NY (which is the only place with a midyear cut off that results in a lot of 4 year olds being eligible for K) it's common for people to redshirt those kids and no one complains about it.
The only redshirting people complain about is when people start redshirting kids who would be well over 5 when starting K but they hold them back anyway. Yes, in some privates that's common place, but the school generally encourages it and everyone has a chance to do it -- they like having an older class of K students and often they will strongly encourage redshirting summer or late spring birthdays. Some schools even offer a transitional year for young K students before taking the regular K class, so you still wind up with a fairly age-homogenous class.
But in public that's not the case, and when some parents start deciding their April or May birthday kid needs another year, it can leave other parents stuck with the consequences of those actions without warning. No one is going to get mad that a parent redshirted so their kid could start K at 5, but when you see kids starting K at 6 and a half, it becomes an issue.
Please yell at me now and tell me I'm a "crazy anti-redshirter" for agreeing this specific issue is a problem.
As someone with a young for grade kid, I think it is absolutely insane to consider this a problem whatsoever, and really makes you sound like someone who has no experience with any real problems in life.
My kid with an August birthday who I sent on time (she started K at 5 but was among the youngest in her grade) was viciously bullied by a redshirted child in 1st grade. My kid was 6 years old for the entirety of 1st grade. The bullying child turned 8 in September and was signficantly bigger and taller. Redshirting played a major role in the bullying because while this one child was the leader, there were many older kids in the classroom due to redshirting and when the bully would attack/provoke my kid, she'd cry, and then all the older kids would round on her and call her a baby and tease her for being small and young (she is average height for her age).
I had no idea how prevalent redshirting was when I enrolled my kid in K. She was academically and socially ready for a K classroom full of 5 and 6 year old children. In fact she continues to be at the top of her grade academically and she is well liked by teachers for being a good listener who follows directions and is helpful and kind in the classroom (something that apparently the extra years of preschool or staying home did not help instill in these redshirted kids who are merely bigger and older, not more mature).
I absolutely resent that my child's classroom environment has been dominated by older children who I think should have spent their 5/6 year in K learning out to function in elementary school, but instead spent it elsewhere and arrived at elementary school with their own ideas about how school should work. I resent how common bullying and relational aggression are at the school because of these older-but-less-mature kids.
Call me a crazy anti-redshirted if you want. I think redshirting sucks. Kids should start school at the same age so that they learn the same skills and are generally at the same developmental level. Kids with developmental delays can/should be held back to accommodate their delays, but it shouldn't be at the parents' discretion.
We will be moving school districts before these older kids hit puberty in 3rd grade and we have to deal with that.
As a parent who doesn't care about redshirting one way or another (and has both middle-of-age-for grade and young-for-grade kids, none old-for-grade): the bullying isn't because your kid is small. Bullies will find literally anything to gang up on kids about. One of my kids was bulled for not watching Spongebob Squarepants in a late elementary grade. Does that make sense as a thing to mock a kid over? No. But my kid was a prickly and kind of hard-to-get-to-know kid, so of course they were a target. The actual thing to make fun of was incidental to the act of piling on.
And it's possible (probable?) this older kid is lashing out because:
- they do have delays and you have no idea and the delays are social
- they feel embarassed about your kid doing as well when they are so much older.
PP here. Of course bullying can happen for a whole variety of reasons.
But at my kid's specific school, in specific classrooms where there are a large percent of redshirted kids including one that was significantly older, the bullying was closely related to having a cohort of older, bigger, unsocialized kids. My DD was not the only child targeted, but all the children who were bullied were "on time" kids who were on the younger end of normal for the grade. All the bullies were the oldest kids in class.
Also, it's not just about the age difference. It's also that these redshirted kids were not socialized into elementary school when they were young enough for it help. They arrived at K too old and less malleable. In my child's 1st grade class, those older kids RAN the classroom. This year my kid is in 2nd and due to the bullying issues last year, my kid and others who were targeted are in a classroom without any of the much older kids. The classroom is significantly better, with less conflict and fewer behavioral issues.
I don't have any issue with moderate redshirting for kids with summer birthdays. I don't think you should be allowed to redshirt a kid with a birthday during the school year unless there is a clear reason why delaying kindergarten will help. And I actually think a lot of developmental delays might be made worse by redshirting unless you can show the kids are going to get services to improve the situation. Perhaps some of these delays would be best addressed by having the kid in a classroom with other kids and receiving services through the school.
I honestly do not understand why you continue to keep your child in a school where your DC experiences significant bullying and you believe the classroom activities and level are so wildly inappropriate. It seems weird to me.
You seem very ignorant of the reality that most parents experience. Most parents can’t just switch schools out of the blue.
Right. Which leads parents to make careful decisions about when their kids start school. For example— not sending a kid who may struggle to kindergarten too early.
Or, send our kid and get them the help they need so they don’t struggle.
What "help" do you recommend?
IEP’s. Soooo many kids have them. Professional help often paid for by the school district. I’ve see kids get services for adhd, dyslexia, occupational therapy… I think many people like you overestimate your ability and underestimate the ability of professionals with undergrad and grad degrees in education and therapy.
IEPs are for children with disabilities. You have to qualify for them. You can't just "get an IEP."
- Professional with an undergrad and grad degree in education and psychology.
Then what is the issue you feel that you can’t send a 5 to Kinder? I’m telling you, you’re making it something it’s not. It’s not that hard. Trust me.
Some kids just need a bit more time. That’s the help. It’s so weird you can’t understand that. Professionals and parents agree. Busy bodies with faux concerns about other people’s children don’t get an opinion.
No, they don’t. They need to be in school with age appropriate peers
Could you please share the data you’re sourcing this from? That age-identical classrooms are critical to children’s success? Moreso than the developmental appropriateness of the environment? Because candidly I think you’re making this up as you go along.
My four year old and her seven year old cousin are best friends. It’s amazing to see how she brings out leadership and compassion in her older cousin and how her cousin brings out courage and creativity in her.
The discussion is about peers and a child held back isn't necessarily going to be a leader just because they are older. It harms everyone and when you get to HS, do you want your 14 year old in classes with 19-20 year olds as that is whats happening.
You’re right, a child who is redshirted isn’t necessarily going to be a leader and— parents who are redshirting aren’t always doing it for that reason anyway. So don’t worry about the redshirted kids.
You seem to be suggesting a freshman in high school could be taking classes with a senior— while the 20 y/o would be shockingly rare, it’s not more worrying to have a 19 than an 18 y/o senior. What is your panic about here?
It’s it rare at all. Electives, gym, health ed and math are always mixed. My 13-14 year old freshman had three classes with seniors freshman year. An elective that was auditioned in, pe and math.
Ok so please explain your anxiety around a 14 year old being in a class with a 19 year old that doesn’t exist for an 18 year old?
.
19 year olds in high school isn’t redshirting. Those are kids who failed a year, had transfer issues, are foreign students who need more time for the language, were homeschooled or have GED and need the credit etc etc. It happens rarely, but that won’t be solved by banning redshirting. Some areas have specific adult only high schools for ages 18 plus - maybe advocate for that if it’s an issue in your area.
These kids were held back. Except the fall kids who missed the deadline. Let’s call it what it is. It’s a huge issue when these adults are with young teens.
Nonsense. I’m around a ton of teens. This is 100% a non-issue.
The hyperbole from the anti-redshirt posters is so ridiculous. It’s like none of you have contact with any actual teens.
The redshirted kids at my child's middle school who all started puberty a grade earlier than they would have had they started on time absolutely changed the culture if the school and the experience for the non-redshirted kids, for the worse.
I cannot fathom why anyone who has seen a kid through puberty would be like "oh yeah, it would be great to have an age spread of 18 months in 6th and 7th grade. Super cool." It's already a hard time and it's already harder for the kids who start puberty early or late, but now you want to stretch it out even more? Whyyyyyyyyy? It makes no sense.
I am fine if K is for 6/7 year olds. Just make it official and start school later. But this unofficial system where K is for 4-7 yr olds, and people are supposed to case the joint in advance to guess where in that age spread to send their kid? That's dumb. Just pick an age and have everyone send their kid when they hit that age.
Typical onset of puberty for girls is between 8 and 13 years old. For boys, it’s between 9-14 years old. That’s already a 5-year spread within the realm of completely normal.
Anonymous wrote:Public schools aren’t retaining anyone because that costs $$$. I’ve only heard of retention being offered when a kid missed a lot of a grade due to something like a serious medical issue, or at the end of the Covid school years - 2019-20 or 2020-21 - if a kid didn’t progress during the closures. My neighbor had a young for grade 1st grader in 20-21 and FCPS did offer to let her repeat 1st in person.
But let this thread be a heads up to everyone: redshirting is common, perhaps even expected, in private schools, especially for the younger for grade kids. So plan accordingly.
+1, and I would say it’s increasingly common in public school among parents who read the data on developmentally appropriate settings for 4-5. So, assume if you send a four year old they’ll be youngest by a year+, and an early five year old by a year. None of this is secret, or unavailable information to you.
Since most public schools do an age cut off around September 1st, the number of kids attending K at age 4 is very small (and even people who complain about excessive redshirting don't complain about redshirting a kid who would be 4 during the "normal" cut off). In NY (which is the only place with a midyear cut off that results in a lot of 4 year olds being eligible for K) it's common for people to redshirt those kids and no one complains about it.
The only redshirting people complain about is when people start redshirting kids who would be well over 5 when starting K but they hold them back anyway. Yes, in some privates that's common place, but the school generally encourages it and everyone has a chance to do it -- they like having an older class of K students and often they will strongly encourage redshirting summer or late spring birthdays. Some schools even offer a transitional year for young K students before taking the regular K class, so you still wind up with a fairly age-homogenous class.
But in public that's not the case, and when some parents start deciding their April or May birthday kid needs another year, it can leave other parents stuck with the consequences of those actions without warning. No one is going to get mad that a parent redshirted so their kid could start K at 5, but when you see kids starting K at 6 and a half, it becomes an issue.
Please yell at me now and tell me I'm a "crazy anti-redshirter" for agreeing this specific issue is a problem.
As someone with a young for grade kid, I think it is absolutely insane to consider this a problem whatsoever, and really makes you sound like someone who has no experience with any real problems in life.
My kid with an August birthday who I sent on time (she started K at 5 but was among the youngest in her grade) was viciously bullied by a redshirted child in 1st grade. My kid was 6 years old for the entirety of 1st grade. The bullying child turned 8 in September and was signficantly bigger and taller. Redshirting played a major role in the bullying because while this one child was the leader, there were many older kids in the classroom due to redshirting and when the bully would attack/provoke my kid, she'd cry, and then all the older kids would round on her and call her a baby and tease her for being small and young (she is average height for her age).
I had no idea how prevalent redshirting was when I enrolled my kid in K. She was academically and socially ready for a K classroom full of 5 and 6 year old children. In fact she continues to be at the top of her grade academically and she is well liked by teachers for being a good listener who follows directions and is helpful and kind in the classroom (something that apparently the extra years of preschool or staying home did not help instill in these redshirted kids who are merely bigger and older, not more mature).
I absolutely resent that my child's classroom environment has been dominated by older children who I think should have spent their 5/6 year in K learning out to function in elementary school, but instead spent it elsewhere and arrived at elementary school with their own ideas about how school should work. I resent how common bullying and relational aggression are at the school because of these older-but-less-mature kids.
Call me a crazy anti-redshirted if you want. I think redshirting sucks. Kids should start school at the same age so that they learn the same skills and are generally at the same developmental level. Kids with developmental delays can/should be held back to accommodate their delays, but it shouldn't be at the parents' discretion.
We will be moving school districts before these older kids hit puberty in 3rd grade and we have to deal with that.
As a parent who doesn't care about redshirting one way or another (and has both middle-of-age-for grade and young-for-grade kids, none old-for-grade): the bullying isn't because your kid is small. Bullies will find literally anything to gang up on kids about. One of my kids was bulled for not watching Spongebob Squarepants in a late elementary grade. Does that make sense as a thing to mock a kid over? No. But my kid was a prickly and kind of hard-to-get-to-know kid, so of course they were a target. The actual thing to make fun of was incidental to the act of piling on.
And it's possible (probable?) this older kid is lashing out because:
- they do have delays and you have no idea and the delays are social
- they feel embarassed about your kid doing as well when they are so much older.
PP here. Of course bullying can happen for a whole variety of reasons.
But at my kid's specific school, in specific classrooms where there are a large percent of redshirted kids including one that was significantly older, the bullying was closely related to having a cohort of older, bigger, unsocialized kids. My DD was not the only child targeted, but all the children who were bullied were "on time" kids who were on the younger end of normal for the grade. All the bullies were the oldest kids in class.
Also, it's not just about the age difference. It's also that these redshirted kids were not socialized into elementary school when they were young enough for it help. They arrived at K too old and less malleable. In my child's 1st grade class, those older kids RAN the classroom. This year my kid is in 2nd and due to the bullying issues last year, my kid and others who were targeted are in a classroom without any of the much older kids. The classroom is significantly better, with less conflict and fewer behavioral issues.
I don't have any issue with moderate redshirting for kids with summer birthdays. I don't think you should be allowed to redshirt a kid with a birthday during the school year unless there is a clear reason why delaying kindergarten will help. And I actually think a lot of developmental delays might be made worse by redshirting unless you can show the kids are going to get services to improve the situation. Perhaps some of these delays would be best addressed by having the kid in a classroom with other kids and receiving services through the school.
I honestly do not understand why you continue to keep your child in a school where your DC experiences significant bullying and you believe the classroom activities and level are so wildly inappropriate. It seems weird to me.
You seem very ignorant of the reality that most parents experience. Most parents can’t just switch schools out of the blue.
Right. Which leads parents to make careful decisions about when their kids start school. For example— not sending a kid who may struggle to kindergarten too early.
Or, send our kid and get them the help they need so they don’t struggle.
What "help" do you recommend?
IEP’s. Soooo many kids have them. Professional help often paid for by the school district. I’ve see kids get services for adhd, dyslexia, occupational therapy… I think many people like you overestimate your ability and underestimate the ability of professionals with undergrad and grad degrees in education and therapy.
Redshirting doesn’t prevent anyone from accessing these services and IEP. If you trust the professionals, then trust the ones that recommended to us that we hold our kids back, which is exactly what we did!
Most are saying hold back as it makes you happy. Most aren’t putting their kids in services. They also aren’t thinking of the future when these kids are in hs and they are 19-20 and taking classes with 13-14 year olds.
Why aren’t the parents of 13-14 year olds concerned and doing something different? The parents of other kids are being good parents. You can’t expect other people to pave the road for you.
Parent of young for grade high school kid here. 👋
I literally could not care less about whether my kid is in classes with older teens. And my friends with redshirted kids (who are thriving) don’t care either, the other way.
The only people who care about this are badly socialized adults who can’t teach social skills to their kids. That’s it.
Even if you are correct, that doesn't address the problem of older (red-shirted) kids bullying younger kids (who went on time) in the same grade. Its only when red-shirted kids cause problems for the younger kids in their grade that anyone cares. Surely you can see that.
Ridiculous - everyone cares about bullying but it’s not about the ages of the kids doing it. ALL bullying behavior should be addressed and stopped by the school. And no one here is suggesting otherwise!
Schools do nothing. Teachers ignore it.
That’s a bullying issue and it’s not about this topic which is redshirting.
Anonymous wrote:What 20 year old well adjusted kid wants to just stay at home with mom and dad attending HS? Most are ready to explore and go to college!
This thread is giving everything, a true classic DCUM anti-redshirting thread. We are now onto the mythical 20-year-old high school seniors. Love it.
This thread is about 2 ten year olds in a 3rd grade class. Do the math. 20 year old senior. This isn't about everything else. It is about people who are holding back kids to start at 7.
That’s holding back twice. A redshirted kid is not starting at 7, he starts at 6. Something else besides redshirting is going on in OP’s class. Maybe kids that failed? International kids who had transfer issues?
READ THE THREAD YOU FORKING IDIOT. THIS IS DUE TO COVID. THIS THIRD GRADE CLASS IS THE ONE WHO STARTED K AFTER THE VIRTUAL YEAR. LOTS OF PARENTS DIDN'T PUT THEIR KID IN K ON TIME THAT YEAR.
LEARN HOW TO READ YOU DUMB DUMB STUPID PEOPLE.
You sound unhinged. I have read every thread and OP has no idea what the situation is with these kids. You’re insisting it’s covid but she doesn’t know that and neither do you and your capital letter rants.
Anonymous wrote:Public schools aren’t retaining anyone because that costs $$$. I’ve only heard of retention being offered when a kid missed a lot of a grade due to something like a serious medical issue, or at the end of the Covid school years - 2019-20 or 2020-21 - if a kid didn’t progress during the closures. My neighbor had a young for grade 1st grader in 20-21 and FCPS did offer to let her repeat 1st in person.
But let this thread be a heads up to everyone: redshirting is common, perhaps even expected, in private schools, especially for the younger for grade kids. So plan accordingly.
+1, and I would say it’s increasingly common in public school among parents who read the data on developmentally appropriate settings for 4-5. So, assume if you send a four year old they’ll be youngest by a year+, and an early five year old by a year. None of this is secret, or unavailable information to you.
Since most public schools do an age cut off around September 1st, the number of kids attending K at age 4 is very small (and even people who complain about excessive redshirting don't complain about redshirting a kid who would be 4 during the "normal" cut off). In NY (which is the only place with a midyear cut off that results in a lot of 4 year olds being eligible for K) it's common for people to redshirt those kids and no one complains about it.
The only redshirting people complain about is when people start redshirting kids who would be well over 5 when starting K but they hold them back anyway. Yes, in some privates that's common place, but the school generally encourages it and everyone has a chance to do it -- they like having an older class of K students and often they will strongly encourage redshirting summer or late spring birthdays. Some schools even offer a transitional year for young K students before taking the regular K class, so you still wind up with a fairly age-homogenous class.
But in public that's not the case, and when some parents start deciding their April or May birthday kid needs another year, it can leave other parents stuck with the consequences of those actions without warning. No one is going to get mad that a parent redshirted so their kid could start K at 5, but when you see kids starting K at 6 and a half, it becomes an issue.
Please yell at me now and tell me I'm a "crazy anti-redshirter" for agreeing this specific issue is a problem.
As someone with a young for grade kid, I think it is absolutely insane to consider this a problem whatsoever, and really makes you sound like someone who has no experience with any real problems in life.
My kid with an August birthday who I sent on time (she started K at 5 but was among the youngest in her grade) was viciously bullied by a redshirted child in 1st grade. My kid was 6 years old for the entirety of 1st grade. The bullying child turned 8 in September and was signficantly bigger and taller. Redshirting played a major role in the bullying because while this one child was the leader, there were many older kids in the classroom due to redshirting and when the bully would attack/provoke my kid, she'd cry, and then all the older kids would round on her and call her a baby and tease her for being small and young (she is average height for her age).
I had no idea how prevalent redshirting was when I enrolled my kid in K. She was academically and socially ready for a K classroom full of 5 and 6 year old children. In fact she continues to be at the top of her grade academically and she is well liked by teachers for being a good listener who follows directions and is helpful and kind in the classroom (something that apparently the extra years of preschool or staying home did not help instill in these redshirted kids who are merely bigger and older, not more mature).
I absolutely resent that my child's classroom environment has been dominated by older children who I think should have spent their 5/6 year in K learning out to function in elementary school, but instead spent it elsewhere and arrived at elementary school with their own ideas about how school should work. I resent how common bullying and relational aggression are at the school because of these older-but-less-mature kids.
Call me a crazy anti-redshirted if you want. I think redshirting sucks. Kids should start school at the same age so that they learn the same skills and are generally at the same developmental level. Kids with developmental delays can/should be held back to accommodate their delays, but it shouldn't be at the parents' discretion.
We will be moving school districts before these older kids hit puberty in 3rd grade and we have to deal with that.
As a parent who doesn't care about redshirting one way or another (and has both middle-of-age-for grade and young-for-grade kids, none old-for-grade): the bullying isn't because your kid is small. Bullies will find literally anything to gang up on kids about. One of my kids was bulled for not watching Spongebob Squarepants in a late elementary grade. Does that make sense as a thing to mock a kid over? No. But my kid was a prickly and kind of hard-to-get-to-know kid, so of course they were a target. The actual thing to make fun of was incidental to the act of piling on.
And it's possible (probable?) this older kid is lashing out because:
- they do have delays and you have no idea and the delays are social
- they feel embarassed about your kid doing as well when they are so much older.
PP here. Of course bullying can happen for a whole variety of reasons.
But at my kid's specific school, in specific classrooms where there are a large percent of redshirted kids including one that was significantly older, the bullying was closely related to having a cohort of older, bigger, unsocialized kids. My DD was not the only child targeted, but all the children who were bullied were "on time" kids who were on the younger end of normal for the grade. All the bullies were the oldest kids in class.
Also, it's not just about the age difference. It's also that these redshirted kids were not socialized into elementary school when they were young enough for it help. They arrived at K too old and less malleable. In my child's 1st grade class, those older kids RAN the classroom. This year my kid is in 2nd and due to the bullying issues last year, my kid and others who were targeted are in a classroom without any of the much older kids. The classroom is significantly better, with less conflict and fewer behavioral issues.
I don't have any issue with moderate redshirting for kids with summer birthdays. I don't think you should be allowed to redshirt a kid with a birthday during the school year unless there is a clear reason why delaying kindergarten will help. And I actually think a lot of developmental delays might be made worse by redshirting unless you can show the kids are going to get services to improve the situation. Perhaps some of these delays would be best addressed by having the kid in a classroom with other kids and receiving services through the school.
I honestly do not understand why you continue to keep your child in a school where your DC experiences significant bullying and you believe the classroom activities and level are so wildly inappropriate. It seems weird to me.
You seem very ignorant of the reality that most parents experience. Most parents can’t just switch schools out of the blue.
Right. Which leads parents to make careful decisions about when their kids start school. For example— not sending a kid who may struggle to kindergarten too early.
Or, send our kid and get them the help they need so they don’t struggle.
What "help" do you recommend?
IEP’s. Soooo many kids have them. Professional help often paid for by the school district. I’ve see kids get services for adhd, dyslexia, occupational therapy… I think many people like you overestimate your ability and underestimate the ability of professionals with undergrad and grad degrees in education and therapy.
IEPs are for children with disabilities. You have to qualify for them. You can't just "get an IEP."
- Professional with an undergrad and grad degree in education and psychology.
Then what is the issue you feel that you can’t send a 5 to Kinder? I’m telling you, you’re making it something it’s not. It’s not that hard. Trust me.
Some kids just need a bit more time. That’s the help. It’s so weird you can’t understand that. Professionals and parents agree. Busy bodies with faux concerns about other people’s children don’t get an opinion.
No, they don’t. They need to be in school with age appropriate peers
Could you please share the data you’re sourcing this from? That age-identical classrooms are critical to children’s success? Moreso than the developmental appropriateness of the environment? Because candidly I think you’re making this up as you go along.
My four year old and her seven year old cousin are best friends. It’s amazing to see how she brings out leadership and compassion in her older cousin and how her cousin brings out courage and creativity in her.
The discussion is about peers and a child held back isn't necessarily going to be a leader just because they are older. It harms everyone and when you get to HS, do you want your 14 year old in classes with 19-20 year olds as that is whats happening.
You’re right, a child who is redshirted isn’t necessarily going to be a leader and— parents who are redshirting aren’t always doing it for that reason anyway. So don’t worry about the redshirted kids.
You seem to be suggesting a freshman in high school could be taking classes with a senior— while the 20 y/o would be shockingly rare, it’s not more worrying to have a 19 than an 18 y/o senior. What is your panic about here?
It’s it rare at all. Electives, gym, health ed and math are always mixed. My 13-14 year old freshman had three classes with seniors freshman year. An elective that was auditioned in, pe and math.
Ok so please explain your anxiety around a 14 year old being in a class with a 19 year old that doesn’t exist for an 18 year old?
.
19 year olds in high school isn’t redshirting. Those are kids who failed a year, had transfer issues, are foreign students who need more time for the language, were homeschooled or have GED and need the credit etc etc. It happens rarely, but that won’t be solved by banning redshirting. Some areas have specific adult only high schools for ages 18 plus - maybe advocate for that if it’s an issue in your area.
These kids were held back. Except the fall kids who missed the deadline. Let’s call it what it is. It’s a huge issue when these adults are with young teens.
Nonsense. I’m around a ton of teens. This is 100% a non-issue.
The hyperbole from the anti-redshirt posters is so ridiculous. It’s like none of you have contact with any actual teens.
The redshirted kids at my child's middle school who all started puberty a grade earlier than they would have had they started on time absolutely changed the culture if the school and the experience for the non-redshirted kids, for the worse.
I cannot fathom why anyone who has seen a kid through puberty would be like "oh yeah, it would be great to have an age spread of 18 months in 6th and 7th grade. Super cool." It's already a hard time and it's already harder for the kids who start puberty early or late, but now you want to stretch it out even more? Whyyyyyyyyy? It makes no sense.
I am fine if K is for 6/7 year olds. Just make it official and start school later. But this unofficial system where K is for 4-7 yr olds, and people are supposed to case the joint in advance to guess where in that age spread to send their kid? That's dumb. Just pick an age and have everyone send their kid when they hit that age.
Typical onset of puberty for girls is between 8 and 13 years old. For boys, it’s between 9-14 years old. That’s already a 5-year spread within the realm of completely normal.
You need to calm down.
1) Onset is not not equally distributed along those ranges.
2) Redshirting of non-summer birthdays makes the range even wider, which is a substantial issue. It forces families of on time kids to deal with puberty issues a year earlier than even the earliest year they would otherwise deal with it.
3) I feel very calm, thank you -- my kids are through this. Parents choosing to redshirt have not. They are making a choice based on a perceived disadvantage in kindergarten, not understanding the negative impact 4-6 years later. Both for their kid and dir peers.
Anonymous wrote:Public schools aren’t retaining anyone because that costs $$$. I’ve only heard of retention being offered when a kid missed a lot of a grade due to something like a serious medical issue, or at the end of the Covid school years - 2019-20 or 2020-21 - if a kid didn’t progress during the closures. My neighbor had a young for grade 1st grader in 20-21 and FCPS did offer to let her repeat 1st in person.
But let this thread be a heads up to everyone: redshirting is common, perhaps even expected, in private schools, especially for the younger for grade kids. So plan accordingly.
+1, and I would say it’s increasingly common in public school among parents who read the data on developmentally appropriate settings for 4-5. So, assume if you send a four year old they’ll be youngest by a year+, and an early five year old by a year. None of this is secret, or unavailable information to you.
Since most public schools do an age cut off around September 1st, the number of kids attending K at age 4 is very small (and even people who complain about excessive redshirting don't complain about redshirting a kid who would be 4 during the "normal" cut off). In NY (which is the only place with a midyear cut off that results in a lot of 4 year olds being eligible for K) it's common for people to redshirt those kids and no one complains about it.
The only redshirting people complain about is when people start redshirting kids who would be well over 5 when starting K but they hold them back anyway. Yes, in some privates that's common place, but the school generally encourages it and everyone has a chance to do it -- they like having an older class of K students and often they will strongly encourage redshirting summer or late spring birthdays. Some schools even offer a transitional year for young K students before taking the regular K class, so you still wind up with a fairly age-homogenous class.
But in public that's not the case, and when some parents start deciding their April or May birthday kid needs another year, it can leave other parents stuck with the consequences of those actions without warning. No one is going to get mad that a parent redshirted so their kid could start K at 5, but when you see kids starting K at 6 and a half, it becomes an issue.
Please yell at me now and tell me I'm a "crazy anti-redshirter" for agreeing this specific issue is a problem.
As someone with a young for grade kid, I think it is absolutely insane to consider this a problem whatsoever, and really makes you sound like someone who has no experience with any real problems in life.
My kid with an August birthday who I sent on time (she started K at 5 but was among the youngest in her grade) was viciously bullied by a redshirted child in 1st grade. My kid was 6 years old for the entirety of 1st grade. The bullying child turned 8 in September and was signficantly bigger and taller. Redshirting played a major role in the bullying because while this one child was the leader, there were many older kids in the classroom due to redshirting and when the bully would attack/provoke my kid, she'd cry, and then all the older kids would round on her and call her a baby and tease her for being small and young (she is average height for her age).
I had no idea how prevalent redshirting was when I enrolled my kid in K. She was academically and socially ready for a K classroom full of 5 and 6 year old children. In fact she continues to be at the top of her grade academically and she is well liked by teachers for being a good listener who follows directions and is helpful and kind in the classroom (something that apparently the extra years of preschool or staying home did not help instill in these redshirted kids who are merely bigger and older, not more mature).
I absolutely resent that my child's classroom environment has been dominated by older children who I think should have spent their 5/6 year in K learning out to function in elementary school, but instead spent it elsewhere and arrived at elementary school with their own ideas about how school should work. I resent how common bullying and relational aggression are at the school because of these older-but-less-mature kids.
Call me a crazy anti-redshirted if you want. I think redshirting sucks. Kids should start school at the same age so that they learn the same skills and are generally at the same developmental level. Kids with developmental delays can/should be held back to accommodate their delays, but it shouldn't be at the parents' discretion.
We will be moving school districts before these older kids hit puberty in 3rd grade and we have to deal with that.
As a parent who doesn't care about redshirting one way or another (and has both middle-of-age-for grade and young-for-grade kids, none old-for-grade): the bullying isn't because your kid is small. Bullies will find literally anything to gang up on kids about. One of my kids was bulled for not watching Spongebob Squarepants in a late elementary grade. Does that make sense as a thing to mock a kid over? No. But my kid was a prickly and kind of hard-to-get-to-know kid, so of course they were a target. The actual thing to make fun of was incidental to the act of piling on.
And it's possible (probable?) this older kid is lashing out because:
- they do have delays and you have no idea and the delays are social
- they feel embarassed about your kid doing as well when they are so much older.
PP here. Of course bullying can happen for a whole variety of reasons.
But at my kid's specific school, in specific classrooms where there are a large percent of redshirted kids including one that was significantly older, the bullying was closely related to having a cohort of older, bigger, unsocialized kids. My DD was not the only child targeted, but all the children who were bullied were "on time" kids who were on the younger end of normal for the grade. All the bullies were the oldest kids in class.
Also, it's not just about the age difference. It's also that these redshirted kids were not socialized into elementary school when they were young enough for it help. They arrived at K too old and less malleable. In my child's 1st grade class, those older kids RAN the classroom. This year my kid is in 2nd and due to the bullying issues last year, my kid and others who were targeted are in a classroom without any of the much older kids. The classroom is significantly better, with less conflict and fewer behavioral issues.
I don't have any issue with moderate redshirting for kids with summer birthdays. I don't think you should be allowed to redshirt a kid with a birthday during the school year unless there is a clear reason why delaying kindergarten will help. And I actually think a lot of developmental delays might be made worse by redshirting unless you can show the kids are going to get services to improve the situation. Perhaps some of these delays would be best addressed by having the kid in a classroom with other kids and receiving services through the school.
I honestly do not understand why you continue to keep your child in a school where your DC experiences significant bullying and you believe the classroom activities and level are so wildly inappropriate. It seems weird to me.
You seem very ignorant of the reality that most parents experience. Most parents can’t just switch schools out of the blue.
Right. Which leads parents to make careful decisions about when their kids start school. For example— not sending a kid who may struggle to kindergarten too early.
Unless they don’t know about how prevalent it is because the schools don’t say anything and the other moms apparently don’t volunteer the info. Nice.
What information do you feel is lacking? If you ask your local elementary school they will likely tell you the average kindergarten age. You presumably know your child’s age. Do some research into peer reviewed studies about optimal environments for the child’s age you have and see whether your local or chosen kindergarten matches with that. I’m truly confused what you think someone needs to tell you to make this choice?
We arrived back in the US after mostly raising kids on military bases abroad and we arrived in August. Honestly I didn’t even know red shirting was a thing until I saw some really big kindergarten kids on my son’s first day of school. So no I did t put my five year old on a waitlist for preschool, had never heard of “junior kindergarten” at preschool, etc.
That’s really not an excuse for not researching, talking to others, asking around.
Sweetheart, those are all excuses for "I want my child to have an advantage over yours" and we all know it.
I’m a DP, and leaving aside your tone, it’s not an advantage over your student. Your student has exactly the same right to delay a year as anyone else. Nothing is being taken away from you or your child you just made a different choice. Lose your victim mentality around this.
That PP is just mad they didn't know what they were doing.
I really hate the "savvy parents know to redshirt, it's your fault if you don't" argument, because we're talking about kids.
Of course there are going to be parents who, fir whatever reason, don't know the *unspoken* customs if redshirting in a district, and their kid will wind up at a disadvantage. You can criticize the parents for this but it's the kid who suffers.
Which is why there should be NO UNSPOKEN REDSHIRTING CUSTOMS. This should not be gameable. And relishing the idea that some kids struggle in school because their parents naively thought the published age cutoffs were when you are actually supposed to send your kids, and not just a vague suggestion and all the "smart" parents postpone K a year, is a weird flex.
Have a cut off. Enforce a cut off. Make sure the school work makes sense for kids who meet the cut off. This isn't hard. These are kids. We should all want them ALL to succeed.
Apparently it is hard. The current cutoff sends 4 year olds into the classroom for hours sitting on end, doing age inappropriate activities, with barely any time outdoors. Everyone (even on this thread) agrees that isn’t right for a four year old, and yet that’s The Cutoff. So, apparently, it’s hard.
To your other point, the same published guidelines that you assume everyone does have access to also (at least in FCPS) explains what to do if you don’t want to start your kid. I don’t think this is about whisper networks and secret handshakes. What I think is “savvy” is the parents who have a data-informed sense for what their kids should be doing at 4-5-6 and yes, we should really help parents understand how bad sitting still indoors, doing screen-based learning and endless worksheets really is for early childhood.
Anonymous wrote:Public schools aren’t retaining anyone because that costs $$$. I’ve only heard of retention being offered when a kid missed a lot of a grade due to something like a serious medical issue, or at the end of the Covid school years - 2019-20 or 2020-21 - if a kid didn’t progress during the closures. My neighbor had a young for grade 1st grader in 20-21 and FCPS did offer to let her repeat 1st in person.
But let this thread be a heads up to everyone: redshirting is common, perhaps even expected, in private schools, especially for the younger for grade kids. So plan accordingly.
+1, and I would say it’s increasingly common in public school among parents who read the data on developmentally appropriate settings for 4-5. So, assume if you send a four year old they’ll be youngest by a year+, and an early five year old by a year. None of this is secret, or unavailable information to you.
Since most public schools do an age cut off around September 1st, the number of kids attending K at age 4 is very small (and even people who complain about excessive redshirting don't complain about redshirting a kid who would be 4 during the "normal" cut off). In NY (which is the only place with a midyear cut off that results in a lot of 4 year olds being eligible for K) it's common for people to redshirt those kids and no one complains about it.
The only redshirting people complain about is when people start redshirting kids who would be well over 5 when starting K but they hold them back anyway. Yes, in some privates that's common place, but the school generally encourages it and everyone has a chance to do it -- they like having an older class of K students and often they will strongly encourage redshirting summer or late spring birthdays. Some schools even offer a transitional year for young K students before taking the regular K class, so you still wind up with a fairly age-homogenous class.
But in public that's not the case, and when some parents start deciding their April or May birthday kid needs another year, it can leave other parents stuck with the consequences of those actions without warning. No one is going to get mad that a parent redshirted so their kid could start K at 5, but when you see kids starting K at 6 and a half, it becomes an issue.
Please yell at me now and tell me I'm a "crazy anti-redshirter" for agreeing this specific issue is a problem.
As someone with a young for grade kid, I think it is absolutely insane to consider this a problem whatsoever, and really makes you sound like someone who has no experience with any real problems in life.
My kid with an August birthday who I sent on time (she started K at 5 but was among the youngest in her grade) was viciously bullied by a redshirted child in 1st grade. My kid was 6 years old for the entirety of 1st grade. The bullying child turned 8 in September and was signficantly bigger and taller. Redshirting played a major role in the bullying because while this one child was the leader, there were many older kids in the classroom due to redshirting and when the bully would attack/provoke my kid, she'd cry, and then all the older kids would round on her and call her a baby and tease her for being small and young (she is average height for her age).
I had no idea how prevalent redshirting was when I enrolled my kid in K. She was academically and socially ready for a K classroom full of 5 and 6 year old children. In fact she continues to be at the top of her grade academically and she is well liked by teachers for being a good listener who follows directions and is helpful and kind in the classroom (something that apparently the extra years of preschool or staying home did not help instill in these redshirted kids who are merely bigger and older, not more mature).
I absolutely resent that my child's classroom environment has been dominated by older children who I think should have spent their 5/6 year in K learning out to function in elementary school, but instead spent it elsewhere and arrived at elementary school with their own ideas about how school should work. I resent how common bullying and relational aggression are at the school because of these older-but-less-mature kids.
Call me a crazy anti-redshirted if you want. I think redshirting sucks. Kids should start school at the same age so that they learn the same skills and are generally at the same developmental level. Kids with developmental delays can/should be held back to accommodate their delays, but it shouldn't be at the parents' discretion.
We will be moving school districts before these older kids hit puberty in 3rd grade and we have to deal with that.
As a parent who doesn't care about redshirting one way or another (and has both middle-of-age-for grade and young-for-grade kids, none old-for-grade): the bullying isn't because your kid is small. Bullies will find literally anything to gang up on kids about. One of my kids was bulled for not watching Spongebob Squarepants in a late elementary grade. Does that make sense as a thing to mock a kid over? No. But my kid was a prickly and kind of hard-to-get-to-know kid, so of course they were a target. The actual thing to make fun of was incidental to the act of piling on.
And it's possible (probable?) this older kid is lashing out because:
- they do have delays and you have no idea and the delays are social
- they feel embarassed about your kid doing as well when they are so much older.
PP here. Of course bullying can happen for a whole variety of reasons.
But at my kid's specific school, in specific classrooms where there are a large percent of redshirted kids including one that was significantly older, the bullying was closely related to having a cohort of older, bigger, unsocialized kids. My DD was not the only child targeted, but all the children who were bullied were "on time" kids who were on the younger end of normal for the grade. All the bullies were the oldest kids in class.
Also, it's not just about the age difference. It's also that these redshirted kids were not socialized into elementary school when they were young enough for it help. They arrived at K too old and less malleable. In my child's 1st grade class, those older kids RAN the classroom. This year my kid is in 2nd and due to the bullying issues last year, my kid and others who were targeted are in a classroom without any of the much older kids. The classroom is significantly better, with less conflict and fewer behavioral issues.
I don't have any issue with moderate redshirting for kids with summer birthdays. I don't think you should be allowed to redshirt a kid with a birthday during the school year unless there is a clear reason why delaying kindergarten will help. And I actually think a lot of developmental delays might be made worse by redshirting unless you can show the kids are going to get services to improve the situation. Perhaps some of these delays would be best addressed by having the kid in a classroom with other kids and receiving services through the school.
I honestly do not understand why you continue to keep your child in a school where your DC experiences significant bullying and you believe the classroom activities and level are so wildly inappropriate. It seems weird to me.
You seem very ignorant of the reality that most parents experience. Most parents can’t just switch schools out of the blue.
Right. Which leads parents to make careful decisions about when their kids start school. For example— not sending a kid who may struggle to kindergarten too early.
Unless they don’t know about how prevalent it is because the schools don’t say anything and the other moms apparently don’t volunteer the info. Nice.
What information do you feel is lacking? If you ask your local elementary school they will likely tell you the average kindergarten age. You presumably know your child’s age. Do some research into peer reviewed studies about optimal environments for the child’s age you have and see whether your local or chosen kindergarten matches with that. I’m truly confused what you think someone needs to tell you to make this choice?
We arrived back in the US after mostly raising kids on military bases abroad and we arrived in August. Honestly I didn’t even know red shirting was a thing until I saw some really big kindergarten kids on my son’s first day of school. So no I did t put my five year old on a waitlist for preschool, had never heard of “junior kindergarten” at preschool, etc.
That’s really not an excuse for not researching, talking to others, asking around.
Sweetheart, those are all excuses for "I want my child to have an advantage over yours" and we all know it.
I’m a DP, and leaving aside your tone, it’s not an advantage over your student. Your student has exactly the same right to delay a year as anyone else. Nothing is being taken away from you or your child you just made a different choice. Lose your victim mentality around this.
That PP is just mad they didn't know what they were doing.
I really hate the "savvy parents know to redshirt, it's your fault if you don't" argument, because we're talking about kids.
Of course there are going to be parents who, fir whatever reason, don't know the *unspoken* customs if redshirting in a district, and their kid will wind up at a disadvantage. You can criticize the parents for this but it's the kid who suffers.
Which is why there should be NO UNSPOKEN REDSHIRTING CUSTOMS. This should not be gameable. And relishing the idea that some kids struggle in school because their parents naively thought the published age cutoffs were when you are actually supposed to send your kids, and not just a vague suggestion and all the "smart" parents postpone K a year, is a weird flex.
Have a cut off. Enforce a cut off. Make sure the school work makes sense for kids who meet the cut off. This isn't hard. These are kids. We should all want them ALL to succeed.
Apparently it is hard. The current cutoff sends 4 year olds into the classroom for hours sitting on end, doing age inappropriate activities, with barely any time outdoors. Everyone (even on this thread) agrees that isn’t right for a four year old, and yet that’s The Cutoff. So, apparently, it’s hard.
To your other point, the same published guidelines that you assume everyone does have access to also (at least in FCPS) explains what to do if you don’t want to start your kid. I don’t think this is about whisper networks and secret handshakes. What I think is “savvy” is the parents who have a data-informed sense for what their kids should be doing at 4-5-6 and yes, we should really help parents understand how bad sitting still indoors, doing screen-based learning and endless worksheets really is for early childhood.
So you make the cut off 5. Easy. Everyone agrees 4 is too young for K. So kids should enroll in K in the fall after their 5th birthday. Done.
Or, if you think 5 is too young, then make it 6.
If you don't think kids should be sitting indoors for hours on end, then advocate for that not to be how K works. Is it okay in 1st? No. So sounds like we need to talk to schools about crap curriculums that aren't appropriate for any early elementary kids.
Also your argument that we should just make sure that every parent is "data informed" before making the choice to redshirt ignores reality, which is that some parents are simply never going to get there. Some parents lack the cognitive ability or the language skills or the maturity to do that. Some parents are immigrants who don't speak the language. Some parents just went through a divorce or a death in the family and don't have the bandwidth. Some parents are poor and no matter what the data says, they are going to send their kid to K when the school says they can because they can't afford another year of daycare.
Your way means that the kids of all those parents are just SOL. Nice.
Anonymous wrote:Public schools aren’t retaining anyone because that costs $$$. I’ve only heard of retention being offered when a kid missed a lot of a grade due to something like a serious medical issue, or at the end of the Covid school years - 2019-20 or 2020-21 - if a kid didn’t progress during the closures. My neighbor had a young for grade 1st grader in 20-21 and FCPS did offer to let her repeat 1st in person.
But let this thread be a heads up to everyone: redshirting is common, perhaps even expected, in private schools, especially for the younger for grade kids. So plan accordingly.
+1, and I would say it’s increasingly common in public school among parents who read the data on developmentally appropriate settings for 4-5. So, assume if you send a four year old they’ll be youngest by a year+, and an early five year old by a year. None of this is secret, or unavailable information to you.
Since most public schools do an age cut off around September 1st, the number of kids attending K at age 4 is very small (and even people who complain about excessive redshirting don't complain about redshirting a kid who would be 4 during the "normal" cut off). In NY (which is the only place with a midyear cut off that results in a lot of 4 year olds being eligible for K) it's common for people to redshirt those kids and no one complains about it.
The only redshirting people complain about is when people start redshirting kids who would be well over 5 when starting K but they hold them back anyway. Yes, in some privates that's common place, but the school generally encourages it and everyone has a chance to do it -- they like having an older class of K students and often they will strongly encourage redshirting summer or late spring birthdays. Some schools even offer a transitional year for young K students before taking the regular K class, so you still wind up with a fairly age-homogenous class.
But in public that's not the case, and when some parents start deciding their April or May birthday kid needs another year, it can leave other parents stuck with the consequences of those actions without warning. No one is going to get mad that a parent redshirted so their kid could start K at 5, but when you see kids starting K at 6 and a half, it becomes an issue.
Please yell at me now and tell me I'm a "crazy anti-redshirter" for agreeing this specific issue is a problem.
As someone with a young for grade kid, I think it is absolutely insane to consider this a problem whatsoever, and really makes you sound like someone who has no experience with any real problems in life.
My kid with an August birthday who I sent on time (she started K at 5 but was among the youngest in her grade) was viciously bullied by a redshirted child in 1st grade. My kid was 6 years old for the entirety of 1st grade. The bullying child turned 8 in September and was signficantly bigger and taller. Redshirting played a major role in the bullying because while this one child was the leader, there were many older kids in the classroom due to redshirting and when the bully would attack/provoke my kid, she'd cry, and then all the older kids would round on her and call her a baby and tease her for being small and young (she is average height for her age).
I had no idea how prevalent redshirting was when I enrolled my kid in K. She was academically and socially ready for a K classroom full of 5 and 6 year old children. In fact she continues to be at the top of her grade academically and she is well liked by teachers for being a good listener who follows directions and is helpful and kind in the classroom (something that apparently the extra years of preschool or staying home did not help instill in these redshirted kids who are merely bigger and older, not more mature).
I absolutely resent that my child's classroom environment has been dominated by older children who I think should have spent their 5/6 year in K learning out to function in elementary school, but instead spent it elsewhere and arrived at elementary school with their own ideas about how school should work. I resent how common bullying and relational aggression are at the school because of these older-but-less-mature kids.
Call me a crazy anti-redshirted if you want. I think redshirting sucks. Kids should start school at the same age so that they learn the same skills and are generally at the same developmental level. Kids with developmental delays can/should be held back to accommodate their delays, but it shouldn't be at the parents' discretion.
We will be moving school districts before these older kids hit puberty in 3rd grade and we have to deal with that.
As a parent who doesn't care about redshirting one way or another (and has both middle-of-age-for grade and young-for-grade kids, none old-for-grade): the bullying isn't because your kid is small. Bullies will find literally anything to gang up on kids about. One of my kids was bulled for not watching Spongebob Squarepants in a late elementary grade. Does that make sense as a thing to mock a kid over? No. But my kid was a prickly and kind of hard-to-get-to-know kid, so of course they were a target. The actual thing to make fun of was incidental to the act of piling on.
And it's possible (probable?) this older kid is lashing out because:
- they do have delays and you have no idea and the delays are social
- they feel embarassed about your kid doing as well when they are so much older.
PP here. Of course bullying can happen for a whole variety of reasons.
But at my kid's specific school, in specific classrooms where there are a large percent of redshirted kids including one that was significantly older, the bullying was closely related to having a cohort of older, bigger, unsocialized kids. My DD was not the only child targeted, but all the children who were bullied were "on time" kids who were on the younger end of normal for the grade. All the bullies were the oldest kids in class.
Also, it's not just about the age difference. It's also that these redshirted kids were not socialized into elementary school when they were young enough for it help. They arrived at K too old and less malleable. In my child's 1st grade class, those older kids RAN the classroom. This year my kid is in 2nd and due to the bullying issues last year, my kid and others who were targeted are in a classroom without any of the much older kids. The classroom is significantly better, with less conflict and fewer behavioral issues.
I don't have any issue with moderate redshirting for kids with summer birthdays. I don't think you should be allowed to redshirt a kid with a birthday during the school year unless there is a clear reason why delaying kindergarten will help. And I actually think a lot of developmental delays might be made worse by redshirting unless you can show the kids are going to get services to improve the situation. Perhaps some of these delays would be best addressed by having the kid in a classroom with other kids and receiving services through the school.
I honestly do not understand why you continue to keep your child in a school where your DC experiences significant bullying and you believe the classroom activities and level are so wildly inappropriate. It seems weird to me.
You seem very ignorant of the reality that most parents experience. Most parents can’t just switch schools out of the blue.
Right. Which leads parents to make careful decisions about when their kids start school. For example— not sending a kid who may struggle to kindergarten too early.
Or, send our kid and get them the help they need so they don’t struggle.
What "help" do you recommend?
IEP’s. Soooo many kids have them. Professional help often paid for by the school district. I’ve see kids get services for adhd, dyslexia, occupational therapy… I think many people like you overestimate your ability and underestimate the ability of professionals with undergrad and grad degrees in education and therapy.
IEPs are for children with disabilities. You have to qualify for them. You can't just "get an IEP."
- Professional with an undergrad and grad degree in education and psychology.
Then what is the issue you feel that you can’t send a 5 to Kinder? I’m telling you, you’re making it something it’s not. It’s not that hard. Trust me.
Some kids just need a bit more time. That’s the help. It’s so weird you can’t understand that. Professionals and parents agree. Busy bodies with faux concerns about other people’s children don’t get an opinion.
No, they don’t. They need to be in school with age appropriate peers
Could you please share the data you’re sourcing this from? That age-identical classrooms are critical to children’s success? Moreso than the developmental appropriateness of the environment? Because candidly I think you’re making this up as you go along.
My four year old and her seven year old cousin are best friends. It’s amazing to see how she brings out leadership and compassion in her older cousin and how her cousin brings out courage and creativity in her.
The discussion is about peers and a child held back isn't necessarily going to be a leader just because they are older. It harms everyone and when you get to HS, do you want your 14 year old in classes with 19-20 year olds as that is whats happening.
You’re right, a child who is redshirted isn’t necessarily going to be a leader and— parents who are redshirting aren’t always doing it for that reason anyway. So don’t worry about the redshirted kids.
You seem to be suggesting a freshman in high school could be taking classes with a senior— while the 20 y/o would be shockingly rare, it’s not more worrying to have a 19 than an 18 y/o senior. What is your panic about here?
It’s it rare at all. Electives, gym, health ed and math are always mixed. My 13-14 year old freshman had three classes with seniors freshman year. An elective that was auditioned in, pe and math.
Ok so please explain your anxiety around a 14 year old being in a class with a 19 year old that doesn’t exist for an 18 year old?
.
19 year olds in high school isn’t redshirting. Those are kids who failed a year, had transfer issues, are foreign students who need more time for the language, were homeschooled or have GED and need the credit etc etc. It happens rarely, but that won’t be solved by banning redshirting. Some areas have specific adult only high schools for ages 18 plus - maybe advocate for that if it’s an issue in your area.
These kids were held back. Except the fall kids who missed the deadline. Let’s call it what it is. It’s a huge issue when these adults are with young teens.
Nonsense. I’m around a ton of teens. This is 100% a non-issue.
The hyperbole from the anti-redshirt posters is so ridiculous. It’s like none of you have contact with any actual teens.
The redshirted kids at my child's middle school who all started puberty a grade earlier than they would have had they started on time absolutely changed the culture if the school and the experience for the non-redshirted kids, for the worse.
I cannot fathom why anyone who has seen a kid through puberty would be like "oh yeah, it would be great to have an age spread of 18 months in 6th and 7th grade. Super cool." It's already a hard time and it's already harder for the kids who start puberty early or late, but now you want to stretch it out even more? Whyyyyyyyyy? It makes no sense.
I am fine if K is for 6/7 year olds. Just make it official and start school later. But this unofficial system where K is for 4-7 yr olds, and people are supposed to case the joint in advance to guess where in that age spread to send their kid? That's dumb. Just pick an age and have everyone send their kid when they hit that age.
Typical onset of puberty for girls is between 8 and 13 years old. For boys, it’s between 9-14 years old. That’s already a 5-year spread within the realm of completely normal.
You need to calm down.
1) Onset is not not equally distributed along those ranges.
2) Redshirting of non-summer birthdays makes the range even wider, which is a substantial issue. It forces families of on time kids to deal with puberty issues a year earlier than even the earliest year they would otherwise deal with it.
3) I feel very calm, thank you -- my kids are through this. Parents choosing to redshirt have not. They are making a choice based on a perceived disadvantage in kindergarten, not understanding the negative impact 4-6 years later. Both for their kid and dir peers.
I redshirted my son and he is now in high school. There have been no “negative impacts” - we firmly believe we made the best decision.
The idea that there is a negative impact with kids 1-1.5 years older in your child’s class experiencing puberty early is ludicrous. By the time puberty hits (middle school) by definition they are interacting with older cohorts (typically 6-8th grade for middle school, and 9-12th for high school). Not to mention kids have older siblings at home exposing them to “puberty issues.”
Of all the anti redshirting arguments I’ve heard over the years, this is the dumbest.
Anonymous wrote:Public schools aren’t retaining anyone because that costs $$$. I’ve only heard of retention being offered when a kid missed a lot of a grade due to something like a serious medical issue, or at the end of the Covid school years - 2019-20 or 2020-21 - if a kid didn’t progress during the closures. My neighbor had a young for grade 1st grader in 20-21 and FCPS did offer to let her repeat 1st in person.
But let this thread be a heads up to everyone: redshirting is common, perhaps even expected, in private schools, especially for the younger for grade kids. So plan accordingly.
+1, and I would say it’s increasingly common in public school among parents who read the data on developmentally appropriate settings for 4-5. So, assume if you send a four year old they’ll be youngest by a year+, and an early five year old by a year. None of this is secret, or unavailable information to you.
Since most public schools do an age cut off around September 1st, the number of kids attending K at age 4 is very small (and even people who complain about excessive redshirting don't complain about redshirting a kid who would be 4 during the "normal" cut off). In NY (which is the only place with a midyear cut off that results in a lot of 4 year olds being eligible for K) it's common for people to redshirt those kids and no one complains about it.
The only redshirting people complain about is when people start redshirting kids who would be well over 5 when starting K but they hold them back anyway. Yes, in some privates that's common place, but the school generally encourages it and everyone has a chance to do it -- they like having an older class of K students and often they will strongly encourage redshirting summer or late spring birthdays. Some schools even offer a transitional year for young K students before taking the regular K class, so you still wind up with a fairly age-homogenous class.
But in public that's not the case, and when some parents start deciding their April or May birthday kid needs another year, it can leave other parents stuck with the consequences of those actions without warning. No one is going to get mad that a parent redshirted so their kid could start K at 5, but when you see kids starting K at 6 and a half, it becomes an issue.
Please yell at me now and tell me I'm a "crazy anti-redshirter" for agreeing this specific issue is a problem.
As someone with a young for grade kid, I think it is absolutely insane to consider this a problem whatsoever, and really makes you sound like someone who has no experience with any real problems in life.
My kid with an August birthday who I sent on time (she started K at 5 but was among the youngest in her grade) was viciously bullied by a redshirted child in 1st grade. My kid was 6 years old for the entirety of 1st grade. The bullying child turned 8 in September and was signficantly bigger and taller. Redshirting played a major role in the bullying because while this one child was the leader, there were many older kids in the classroom due to redshirting and when the bully would attack/provoke my kid, she'd cry, and then all the older kids would round on her and call her a baby and tease her for being small and young (she is average height for her age).
I had no idea how prevalent redshirting was when I enrolled my kid in K. She was academically and socially ready for a K classroom full of 5 and 6 year old children. In fact she continues to be at the top of her grade academically and she is well liked by teachers for being a good listener who follows directions and is helpful and kind in the classroom (something that apparently the extra years of preschool or staying home did not help instill in these redshirted kids who are merely bigger and older, not more mature).
I absolutely resent that my child's classroom environment has been dominated by older children who I think should have spent their 5/6 year in K learning out to function in elementary school, but instead spent it elsewhere and arrived at elementary school with their own ideas about how school should work. I resent how common bullying and relational aggression are at the school because of these older-but-less-mature kids.
Call me a crazy anti-redshirted if you want. I think redshirting sucks. Kids should start school at the same age so that they learn the same skills and are generally at the same developmental level. Kids with developmental delays can/should be held back to accommodate their delays, but it shouldn't be at the parents' discretion.
We will be moving school districts before these older kids hit puberty in 3rd grade and we have to deal with that.
As a parent who doesn't care about redshirting one way or another (and has both middle-of-age-for grade and young-for-grade kids, none old-for-grade): the bullying isn't because your kid is small. Bullies will find literally anything to gang up on kids about. One of my kids was bulled for not watching Spongebob Squarepants in a late elementary grade. Does that make sense as a thing to mock a kid over? No. But my kid was a prickly and kind of hard-to-get-to-know kid, so of course they were a target. The actual thing to make fun of was incidental to the act of piling on.
And it's possible (probable?) this older kid is lashing out because:
- they do have delays and you have no idea and the delays are social
- they feel embarassed about your kid doing as well when they are so much older.
PP here. Of course bullying can happen for a whole variety of reasons.
But at my kid's specific school, in specific classrooms where there are a large percent of redshirted kids including one that was significantly older, the bullying was closely related to having a cohort of older, bigger, unsocialized kids. My DD was not the only child targeted, but all the children who were bullied were "on time" kids who were on the younger end of normal for the grade. All the bullies were the oldest kids in class.
Also, it's not just about the age difference. It's also that these redshirted kids were not socialized into elementary school when they were young enough for it help. They arrived at K too old and less malleable. In my child's 1st grade class, those older kids RAN the classroom. This year my kid is in 2nd and due to the bullying issues last year, my kid and others who were targeted are in a classroom without any of the much older kids. The classroom is significantly better, with less conflict and fewer behavioral issues.
I don't have any issue with moderate redshirting for kids with summer birthdays. I don't think you should be allowed to redshirt a kid with a birthday during the school year unless there is a clear reason why delaying kindergarten will help. And I actually think a lot of developmental delays might be made worse by redshirting unless you can show the kids are going to get services to improve the situation. Perhaps some of these delays would be best addressed by having the kid in a classroom with other kids and receiving services through the school.
I honestly do not understand why you continue to keep your child in a school where your DC experiences significant bullying and you believe the classroom activities and level are so wildly inappropriate. It seems weird to me.
You seem very ignorant of the reality that most parents experience. Most parents can’t just switch schools out of the blue.
Right. Which leads parents to make careful decisions about when their kids start school. For example— not sending a kid who may struggle to kindergarten too early.
Unless they don’t know about how prevalent it is because the schools don’t say anything and the other moms apparently don’t volunteer the info. Nice.
What information do you feel is lacking? If you ask your local elementary school they will likely tell you the average kindergarten age. You presumably know your child’s age. Do some research into peer reviewed studies about optimal environments for the child’s age you have and see whether your local or chosen kindergarten matches with that. I’m truly confused what you think someone needs to tell you to make this choice?
We arrived back in the US after mostly raising kids on military bases abroad and we arrived in August. Honestly I didn’t even know red shirting was a thing until I saw some really big kindergarten kids on my son’s first day of school. So no I did t put my five year old on a waitlist for preschool, had never heard of “junior kindergarten” at preschool, etc.
That’s really not an excuse for not researching, talking to others, asking around.
Sweetheart, those are all excuses for "I want my child to have an advantage over yours" and we all know it.
I’m a DP, and leaving aside your tone, it’s not an advantage over your student. Your student has exactly the same right to delay a year as anyone else. Nothing is being taken away from you or your child you just made a different choice. Lose your victim mentality around this.
That PP is just mad they didn't know what they were doing.
I really hate the "savvy parents know to redshirt, it's your fault if you don't" argument, because we're talking about kids.
Of course there are going to be parents who, fir whatever reason, don't know the *unspoken* customs if redshirting in a district, and their kid will wind up at a disadvantage. You can criticize the parents for this but it's the kid who suffers.
Which is why there should be NO UNSPOKEN REDSHIRTING CUSTOMS. This should not be gameable. And relishing the idea that some kids struggle in school because their parents naively thought the published age cutoffs were when you are actually supposed to send your kids, and not just a vague suggestion and all the "smart" parents postpone K a year, is a weird flex.
Have a cut off. Enforce a cut off. Make sure the school work makes sense for kids who meet the cut off. This isn't hard. These are kids. We should all want them ALL to succeed.
Apparently it is hard. The current cutoff sends 4 year olds into the classroom for hours sitting on end, doing age inappropriate activities, with barely any time outdoors. Everyone (even on this thread) agrees that isn’t right for a four year old, and yet that’s The Cutoff. So, apparently, it’s hard.
To your other point, the same published guidelines that you assume everyone does have access to also (at least in FCPS) explains what to do if you don’t want to start your kid. I don’t think this is about whisper networks and secret handshakes. What I think is “savvy” is the parents who have a data-informed sense for what their kids should be doing at 4-5-6 and yes, we should really help parents understand how bad sitting still indoors, doing screen-based learning and endless worksheets really is for early childhood.
So you make the cut off 5. Easy. Everyone agrees 4 is too young for K. So kids should enroll in K in the fall after their 5th birthday. Done.
Or, if you think 5 is too young, then make it 6.
By all means, go to your school district and advocate for that! Good luck! The reality is that most people don’t agree with you which is why the school districts don’t restrict attendance in K in this way. NYC banned redshirting but that’s a rare case - most initiatives fail.
I am a middle school teacher. One year I had a an age range of 10-14 in my sixth grade class…. 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14. It was a nightmare. Many kids learning English, missing significant amounts of school, oldest was in a gang. It is very difficult to maintain a classroom with large age gaps.
Anonymous wrote:Public schools aren’t retaining anyone because that costs $$$. I’ve only heard of retention being offered when a kid missed a lot of a grade due to something like a serious medical issue, or at the end of the Covid school years - 2019-20 or 2020-21 - if a kid didn’t progress during the closures. My neighbor had a young for grade 1st grader in 20-21 and FCPS did offer to let her repeat 1st in person.
But let this thread be a heads up to everyone: redshirting is common, perhaps even expected, in private schools, especially for the younger for grade kids. So plan accordingly.
+1, and I would say it’s increasingly common in public school among parents who read the data on developmentally appropriate settings for 4-5. So, assume if you send a four year old they’ll be youngest by a year+, and an early five year old by a year. None of this is secret, or unavailable information to you.
Since most public schools do an age cut off around September 1st, the number of kids attending K at age 4 is very small (and even people who complain about excessive redshirting don't complain about redshirting a kid who would be 4 during the "normal" cut off). In NY (which is the only place with a midyear cut off that results in a lot of 4 year olds being eligible for K) it's common for people to redshirt those kids and no one complains about it.
The only redshirting people complain about is when people start redshirting kids who would be well over 5 when starting K but they hold them back anyway. Yes, in some privates that's common place, but the school generally encourages it and everyone has a chance to do it -- they like having an older class of K students and often they will strongly encourage redshirting summer or late spring birthdays. Some schools even offer a transitional year for young K students before taking the regular K class, so you still wind up with a fairly age-homogenous class.
But in public that's not the case, and when some parents start deciding their April or May birthday kid needs another year, it can leave other parents stuck with the consequences of those actions without warning. No one is going to get mad that a parent redshirted so their kid could start K at 5, but when you see kids starting K at 6 and a half, it becomes an issue.
Please yell at me now and tell me I'm a "crazy anti-redshirter" for agreeing this specific issue is a problem.
As someone with a young for grade kid, I think it is absolutely insane to consider this a problem whatsoever, and really makes you sound like someone who has no experience with any real problems in life.
My kid with an August birthday who I sent on time (she started K at 5 but was among the youngest in her grade) was viciously bullied by a redshirted child in 1st grade. My kid was 6 years old for the entirety of 1st grade. The bullying child turned 8 in September and was signficantly bigger and taller. Redshirting played a major role in the bullying because while this one child was the leader, there were many older kids in the classroom due to redshirting and when the bully would attack/provoke my kid, she'd cry, and then all the older kids would round on her and call her a baby and tease her for being small and young (she is average height for her age).
I had no idea how prevalent redshirting was when I enrolled my kid in K. She was academically and socially ready for a K classroom full of 5 and 6 year old children. In fact she continues to be at the top of her grade academically and she is well liked by teachers for being a good listener who follows directions and is helpful and kind in the classroom (something that apparently the extra years of preschool or staying home did not help instill in these redshirted kids who are merely bigger and older, not more mature).
I absolutely resent that my child's classroom environment has been dominated by older children who I think should have spent their 5/6 year in K learning out to function in elementary school, but instead spent it elsewhere and arrived at elementary school with their own ideas about how school should work. I resent how common bullying and relational aggression are at the school because of these older-but-less-mature kids.
Call me a crazy anti-redshirted if you want. I think redshirting sucks. Kids should start school at the same age so that they learn the same skills and are generally at the same developmental level. Kids with developmental delays can/should be held back to accommodate their delays, but it shouldn't be at the parents' discretion.
We will be moving school districts before these older kids hit puberty in 3rd grade and we have to deal with that.
As a parent who doesn't care about redshirting one way or another (and has both middle-of-age-for grade and young-for-grade kids, none old-for-grade): the bullying isn't because your kid is small. Bullies will find literally anything to gang up on kids about. One of my kids was bulled for not watching Spongebob Squarepants in a late elementary grade. Does that make sense as a thing to mock a kid over? No. But my kid was a prickly and kind of hard-to-get-to-know kid, so of course they were a target. The actual thing to make fun of was incidental to the act of piling on.
And it's possible (probable?) this older kid is lashing out because:
- they do have delays and you have no idea and the delays are social
- they feel embarassed about your kid doing as well when they are so much older.
PP here. Of course bullying can happen for a whole variety of reasons.
But at my kid's specific school, in specific classrooms where there are a large percent of redshirted kids including one that was significantly older, the bullying was closely related to having a cohort of older, bigger, unsocialized kids. My DD was not the only child targeted, but all the children who were bullied were "on time" kids who were on the younger end of normal for the grade. All the bullies were the oldest kids in class.
Also, it's not just about the age difference. It's also that these redshirted kids were not socialized into elementary school when they were young enough for it help. They arrived at K too old and less malleable. In my child's 1st grade class, those older kids RAN the classroom. This year my kid is in 2nd and due to the bullying issues last year, my kid and others who were targeted are in a classroom without any of the much older kids. The classroom is significantly better, with less conflict and fewer behavioral issues.
I don't have any issue with moderate redshirting for kids with summer birthdays. I don't think you should be allowed to redshirt a kid with a birthday during the school year unless there is a clear reason why delaying kindergarten will help. And I actually think a lot of developmental delays might be made worse by redshirting unless you can show the kids are going to get services to improve the situation. Perhaps some of these delays would be best addressed by having the kid in a classroom with other kids and receiving services through the school.
I honestly do not understand why you continue to keep your child in a school where your DC experiences significant bullying and you believe the classroom activities and level are so wildly inappropriate. It seems weird to me.
You seem very ignorant of the reality that most parents experience. Most parents can’t just switch schools out of the blue.
Right. Which leads parents to make careful decisions about when their kids start school. For example— not sending a kid who may struggle to kindergarten too early.
Unless they don’t know about how prevalent it is because the schools don’t say anything and the other moms apparently don’t volunteer the info. Nice.
What information do you feel is lacking? If you ask your local elementary school they will likely tell you the average kindergarten age. You presumably know your child’s age. Do some research into peer reviewed studies about optimal environments for the child’s age you have and see whether your local or chosen kindergarten matches with that. I’m truly confused what you think someone needs to tell you to make this choice?
We arrived back in the US after mostly raising kids on military bases abroad and we arrived in August. Honestly I didn’t even know red shirting was a thing until I saw some really big kindergarten kids on my son’s first day of school. So no I did t put my five year old on a waitlist for preschool, had never heard of “junior kindergarten” at preschool, etc.
That’s really not an excuse for not researching, talking to others, asking around.
Sweetheart, those are all excuses for "I want my child to have an advantage over yours" and we all know it.
I’m a DP, and leaving aside your tone, it’s not an advantage over your student. Your student has exactly the same right to delay a year as anyone else. Nothing is being taken away from you or your child you just made a different choice. Lose your victim mentality around this.
That PP is just mad they didn't know what they were doing.
I really hate the "savvy parents know to redshirt, it's your fault if you don't" argument, because we're talking about kids.
Of course there are going to be parents who, fir whatever reason, don't know the *unspoken* customs if redshirting in a district, and their kid will wind up at a disadvantage. You can criticize the parents for this but it's the kid who suffers.
Which is why there should be NO UNSPOKEN REDSHIRTING CUSTOMS. This should not be gameable. And relishing the idea that some kids struggle in school because their parents naively thought the published age cutoffs were when you are actually supposed to send your kids, and not just a vague suggestion and all the "smart" parents postpone K a year, is a weird flex.
Have a cut off. Enforce a cut off. Make sure the school work makes sense for kids who meet the cut off. This isn't hard. These are kids. We should all want them ALL to succeed.
Apparently it is hard. The current cutoff sends 4 year olds into the classroom for hours sitting on end, doing age inappropriate activities, with barely any time outdoors. Everyone (even on this thread) agrees that isn’t right for a four year old, and yet that’s The Cutoff. So, apparently, it’s hard.
To your other point, the same published guidelines that you assume everyone does have access to also (at least in FCPS) explains what to do if you don’t want to start your kid. I don’t think this is about whisper networks and secret handshakes. What I think is “savvy” is the parents who have a data-informed sense for what their kids should be doing at 4-5-6 and yes, we should really help parents understand how bad sitting still indoors, doing screen-based learning and endless worksheets really is for early childhood.
So you make the cut off 5. Easy. Everyone agrees 4 is too young for K. So kids should enroll in K in the fall after their 5th birthday. Done.
Anonymous wrote:I am a middle school teacher. One year I had a an age range of 10-14 in my sixth grade class…. 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14. It was a nightmare. Many kids learning English, missing significant amounts of school, oldest was in a gang. It is very difficult to maintain a classroom with large age gaps.
I’ve made this point earlier but your post makes it clear. Banning redshirting is NOT going to end the issue of age ranges in a class because there will still be kids failing a grade, transfers, language issues etc.
Anonymous wrote:Public schools aren’t retaining anyone because that costs $$$. I’ve only heard of retention being offered when a kid missed a lot of a grade due to something like a serious medical issue, or at the end of the Covid school years - 2019-20 or 2020-21 - if a kid didn’t progress during the closures. My neighbor had a young for grade 1st grader in 20-21 and FCPS did offer to let her repeat 1st in person.
But let this thread be a heads up to everyone: redshirting is common, perhaps even expected, in private schools, especially for the younger for grade kids. So plan accordingly.
+1, and I would say it’s increasingly common in public school among parents who read the data on developmentally appropriate settings for 4-5. So, assume if you send a four year old they’ll be youngest by a year+, and an early five year old by a year. None of this is secret, or unavailable information to you.
Since most public schools do an age cut off around September 1st, the number of kids attending K at age 4 is very small (and even people who complain about excessive redshirting don't complain about redshirting a kid who would be 4 during the "normal" cut off). In NY (which is the only place with a midyear cut off that results in a lot of 4 year olds being eligible for K) it's common for people to redshirt those kids and no one complains about it.
The only redshirting people complain about is when people start redshirting kids who would be well over 5 when starting K but they hold them back anyway. Yes, in some privates that's common place, but the school generally encourages it and everyone has a chance to do it -- they like having an older class of K students and often they will strongly encourage redshirting summer or late spring birthdays. Some schools even offer a transitional year for young K students before taking the regular K class, so you still wind up with a fairly age-homogenous class.
But in public that's not the case, and when some parents start deciding their April or May birthday kid needs another year, it can leave other parents stuck with the consequences of those actions without warning. No one is going to get mad that a parent redshirted so their kid could start K at 5, but when you see kids starting K at 6 and a half, it becomes an issue.
Please yell at me now and tell me I'm a "crazy anti-redshirter" for agreeing this specific issue is a problem.
As someone with a young for grade kid, I think it is absolutely insane to consider this a problem whatsoever, and really makes you sound like someone who has no experience with any real problems in life.
My kid with an August birthday who I sent on time (she started K at 5 but was among the youngest in her grade) was viciously bullied by a redshirted child in 1st grade. My kid was 6 years old for the entirety of 1st grade. The bullying child turned 8 in September and was signficantly bigger and taller. Redshirting played a major role in the bullying because while this one child was the leader, there were many older kids in the classroom due to redshirting and when the bully would attack/provoke my kid, she'd cry, and then all the older kids would round on her and call her a baby and tease her for being small and young (she is average height for her age).
I had no idea how prevalent redshirting was when I enrolled my kid in K. She was academically and socially ready for a K classroom full of 5 and 6 year old children. In fact she continues to be at the top of her grade academically and she is well liked by teachers for being a good listener who follows directions and is helpful and kind in the classroom (something that apparently the extra years of preschool or staying home did not help instill in these redshirted kids who are merely bigger and older, not more mature).
I absolutely resent that my child's classroom environment has been dominated by older children who I think should have spent their 5/6 year in K learning out to function in elementary school, but instead spent it elsewhere and arrived at elementary school with their own ideas about how school should work. I resent how common bullying and relational aggression are at the school because of these older-but-less-mature kids.
Call me a crazy anti-redshirted if you want. I think redshirting sucks. Kids should start school at the same age so that they learn the same skills and are generally at the same developmental level. Kids with developmental delays can/should be held back to accommodate their delays, but it shouldn't be at the parents' discretion.
We will be moving school districts before these older kids hit puberty in 3rd grade and we have to deal with that.
As a parent who doesn't care about redshirting one way or another (and has both middle-of-age-for grade and young-for-grade kids, none old-for-grade): the bullying isn't because your kid is small. Bullies will find literally anything to gang up on kids about. One of my kids was bulled for not watching Spongebob Squarepants in a late elementary grade. Does that make sense as a thing to mock a kid over? No. But my kid was a prickly and kind of hard-to-get-to-know kid, so of course they were a target. The actual thing to make fun of was incidental to the act of piling on.
And it's possible (probable?) this older kid is lashing out because:
- they do have delays and you have no idea and the delays are social
- they feel embarassed about your kid doing as well when they are so much older.
PP here. Of course bullying can happen for a whole variety of reasons.
But at my kid's specific school, in specific classrooms where there are a large percent of redshirted kids including one that was significantly older, the bullying was closely related to having a cohort of older, bigger, unsocialized kids. My DD was not the only child targeted, but all the children who were bullied were "on time" kids who were on the younger end of normal for the grade. All the bullies were the oldest kids in class.
Also, it's not just about the age difference. It's also that these redshirted kids were not socialized into elementary school when they were young enough for it help. They arrived at K too old and less malleable. In my child's 1st grade class, those older kids RAN the classroom. This year my kid is in 2nd and due to the bullying issues last year, my kid and others who were targeted are in a classroom without any of the much older kids. The classroom is significantly better, with less conflict and fewer behavioral issues.
I don't have any issue with moderate redshirting for kids with summer birthdays. I don't think you should be allowed to redshirt a kid with a birthday during the school year unless there is a clear reason why delaying kindergarten will help. And I actually think a lot of developmental delays might be made worse by redshirting unless you can show the kids are going to get services to improve the situation. Perhaps some of these delays would be best addressed by having the kid in a classroom with other kids and receiving services through the school.
I honestly do not understand why you continue to keep your child in a school where your DC experiences significant bullying and you believe the classroom activities and level are so wildly inappropriate. It seems weird to me.
You seem very ignorant of the reality that most parents experience. Most parents can’t just switch schools out of the blue.
Right. Which leads parents to make careful decisions about when their kids start school. For example— not sending a kid who may struggle to kindergarten too early.
Unless they don’t know about how prevalent it is because the schools don’t say anything and the other moms apparently don’t volunteer the info. Nice.
What information do you feel is lacking? If you ask your local elementary school they will likely tell you the average kindergarten age. You presumably know your child’s age. Do some research into peer reviewed studies about optimal environments for the child’s age you have and see whether your local or chosen kindergarten matches with that. I’m truly confused what you think someone needs to tell you to make this choice?
We arrived back in the US after mostly raising kids on military bases abroad and we arrived in August. Honestly I didn’t even know red shirting was a thing until I saw some really big kindergarten kids on my son’s first day of school. So no I did t put my five year old on a waitlist for preschool, had never heard of “junior kindergarten” at preschool, etc.
That’s really not an excuse for not researching, talking to others, asking around.
Sweetheart, those are all excuses for "I want my child to have an advantage over yours" and we all know it.
I’m a DP, and leaving aside your tone, it’s not an advantage over your student. Your student has exactly the same right to delay a year as anyone else. Nothing is being taken away from you or your child you just made a different choice. Lose your victim mentality around this.
That PP is just mad they didn't know what they were doing.
I really hate the "savvy parents know to redshirt, it's your fault if you don't" argument, because we're talking about kids.
Of course there are going to be parents who, fir whatever reason, don't know the *unspoken* customs if redshirting in a district, and their kid will wind up at a disadvantage. You can criticize the parents for this but it's the kid who suffers.
Which is why there should be NO UNSPOKEN REDSHIRTING CUSTOMS. This should not be gameable. And relishing the idea that some kids struggle in school because their parents naively thought the published age cutoffs were when you are actually supposed to send your kids, and not just a vague suggestion and all the "smart" parents postpone K a year, is a weird flex.
Have a cut off. Enforce a cut off. Make sure the school work makes sense for kids who meet the cut off. This isn't hard. These are kids. We should all want them ALL to succeed.
Apparently it is hard. The current cutoff sends 4 year olds into the classroom for hours sitting on end, doing age inappropriate activities, with barely any time outdoors. Everyone (even on this thread) agrees that isn’t right for a four year old, and yet that’s The Cutoff. So, apparently, it’s hard.
To your other point, the same published guidelines that you assume everyone does have access to also (at least in FCPS) explains what to do if you don’t want to start your kid. I don’t think this is about whisper networks and secret handshakes. What I think is “savvy” is the parents who have a data-informed sense for what their kids should be doing at 4-5-6 and yes, we should really help parents understand how bad sitting still indoors, doing screen-based learning and endless worksheets really is for early childhood.
So you make the cut off 5. Easy. Everyone agrees 4 is too young for K. So kids should enroll in K in the fall after their 5th birthday. Done.
Or, if you think 5 is too young, then make it 6.
If you don't think kids should be sitting indoors for hours on end, then advocate for that not to be how K works. Is it okay in 1st? No. So sounds like we need to talk to schools about crap curriculums that aren't appropriate for any early elementary kids.
Also your argument that we should just make sure that every parent is "data informed" before making the choice to redshirt ignores reality, which is that some parents are simply never going to get there. Some parents lack the cognitive ability or the language skills or the maturity to do that. Some parents are immigrants who don't speak the language. Some parents just went through a divorce or a death in the family and don't have the bandwidth. Some parents are poor and no matter what the data says, they are going to send their kid to K when the school says they can because they can't afford another year of daycare.
Your way means that the kids of all those parents are just SOL. Nice.
Boy are you in for a rude awakening when it comes time to apply to a college. Educate yourself that’s all you can do.
Anonymous wrote:I am a middle school teacher. One year I had a an age range of 10-14 in my sixth grade class…. 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14. It was a nightmare. Many kids learning English, missing significant amounts of school, oldest was in a gang. It is very difficult to maintain a classroom with large age gaps.
Anonymous wrote:I am a middle school teacher. One year I had a an age range of 10-14 in my sixth grade class…. 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14. It was a nightmare. Many kids learning English, missing significant amounts of school, oldest was in a gang. It is very difficult to maintain a classroom with large age gaps.
Clearly the age was just one of many problems.
Violence, absenteeism and language gaps are surely the main concern, not age differences. In that classroom I wouldn’t even imagine age would be on the radar!
Anonymous wrote:I am a middle school teacher. One year I had a an age range of 10-14 in my sixth grade class…. 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14. It was a nightmare. Many kids learning English, missing significant amounts of school, oldest was in a gang. It is very difficult to maintain a classroom with large age gaps.
Clearly the age was just one of many problems.
Violence, absenteeism and language gaps are surely the main concern, not age differences. In that classroom I wouldn’t even imagine age would be on the radar!
I also don’t think those parents were redshirting those kids.
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