Anonymous wrote:Babes, redshirting is viewed by many to be a problem and having a broader range of ages in school is considered a negative by many, including educational experts. Some of you need to step outside your bubble.
Our school district (not in the DC area) adopted a policy in 2011 specifically to address the rampant redshirting that was happening. A lot of it was for athletic reasons -- zealous parents redshirting kids, especially boys, to improve their odds of making high school varsity teams and to give them school cohorts where they would be the oldest/biggest/most developed. But it spread to other people who just started viewing redshirting as a way to give your kid an edge -- academically, socially, you name it. People just wanted their kids to be the oldest. And the thing about redshirting is that when it takes hold among a small group of parents, it spreads. That's why you now see people redshirting May, April, March birthdays. And the occasional winter birthday as well. Parents discover their May birthday is the youngest kid in the grade because all the summer birthdays redshirted, freak out, and then say "oh I should have redshirted Timmy. But you can see how this is just a dog chasing its own tail.
Anyway, our school district's enrollment policy explicitly says, "[we have] determined that an entrance age policy is warranted due to the educational benefits that result from narrowing the range of ages of students in the early grades." The policy makes no allowance for red shirting and says that children become eligible for kindergarten in the year in which they will be 5 by the first day of school. This ensures that the cut off never accidentally makes a 4 year old eligible for K. And the policy further says that your child becomes eligible for 1st grade the year that they turn 6 before the 1st day of school. So if a parent redshirts for K, they are SOL because their kid will be enrolled in 1st the next year if they are 6 on the first day of school.
Also our district has half-day K and the program is genuinely intended to be a nurturing transition year to introduce kids to elementary school, provide some academics but not focus on it, build independence and socio-emotional skills, and bridge the gap between preschool/daycare/home care and elementary. It's age appropriate for 5 year olds. 1st grade is more focused and academic but kids are ready for it.
Some people were bothered by the policy when it happened but I think ultimately it was a source of relief. Because once parents could no longer game the system, there was no longer pressure to game the system. Instead of fighting with each other over whose kids "had" to be youngest in the grade, people just accept that this is the policy and work with schools to ensure that the needs of younger students are met. I think the policy also allows kids to be young and to mature at their own rate instead of feeling pressure to mature because they are in classrooms with significantly older kids. It preserves childhood.
Anyway, please continue with your nasty, petty bickering. It's not productive but it is entertaining. So glad I live where I live and people are sane.
Anonymous wrote:Babes, redshirting is viewed by many to be a problem and having a broader range of ages in school is considered a negative by many, including educational experts. Some of you need to step outside your bubble.
Our school district (not in the DC area) adopted a policy in 2011 specifically to address the rampant redshirting that was happening. A lot of it was for athletic reasons -- zealous parents redshirting kids, especially boys, to improve their odds of making high school varsity teams and to give them school cohorts where they would be the oldest/biggest/most developed. But it spread to other people who just started viewing redshirting as a way to give your kid an edge -- academically, socially, you name it. People just wanted their kids to be the oldest. And the thing about redshirting is that when it takes hold among a small group of parents, it spreads. That's why you now see people redshirting May, April, March birthdays. And the occasional winter birthday as well. Parents discover their May birthday is the youngest kid in the grade because all the summer birthdays redshirted, freak out, and then say "oh I should have redshirted Timmy. But you can see how this is just a dog chasing its own tail.
Anyway, our school district's enrollment policy explicitly says, "[we have] determined that an entrance age policy is warranted due to the educational benefits that result from narrowing the range of ages of students in the early grades." The policy makes no allowance for red shirting and says that children become eligible for kindergarten in the year in which they will be 5 by the first day of school. This ensures that the cut off never accidentally makes a 4 year old eligible for K. And the policy further says that your child becomes eligible for 1st grade the year that they turn 6 before the 1st day of school. So if a parent redshirts for K, they are SOL because their kid will be enrolled in 1st the next year if they are 6 on the first day of school.
Also our district has half-day K and the program is genuinely intended to be a nurturing transition year to introduce kids to elementary school, provide some academics but not focus on it, build independence and socio-emotional skills, and bridge the gap between preschool/daycare/home care and elementary. It's age appropriate for 5 year olds. 1st grade is more focused and academic but kids are ready for it.
Some people were bothered by the policy when it happened but I think ultimately it was a source of relief. Because once parents could no longer game the system, there was no longer pressure to game the system. Instead of fighting with each other over whose kids "had" to be youngest in the grade, people just accept that this is the policy and work with schools to ensure that the needs of younger students are met. I think the policy also allows kids to be young and to mature at their own rate instead of feeling pressure to mature because they are in classrooms with significantly older kids. It preserves childhood.
Anyway, please continue with your nasty, petty bickering. It's not productive but it is entertaining. So glad I live where I live and people are sane.
In your imagination, maybe? The bubble is the DCUM’s weird anti-redshirters.
I am literally telling you that redshirting was deemed such a problem in the school district where I live that they adopted a new enrollment policy to effectively ban it. You would consider us "anti-redshirters" but there are thousands of us and our objections changed policy in our district. Even people who were proponents of redshirting before the new policy now argue that it's better since it went into effect -- better for kids and better for families.
I feel for the people in the DC area trying to make common sense arguments about this issue and facing people like you who refuse to even listen to the arguments against.
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.
Sir. OP has her child in a private school. Do you understand even the tiniest facts about private school admissions?
Number one rule: Private schools admit who they want, when they want. That is literally how it works.
Honestly, you people are just ridiculous.
Ma'am. I wasn't talking about OP or private schools, I was specifically addressing the argument made several times on this thread about public schools that parents should figure out how prevalent redshirting is before enrolling their kid and if they don't then it's all their fault if their kid winds up in a classroom with kids 18 months older. I think this is a ridiculous expectation because many parents are simply not in a position to do that -- they just moved to the district, or this is their first child and they don't know anyone with kids in the schools, or English isn't their first language, or they have other issues that prevent them from being more savvy about school enrollment.
Private schools can do what they want. My argument is that public schools should create clear cut offs and enforce them and there shouldn't be this unofficial system that the most in-the-know parents can game to the benefit of their children, because at the end of the day it's the kids who live with these choices. No child should be punished for having a parent who naively thought that since kindergarten is traditionally for 5 year olds turning 6, and since the district's published guidance indicates it's for 5 year old's turning 6, that kindergarten is for 5 year olds turning 6. That kid shouldn't have to navigate a classroom full of 7 year olds just because his parents are friends with the "right" people who would have warned them.
But do tell me that *I* am ridiculous, since after all without your ad hominem attacks, you'd have to rely on logic and actual argument, areas in which you are lacking.
These are already in place. Someone already posted MCPS, FCPS is on the website that you have the option to delay enrollment for a year, how much more clear do you want them to be?
A grace period of a year is too long. That's not a cut off at all. And it's not clear because a parent who wants their kid to be generally in the same age cohort of most kids in their class literally has to do reconnaissance to figure out what other parents are going to do. Parents don't want their kids to be outliers age-wise. That's normal and should be accommodated.
I would advocate for either a firm cut off, no exceptions unless indicated by a medically documented delay or special need OR a September cut off with a grace period for kids with summer birthdays.
I do not think allowing parents to redshirt children with fall/winter/spring birthdays makes sense and have seen the negative impacts of this policy in the classroom.
The exemption is usually for special needs not lazy parents but it’s not enforced.
Anonymous wrote:Babes, redshirting is viewed by many to be a problem and having a broader range of ages in school is considered a negative by many, including educational experts. Some of you need to step outside your bubble.
Our school district (not in the DC area) adopted a policy in 2011 specifically to address the rampant redshirting that was happening. A lot of it was for athletic reasons -- zealous parents redshirting kids, especially boys, to improve their odds of making high school varsity teams and to give them school cohorts where they would be the oldest/biggest/most developed. But it spread to other people who just started viewing redshirting as a way to give your kid an edge -- academically, socially, you name it. People just wanted their kids to be the oldest. And the thing about redshirting is that when it takes hold among a small group of parents, it spreads. That's why you now see people redshirting May, April, March birthdays. And the occasional winter birthday as well. Parents discover their May birthday is the youngest kid in the grade because all the summer birthdays redshirted, freak out, and then say "oh I should have redshirted Timmy. But you can see how this is just a dog chasing its own tail.
Anyway, our school district's enrollment policy explicitly says, "[we have] determined that an entrance age policy is warranted due to the educational benefits that result from narrowing the range of ages of students in the early grades." The policy makes no allowance for red shirting and says that children become eligible for kindergarten in the year in which they will be 5 by the first day of school. This ensures that the cut off never accidentally makes a 4 year old eligible for K. And the policy further says that your child becomes eligible for 1st grade the year that they turn 6 before the 1st day of school. So if a parent redshirts for K, they are SOL because their kid will be enrolled in 1st the next year if they are 6 on the first day of school.
Also our district has half-day K and the program is genuinely intended to be a nurturing transition year to introduce kids to elementary school, provide some academics but not focus on it, build independence and socio-emotional skills, and bridge the gap between preschool/daycare/home care and elementary. It's age appropriate for 5 year olds. 1st grade is more focused and academic but kids are ready for it.
Some people were bothered by the policy when it happened but I think ultimately it was a source of relief. Because once parents could no longer game the system, there was no longer pressure to game the system. Instead of fighting with each other over whose kids "had" to be youngest in the grade, people just accept that this is the policy and work with schools to ensure that the needs of younger students are met. I think the policy also allows kids to be young and to mature at their own rate instead of feeling pressure to mature because they are in classrooms with significantly older kids. It preserves childhood.
Anyway, please continue with your nasty, petty bickering. It's not productive but it is entertaining. So glad I live where I live and people are sane.
In your imagination, maybe? The bubble is the DCUM’s weird anti-redshirters.
I am literally telling you that redshirting was deemed such a problem in the school district where I live that they adopted a new enrollment policy to effectively ban it. You would consider us "anti-redshirters" but there are thousands of us and our objections changed policy in our district. Even people who were proponents of redshirting before the new policy now argue that it's better since it went into effect -- better for kids and better for families.
I feel for the people in the DC area trying to make common sense arguments about this issue and facing people like you who refuse to even listen to the arguments against.
So one district is equivalent to the entire US in your mind? Babes, I don’t think I’m the one in a bubble.
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.
Sir. OP has her child in a private school. Do you understand even the tiniest facts about private school admissions?
Number one rule: Private schools admit who they want, when they want. That is literally how it works.
Honestly, you people are just ridiculous.
Ma'am. I wasn't talking about OP or private schools, I was specifically addressing the argument made several times on this thread about public schools that parents should figure out how prevalent redshirting is before enrolling their kid and if they don't then it's all their fault if their kid winds up in a classroom with kids 18 months older. I think this is a ridiculous expectation because many parents are simply not in a position to do that -- they just moved to the district, or this is their first child and they don't know anyone with kids in the schools, or English isn't their first language, or they have other issues that prevent them from being more savvy about school enrollment.
Private schools can do what they want. My argument is that public schools should create clear cut offs and enforce them and there shouldn't be this unofficial system that the most in-the-know parents can game to the benefit of their children, because at the end of the day it's the kids who live with these choices. No child should be punished for having a parent who naively thought that since kindergarten is traditionally for 5 year olds turning 6, and since the district's published guidance indicates it's for 5 year old's turning 6, that kindergarten is for 5 year olds turning 6. That kid shouldn't have to navigate a classroom full of 7 year olds just because his parents are friends with the "right" people who would have warned them.
But do tell me that *I* am ridiculous, since after all without your ad hominem attacks, you'd have to rely on logic and actual argument, areas in which you are lacking.
These are already in place. Someone already posted MCPS, FCPS is on the website that you have the option to delay enrollment for a year, how much more clear do you want them to be?
A grace period of a year is too long. That's not a cut off at all. And it's not clear because a parent who wants their kid to be generally in the same age cohort of most kids in their class literally has to do reconnaissance to figure out what other parents are going to do. Parents don't want their kids to be outliers age-wise. That's normal and should be accommodated.
I would advocate for either a firm cut off, no exceptions unless indicated by a medically documented delay or special need OR a September cut off with a grace period for kids with summer birthdays.
I do not think allowing parents to redshirt children with fall/winter/spring birthdays makes sense and have seen the negative impacts of this policy in the classroom.
Not liking what the cutoffs are isn’t the same as there not being an enforced cutoff. Just recognize that rules do exist and are enforced— I see you don’t like the rules but that’s not the same as them not existing or being unclear.
Your uninformed parent inadvertently letting their kid be the youngest isn’t solved by your suggestion above that summer kids can redshirt: a parent “without bandwidth” could send their Sept 30 4 year old who will be more than a year younger than a parent “with bandwidth” who redshirted their June birthday.
The concern isn’t September kids, the concern is Feb- July/august. Many September kids miss the cut off.
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.
Sir. OP has her child in a private school. Do you understand even the tiniest facts about private school admissions?
Number one rule: Private schools admit who they want, when they want. That is literally how it works.
Honestly, you people are just ridiculous.
Ma'am. I wasn't talking about OP or private schools, I was specifically addressing the argument made several times on this thread about public schools that parents should figure out how prevalent redshirting is before enrolling their kid and if they don't then it's all their fault if their kid winds up in a classroom with kids 18 months older. I think this is a ridiculous expectation because many parents are simply not in a position to do that -- they just moved to the district, or this is their first child and they don't know anyone with kids in the schools, or English isn't their first language, or they have other issues that prevent them from being more savvy about school enrollment.
Private schools can do what they want. My argument is that public schools should create clear cut offs and enforce them and there shouldn't be this unofficial system that the most in-the-know parents can game to the benefit of their children, because at the end of the day it's the kids who live with these choices. No child should be punished for having a parent who naively thought that since kindergarten is traditionally for 5 year olds turning 6, and since the district's published guidance indicates it's for 5 year old's turning 6, that kindergarten is for 5 year olds turning 6. That kid shouldn't have to navigate a classroom full of 7 year olds just because his parents are friends with the "right" people who would have warned them.
But do tell me that *I* am ridiculous, since after all without your ad hominem attacks, you'd have to rely on logic and actual argument, areas in which you are lacking.
These are already in place. Someone already posted MCPS, FCPS is on the website that you have the option to delay enrollment for a year, how much more clear do you want them to be?
A grace period of a year is too long. That's not a cut off at all. And it's not clear because a parent who wants their kid to be generally in the same age cohort of most kids in their class literally has to do reconnaissance to figure out what other parents are going to do. Parents don't want their kids to be outliers age-wise. That's normal and should be accommodated.
I would advocate for either a firm cut off, no exceptions unless indicated by a medically documented delay or special need OR a September cut off with a grace period for kids with summer birthdays.
I do not think allowing parents to redshirt children with fall/winter/spring birthdays makes sense and have seen the negative impacts of this policy in the classroom.
So then go to your school board and see how far you get, and stop whining on DCUM.
Also, I simply don’t believe you about the negative impacts. Or maybe I could say the opposite, at the school board meeting: I’ve seen the negative impacts when kids who should have been redshirted are put in classrooms, and think a rigid deadline does a disservice to all children and to the educational environment as a whole. I prefer classrooms where kids whose parents think they needed more time get that time.
See, we can both come up with our anecdotes.
They need to bring back special ed classrooms and put these held back kids in them so they can catch up. No kids should be held back. Let’s call it what it is. Redshirting isn’t about social or academics it’s about sports.
Anonymous wrote:Babes, redshirting is viewed by many to be a problem and having a broader range of ages in school is considered a negative by many, including educational experts. Some of you need to step outside your bubble.
Our school district (not in the DC area) adopted a policy in 2011 specifically to address the rampant redshirting that was happening. A lot of it was for athletic reasons -- zealous parents redshirting kids, especially boys, to improve their odds of making high school varsity teams and to give them school cohorts where they would be the oldest/biggest/most developed. But it spread to other people who just started viewing redshirting as a way to give your kid an edge -- academically, socially, you name it. People just wanted their kids to be the oldest. And the thing about redshirting is that when it takes hold among a small group of parents, it spreads. That's why you now see people redshirting May, April, March birthdays. And the occasional winter birthday as well. Parents discover their May birthday is the youngest kid in the grade because all the summer birthdays redshirted, freak out, and then say "oh I should have redshirted Timmy. But you can see how this is just a dog chasing its own tail.
Anyway, our school district's enrollment policy explicitly says, "[we have] determined that an entrance age policy is warranted due to the educational benefits that result from narrowing the range of ages of students in the early grades." The policy makes no allowance for red shirting and says that children become eligible for kindergarten in the year in which they will be 5 by the first day of school. This ensures that the cut off never accidentally makes a 4 year old eligible for K. And the policy further says that your child becomes eligible for 1st grade the year that they turn 6 before the 1st day of school. So if a parent redshirts for K, they are SOL because their kid will be enrolled in 1st the next year if they are 6 on the first day of school.
Also our district has half-day K and the program is genuinely intended to be a nurturing transition year to introduce kids to elementary school, provide some academics but not focus on it, build independence and socio-emotional skills, and bridge the gap between preschool/daycare/home care and elementary. It's age appropriate for 5 year olds. 1st grade is more focused and academic but kids are ready for it.
Some people were bothered by the policy when it happened but I think ultimately it was a source of relief. Because once parents could no longer game the system, there was no longer pressure to game the system. Instead of fighting with each other over whose kids "had" to be youngest in the grade, people just accept that this is the policy and work with schools to ensure that the needs of younger students are met. I think the policy also allows kids to be young and to mature at their own rate instead of feeling pressure to mature because they are in classrooms with significantly older kids. It preserves childhood.
Anyway, please continue with your nasty, petty bickering. It's not productive but it is entertaining. So glad I live where I live and people are sane.
What do you mean “accidentally”?
FCPS starts school in mid August. Their cutoff is Sept 30. August is the highest birth rate month in the calendar. Half of August birthdays and all of September birthdays are four when they start kindergarten if they go “on time”.
Why do you think this is an accident?
In our district, it was determined that it is better for kids to start K at 5 instead of at 4. Making the cut off date "the first day of school" ensures that a 4 year old is never eligible for K, which is counter to the intent of the policy. I use the word "accident" because no one actually thought 4 year olds in K was a great idea, it's just that when cut offs don't match start dates, kids born in the gap get included with the cohort even though they are a younger age than the "typical" kid.
The situation in your district doesn't make sense to me. Why would you choose September 30th as a cut off date when school generally starts in August? It's almost like they want to induce demand for redshirting. I don't get why you would do this. It genuinely does feel like a policy accident because I can't think of a good reason to do this on purpose. If there's one thing the literature is clear on, it's that kids who start K at 5 instead of 4 tend to do better academically and are less likely to be held back later. So why create a situation that would lead to a bunch of 4 year olds in K unless the goal is to encourage their parents to redshirt them? And if the goal is redshirting, why not just move the cut off date. It's all nonsensical.
Anonymous wrote:Babes, redshirting is viewed by many to be a problem and having a broader range of ages in school is considered a negative by many, including educational experts. Some of you need to step outside your bubble.
Our school district (not in the DC area) adopted a policy in 2011 specifically to address the rampant redshirting that was happening. A lot of it was for athletic reasons -- zealous parents redshirting kids, especially boys, to improve their odds of making high school varsity teams and to give them school cohorts where they would be the oldest/biggest/most developed. But it spread to other people who just started viewing redshirting as a way to give your kid an edge -- academically, socially, you name it. People just wanted their kids to be the oldest. And the thing about redshirting is that when it takes hold among a small group of parents, it spreads. That's why you now see people redshirting May, April, March birthdays. And the occasional winter birthday as well. Parents discover their May birthday is the youngest kid in the grade because all the summer birthdays redshirted, freak out, and then say "oh I should have redshirted Timmy. But you can see how this is just a dog chasing its own tail.
Anyway, our school district's enrollment policy explicitly says, "[we have] determined that an entrance age policy is warranted due to the educational benefits that result from narrowing the range of ages of students in the early grades." The policy makes no allowance for red shirting and says that children become eligible for kindergarten in the year in which they will be 5 by the first day of school. This ensures that the cut off never accidentally makes a 4 year old eligible for K. And the policy further says that your child becomes eligible for 1st grade the year that they turn 6 before the 1st day of school. So if a parent redshirts for K, they are SOL because their kid will be enrolled in 1st the next year if they are 6 on the first day of school.
Also our district has half-day K and the program is genuinely intended to be a nurturing transition year to introduce kids to elementary school, provide some academics but not focus on it, build independence and socio-emotional skills, and bridge the gap between preschool/daycare/home care and elementary. It's age appropriate for 5 year olds. 1st grade is more focused and academic but kids are ready for it.
Some people were bothered by the policy when it happened but I think ultimately it was a source of relief. Because once parents could no longer game the system, there was no longer pressure to game the system. Instead of fighting with each other over whose kids "had" to be youngest in the grade, people just accept that this is the policy and work with schools to ensure that the needs of younger students are met. I think the policy also allows kids to be young and to mature at their own rate instead of feeling pressure to mature because they are in classrooms with significantly older kids. It preserves childhood.
Anyway, please continue with your nasty, petty bickering. It's not productive but it is entertaining. So glad I live where I live and people are sane.
In your imagination, maybe? The bubble is the DCUM’s weird anti-redshirters.
I am literally telling you that redshirting was deemed such a problem in the school district where I live that they adopted a new enrollment policy to effectively ban it. You would consider us "anti-redshirters" but there are thousands of us and our objections changed policy in our district. Even people who were proponents of redshirting before the new policy now argue that it's better since it went into effect -- better for kids and better for families.
I feel for the people in the DC area trying to make common sense arguments about this issue and facing people like you who refuse to even listen to the arguments against.
So one district is equivalent to the entire US in your mind? Babes, I don’t think I’m the one in a bubble.
It's not just one district. There are a number of districts that adopted similar policies in the 2010s for the same reason. I know because when our district was debating it, the experiences of other districts were discussed. I liked above to a discussion of narrowing age ranges for early grades in CT around the same time. I know there are also districts in California and Tennessee that did this.
If there weren't a lot of people who have issues with the negative effects of redshirting, these threads wouldn't be so contentious or go on so long. Every time redshirting comes up on this website, it becomes a knock down drag out fight. I know you think that's because there's like one person who wants to argue with redshirting proponents but it's not. It's because a lot of people oppose redshirting and there are plenty of districts that don't allow it. Public schools in DC itself don't allow it as posted upthread.
You argue as though you are the overwhelming majority when it's actually an open issue with a lot of people on both sides. Redshirting is viewed as problematic all over the place.
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.
Sir. OP has her child in a private school. Do you understand even the tiniest facts about private school admissions?
Number one rule: Private schools admit who they want, when they want. That is literally how it works.
Honestly, you people are just ridiculous.
Ma'am. I wasn't talking about OP or private schools, I was specifically addressing the argument made several times on this thread about public schools that parents should figure out how prevalent redshirting is before enrolling their kid and if they don't then it's all their fault if their kid winds up in a classroom with kids 18 months older. I think this is a ridiculous expectation because many parents are simply not in a position to do that -- they just moved to the district, or this is their first child and they don't know anyone with kids in the schools, or English isn't their first language, or they have other issues that prevent them from being more savvy about school enrollment.
Private schools can do what they want. My argument is that public schools should create clear cut offs and enforce them and there shouldn't be this unofficial system that the most in-the-know parents can game to the benefit of their children, because at the end of the day it's the kids who live with these choices. No child should be punished for having a parent who naively thought that since kindergarten is traditionally for 5 year olds turning 6, and since the district's published guidance indicates it's for 5 year old's turning 6, that kindergarten is for 5 year olds turning 6. That kid shouldn't have to navigate a classroom full of 7 year olds just because his parents are friends with the "right" people who would have warned them.
But do tell me that *I* am ridiculous, since after all without your ad hominem attacks, you'd have to rely on logic and actual argument, areas in which you are lacking.
These are already in place. Someone already posted MCPS, FCPS is on the website that you have the option to delay enrollment for a year, how much more clear do you want them to be?
A grace period of a year is too long. That's not a cut off at all. And it's not clear because a parent who wants their kid to be generally in the same age cohort of most kids in their class literally has to do reconnaissance to figure out what other parents are going to do. Parents don't want their kids to be outliers age-wise. That's normal and should be accommodated.
I would advocate for either a firm cut off, no exceptions unless indicated by a medically documented delay or special need OR a September cut off with a grace period for kids with summer birthdays.
I do not think allowing parents to redshirt children with fall/winter/spring birthdays makes sense and have seen the negative impacts of this policy in the classroom.
So then go to your school board and see how far you get, and stop whining on DCUM.
Also, I simply don’t believe you about the negative impacts. Or maybe I could say the opposite, at the school board meeting: I’ve seen the negative impacts when kids who should have been redshirted are put in classrooms, and think a rigid deadline does a disservice to all children and to the educational environment as a whole. I prefer classrooms where kids whose parents think they needed more time get that time.
See, we can both come up with our anecdotes.
They need to bring back special ed classrooms and put these held back kids in them so they can catch up. No kids should be held back. Let’s call it what it is. Redshirting isn’t about social or academics it’s about sports.
There are no sports in schools here until HS (I think there are a very limited number of MS sports but not the big ones like football, basketball, or track and field). ES and MS kids play on rec, travel, and other private teams which are generally grouped by birth year. HS teams are very competitive to make and you need that background on private travel teams regardless of age. So nope, not about sports or whatever.
It’s still rare to redshirt in public of a kid with a non-summer birthday. Most redshirting occurs with the summer birthdays up until to the cutoff. Maybe the current crop of 3rd or even 2nd and 3rd is the exception due to Covid. But in general, the oldest redshirted kids are born in the summer, and the youngest kids sent on time are born about 13-14 months later in the following fall. Even in the Covid grades it’s maybe a few redshirted May kids, so around a 16 month age span. It’s not worth spending so much mental space worrying about a ~14 month age span in your child’s class, it’s really not.
Anonymous wrote:Babes, redshirting is viewed by many to be a problem and having a broader range of ages in school is considered a negative by many, including educational experts. Some of you need to step outside your bubble.
Our school district (not in the DC area) adopted a policy in 2011 specifically to address the rampant redshirting that was happening. A lot of it was for athletic reasons -- zealous parents redshirting kids, especially boys, to improve their odds of making high school varsity teams and to give them school cohorts where they would be the oldest/biggest/most developed. But it spread to other people who just started viewing redshirting as a way to give your kid an edge -- academically, socially, you name it. People just wanted their kids to be the oldest. And the thing about redshirting is that when it takes hold among a small group of parents, it spreads. That's why you now see people redshirting May, April, March birthdays. And the occasional winter birthday as well. Parents discover their May birthday is the youngest kid in the grade because all the summer birthdays redshirted, freak out, and then say "oh I should have redshirted Timmy. But you can see how this is just a dog chasing its own tail.
Anyway, our school district's enrollment policy explicitly says, "[we have] determined that an entrance age policy is warranted due to the educational benefits that result from narrowing the range of ages of students in the early grades." The policy makes no allowance for red shirting and says that children become eligible for kindergarten in the year in which they will be 5 by the first day of school. This ensures that the cut off never accidentally makes a 4 year old eligible for K. And the policy further says that your child becomes eligible for 1st grade the year that they turn 6 before the 1st day of school. So if a parent redshirts for K, they are SOL because their kid will be enrolled in 1st the next year if they are 6 on the first day of school.
Also our district has half-day K and the program is genuinely intended to be a nurturing transition year to introduce kids to elementary school, provide some academics but not focus on it, build independence and socio-emotional skills, and bridge the gap between preschool/daycare/home care and elementary. It's age appropriate for 5 year olds. 1st grade is more focused and academic but kids are ready for it.
Some people were bothered by the policy when it happened but I think ultimately it was a source of relief. Because once parents could no longer game the system, there was no longer pressure to game the system. Instead of fighting with each other over whose kids "had" to be youngest in the grade, people just accept that this is the policy and work with schools to ensure that the needs of younger students are met. I think the policy also allows kids to be young and to mature at their own rate instead of feeling pressure to mature because they are in classrooms with significantly older kids. It preserves childhood.
Anyway, please continue with your nasty, petty bickering. It's not productive but it is entertaining. So glad I live where I live and people are sane.
In your imagination, maybe? The bubble is the DCUM’s weird anti-redshirters.
I am literally telling you that redshirting was deemed such a problem in the school district where I live that they adopted a new enrollment policy to effectively ban it. You would consider us "anti-redshirters" but there are thousands of us and our objections changed policy in our district. Even people who were proponents of redshirting before the new policy now argue that it's better since it went into effect -- better for kids and better for families.
I feel for the people in the DC area trying to make common sense arguments about this issue and facing people like you who refuse to even listen to the arguments against.
So one district is equivalent to the entire US in your mind? Babes, I don’t think I’m the one in a bubble.
It's not just one district. There are a number of districts that adopted similar policies in the 2010s for the same reason. I know because when our district was debating it, the experiences of other districts were discussed. I liked above to a discussion of narrowing age ranges for early grades in CT around the same time. I know there are also districts in California and Tennessee that did this.
If there weren't a lot of people who have issues with the negative effects of redshirting, these threads wouldn't be so contentious or go on so long. Every time redshirting comes up on this website, it becomes a knock down drag out fight. I know you think that's because there's like one person who wants to argue with redshirting proponents but it's not. It's because a lot of people oppose redshirting and there are plenty of districts that don't allow it. Public schools in DC itself don't allow it as posted upthread.
You argue as though you are the overwhelming majority when it's actually an open issue with a lot of people on both sides. Redshirting is viewed as problematic all over the place.
lol at you thinking Mt Lebanon is representative of the country. Okay, bubble lady.
Anonymous wrote:Babes, redshirting is viewed by many to be a problem and having a broader range of ages in school is considered a negative by many, including educational experts. Some of you need to step outside your bubble.
Our school district (not in the DC area) adopted a policy in 2011 specifically to address the rampant redshirting that was happening. A lot of it was for athletic reasons -- zealous parents redshirting kids, especially boys, to improve their odds of making high school varsity teams and to give them school cohorts where they would be the oldest/biggest/most developed. But it spread to other people who just started viewing redshirting as a way to give your kid an edge -- academically, socially, you name it. People just wanted their kids to be the oldest. And the thing about redshirting is that when it takes hold among a small group of parents, it spreads. That's why you now see people redshirting May, April, March birthdays. And the occasional winter birthday as well. Parents discover their May birthday is the youngest kid in the grade because all the summer birthdays redshirted, freak out, and then say "oh I should have redshirted Timmy. But you can see how this is just a dog chasing its own tail.
Anyway, our school district's enrollment policy explicitly says, "[we have] determined that an entrance age policy is warranted due to the educational benefits that result from narrowing the range of ages of students in the early grades." The policy makes no allowance for red shirting and says that children become eligible for kindergarten in the year in which they will be 5 by the first day of school. This ensures that the cut off never accidentally makes a 4 year old eligible for K. And the policy further says that your child becomes eligible for 1st grade the year that they turn 6 before the 1st day of school. So if a parent redshirts for K, they are SOL because their kid will be enrolled in 1st the next year if they are 6 on the first day of school.
Also our district has half-day K and the program is genuinely intended to be a nurturing transition year to introduce kids to elementary school, provide some academics but not focus on it, build independence and socio-emotional skills, and bridge the gap between preschool/daycare/home care and elementary. It's age appropriate for 5 year olds. 1st grade is more focused and academic but kids are ready for it.
Some people were bothered by the policy when it happened but I think ultimately it was a source of relief. Because once parents could no longer game the system, there was no longer pressure to game the system. Instead of fighting with each other over whose kids "had" to be youngest in the grade, people just accept that this is the policy and work with schools to ensure that the needs of younger students are met. I think the policy also allows kids to be young and to mature at their own rate instead of feeling pressure to mature because they are in classrooms with significantly older kids. It preserves childhood.
Anyway, please continue with your nasty, petty bickering. It's not productive but it is entertaining. So glad I live where I live and people are sane.
More evidence that you can’t actually read. Maybe start with district websites before trying something above your comprehension level.
What exactly is the thing you are taking issue with? You asked for evidence that there are many people out there (and not just a handful of "crazy anti-redshirters" on DCUM) who think narrowing the range of ages in early grades is a good idea. There are a couple links to animated discussions in which people advocate for narrowing the range. Including citations to studies.
But I see you just want to sit back and criticize without proffering arguments because if you actually asserted an argument, it would get ripped apart. Neat trick, kind of like starting your kid in K at 6.5 and then crowing about how advanced he is for the next 12 years.
Anonymous wrote:Babes, redshirting is viewed by many to be a problem and having a broader range of ages in school is considered a negative by many, including educational experts. Some of you need to step outside your bubble.
Our school district (not in the DC area) adopted a policy in 2011 specifically to address the rampant redshirting that was happening. A lot of it was for athletic reasons -- zealous parents redshirting kids, especially boys, to improve their odds of making high school varsity teams and to give them school cohorts where they would be the oldest/biggest/most developed. But it spread to other people who just started viewing redshirting as a way to give your kid an edge -- academically, socially, you name it. People just wanted their kids to be the oldest. And the thing about redshirting is that when it takes hold among a small group of parents, it spreads. That's why you now see people redshirting May, April, March birthdays. And the occasional winter birthday as well. Parents discover their May birthday is the youngest kid in the grade because all the summer birthdays redshirted, freak out, and then say "oh I should have redshirted Timmy. But you can see how this is just a dog chasing its own tail.
Anyway, our school district's enrollment policy explicitly says, "[we have] determined that an entrance age policy is warranted due to the educational benefits that result from narrowing the range of ages of students in the early grades." The policy makes no allowance for red shirting and says that children become eligible for kindergarten in the year in which they will be 5 by the first day of school. This ensures that the cut off never accidentally makes a 4 year old eligible for K. And the policy further says that your child becomes eligible for 1st grade the year that they turn 6 before the 1st day of school. So if a parent redshirts for K, they are SOL because their kid will be enrolled in 1st the next year if they are 6 on the first day of school.
Also our district has half-day K and the program is genuinely intended to be a nurturing transition year to introduce kids to elementary school, provide some academics but not focus on it, build independence and socio-emotional skills, and bridge the gap between preschool/daycare/home care and elementary. It's age appropriate for 5 year olds. 1st grade is more focused and academic but kids are ready for it.
Some people were bothered by the policy when it happened but I think ultimately it was a source of relief. Because once parents could no longer game the system, there was no longer pressure to game the system. Instead of fighting with each other over whose kids "had" to be youngest in the grade, people just accept that this is the policy and work with schools to ensure that the needs of younger students are met. I think the policy also allows kids to be young and to mature at their own rate instead of feeling pressure to mature because they are in classrooms with significantly older kids. It preserves childhood.
Anyway, please continue with your nasty, petty bickering. It's not productive but it is entertaining. So glad I live where I live and people are sane.
More evidence that you can’t actually read. Maybe start with district websites before trying something above your comprehension level.
What exactly is the thing you are taking issue with? You asked for evidence that there are many people out there (and not just a handful of "crazy anti-redshirters" on DCUM) who think narrowing the range of ages in early grades is a good idea. There are a couple links to animated discussions in which people advocate for narrowing the range. Including citations to studies.
But I see you just want to sit back and criticize without proffering arguments because if you actually asserted an argument, it would get ripped apart. Neat trick, kind of like starting your kid in K at 6.5 and then crowing about how advanced he is for the next 12 years.
If older kids do much better academically, that's an argument for increasing the kindergarten age, not artificially lowering it and setting kids up for failure in the name of equity.
Anonymous wrote:Babes, redshirting is viewed by many to be a problem and having a broader range of ages in school is considered a negative by many, including educational experts. Some of you need to step outside your bubble.
Our school district (not in the DC area) adopted a policy in 2011 specifically to address the rampant redshirting that was happening. A lot of it was for athletic reasons -- zealous parents redshirting kids, especially boys, to improve their odds of making high school varsity teams and to give them school cohorts where they would be the oldest/biggest/most developed. But it spread to other people who just started viewing redshirting as a way to give your kid an edge -- academically, socially, you name it. People just wanted their kids to be the oldest. And the thing about redshirting is that when it takes hold among a small group of parents, it spreads. That's why you now see people redshirting May, April, March birthdays. And the occasional winter birthday as well. Parents discover their May birthday is the youngest kid in the grade because all the summer birthdays redshirted, freak out, and then say "oh I should have redshirted Timmy. But you can see how this is just a dog chasing its own tail.
Anyway, our school district's enrollment policy explicitly says, "[we have] determined that an entrance age policy is warranted due to the educational benefits that result from narrowing the range of ages of students in the early grades." The policy makes no allowance for red shirting and says that children become eligible for kindergarten in the year in which they will be 5 by the first day of school. This ensures that the cut off never accidentally makes a 4 year old eligible for K. And the policy further says that your child becomes eligible for 1st grade the year that they turn 6 before the 1st day of school. So if a parent redshirts for K, they are SOL because their kid will be enrolled in 1st the next year if they are 6 on the first day of school.
Also our district has half-day K and the program is genuinely intended to be a nurturing transition year to introduce kids to elementary school, provide some academics but not focus on it, build independence and socio-emotional skills, and bridge the gap between preschool/daycare/home care and elementary. It's age appropriate for 5 year olds. 1st grade is more focused and academic but kids are ready for it.
Some people were bothered by the policy when it happened but I think ultimately it was a source of relief. Because once parents could no longer game the system, there was no longer pressure to game the system. Instead of fighting with each other over whose kids "had" to be youngest in the grade, people just accept that this is the policy and work with schools to ensure that the needs of younger students are met. I think the policy also allows kids to be young and to mature at their own rate instead of feeling pressure to mature because they are in classrooms with significantly older kids. It preserves childhood.
Anyway, please continue with your nasty, petty bickering. It's not productive but it is entertaining. So glad I live where I live and people are sane.
More evidence that you can’t actually read. Maybe start with district websites before trying something above your comprehension level.
What exactly is the thing you are taking issue with? You asked for evidence that there are many people out there (and not just a handful of "crazy anti-redshirters" on DCUM) who think narrowing the range of ages in early grades is a good idea. There are a couple links to animated discussions in which people advocate for narrowing the range. Including citations to studies.
But I see you just want to sit back and criticize without proffering arguments because if you actually asserted an argument, it would get ripped apart. Neat trick, kind of like starting your kid in K at 6.5 and then crowing about how advanced he is for the next 12 years.
Honestly, after years of reading these threads, my own experiences with my own non-redshirted kids (now much older), and my own deep dive (as someone trained to do so) into the paltry literature out there in the topic, I take issue with pretty much every supposed argument raised by anti-redshirters. In the years I’ve been on DCUM, I’ve seen anti-redshirters justify the most appalling and entitled behaviors. I’ve seen them justify bullying kids as adults, seen them justify creepy behavior, seen them throw outrageous temper tantrums. They never have any solid science backing their claims (because the studies that exist are so weak and the data is so flawed). So yes, I don’t like people like you outright. I think you are mean, controlling bullies. I think you pick on vulnerable parents who are struggling, I think you are the kind of people who should not be allowed in classrooms because of your danger to other kids, and I generally have lost patience entirely with your selfish nonsense.
Does that help you understand? Was I clear enough?
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.
Sir. OP has her child in a private school. Do you understand even the tiniest facts about private school admissions?
Number one rule: Private schools admit who they want, when they want. That is literally how it works.
Honestly, you people are just ridiculous.
Ma'am. I wasn't talking about OP or private schools, I was specifically addressing the argument made several times on this thread about public schools that parents should figure out how prevalent redshirting is before enrolling their kid and if they don't then it's all their fault if their kid winds up in a classroom with kids 18 months older. I think this is a ridiculous expectation because many parents are simply not in a position to do that -- they just moved to the district, or this is their first child and they don't know anyone with kids in the schools, or English isn't their first language, or they have other issues that prevent them from being more savvy about school enrollment.
Private schools can do what they want. My argument is that public schools should create clear cut offs and enforce them and there shouldn't be this unofficial system that the most in-the-know parents can game to the benefit of their children, because at the end of the day it's the kids who live with these choices. No child should be punished for having a parent who naively thought that since kindergarten is traditionally for 5 year olds turning 6, and since the district's published guidance indicates it's for 5 year old's turning 6, that kindergarten is for 5 year olds turning 6. That kid shouldn't have to navigate a classroom full of 7 year olds just because his parents are friends with the "right" people who would have warned them.
But do tell me that *I* am ridiculous, since after all without your ad hominem attacks, you'd have to rely on logic and actual argument, areas in which you are lacking.
These are already in place. Someone already posted MCPS, FCPS is on the website that you have the option to delay enrollment for a year, how much more clear do you want them to be?
A grace period of a year is too long. That's not a cut off at all. And it's not clear because a parent who wants their kid to be generally in the same age cohort of most kids in their class literally has to do reconnaissance to figure out what other parents are going to do. Parents don't want their kids to be outliers age-wise. That's normal and should be accommodated.
I would advocate for either a firm cut off, no exceptions unless indicated by a medically documented delay or special need OR a September cut off with a grace period for kids with summer birthdays.
I do not think allowing parents to redshirt children with fall/winter/spring birthdays makes sense and have seen the negative impacts of this policy in the classroom.
What do you do if a kid transfers in from a country where they are testing/performing/have the knowledge at a grade level lower than his age? What do you do if a student fails and needs to be held back a year?
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.
Sir. OP has her child in a private school. Do you understand even the tiniest facts about private school admissions?
Number one rule: Private schools admit who they want, when they want. That is literally how it works.
Honestly, you people are just ridiculous.
Ma'am. I wasn't talking about OP or private schools, I was specifically addressing the argument made several times on this thread about public schools that parents should figure out how prevalent redshirting is before enrolling their kid and if they don't then it's all their fault if their kid winds up in a classroom with kids 18 months older. I think this is a ridiculous expectation because many parents are simply not in a position to do that -- they just moved to the district, or this is their first child and they don't know anyone with kids in the schools, or English isn't their first language, or they have other issues that prevent them from being more savvy about school enrollment.
Private schools can do what they want. My argument is that public schools should create clear cut offs and enforce them and there shouldn't be this unofficial system that the most in-the-know parents can game to the benefit of their children, because at the end of the day it's the kids who live with these choices. No child should be punished for having a parent who naively thought that since kindergarten is traditionally for 5 year olds turning 6, and since the district's published guidance indicates it's for 5 year old's turning 6, that kindergarten is for 5 year olds turning 6. That kid shouldn't have to navigate a classroom full of 7 year olds just because his parents are friends with the "right" people who would have warned them.
But do tell me that *I* am ridiculous, since after all without your ad hominem attacks, you'd have to rely on logic and actual argument, areas in which you are lacking.
These are already in place. Someone already posted MCPS, FCPS is on the website that you have the option to delay enrollment for a year, how much more clear do you want them to be?
A grace period of a year is too long. That's not a cut off at all. And it's not clear because a parent who wants their kid to be generally in the same age cohort of most kids in their class literally has to do reconnaissance to figure out what other parents are going to do. Parents don't want their kids to be outliers age-wise. That's normal and should be accommodated.
I would advocate for either a firm cut off, no exceptions unless indicated by a medically documented delay or special need OR a September cut off with a grace period for kids with summer birthdays.
I do not think allowing parents to redshirt children with fall/winter/spring birthdays makes sense and have seen the negative impacts of this policy in the classroom.
So then go to your school board and see how far you get, and stop whining on DCUM.
Also, I simply don’t believe you about the negative impacts. Or maybe I could say the opposite, at the school board meeting: I’ve seen the negative impacts when kids who should have been redshirted are put in classrooms, and think a rigid deadline does a disservice to all children and to the educational environment as a whole. I prefer classrooms where kids whose parents think they needed more time get that time.
See, we can both come up with our anecdotes.
They need to bring back special ed classrooms and put these held back kids in them so they can catch up. No kids should be held back. Let’s call it what it is. Redshirting isn’t about social or academics it’s about sports.
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