PK3 or PK4 lottery if planning to redshirt?

[Anonymous]

DD's birthday is 4 days before the cutoff and she's in the 6th percentile for weight and slow to warm, so we're planning on redshirting her for K. We struck out in the lottery last year and she's been in private preschool for age 3. My plan was to reenter her in the PK3 lottery this year even though she'll have just turned 4 at the start of the school year. Otherwise, we'd have to enroll her in PK4, put her in private 1 year, and then reenroll her in K, which makes no sense. Anything I'm missing?

[Anonymous]

I don't think the lottery software will let you enter her in PreK 3. I think you should call My School and see what your options are, if any.

[Anonymous]

Talk to the school, we messed this up last year. Principal was perfectly happy to have enroll our tiny, barely made the cut-off 5 year old in pre-k 4, there was nothing he could do (we met in March). So get in and talk to somebody soon!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't think the lottery software will let you enter her in PreK 3. I think you should call My School and see what your options are, if any.

+1. The lottery system does not support red-shirting. If you can convince your IB principal to move you from PK4 to PK3 once admitted via the lottery/at enrollment time, that may work. But charters — other than Bethune — cannot do this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Talk to the school, we messed this up last year. Principal was perfectly happy to have enroll our tiny, barely made the cut-off 5 year old in pre-k 4, there was nothing he could do (we met in March). So get in and talk to somebody soon!

OP here. Ugh, sorry to hear this. So what did you do? End up enrolling your child in K?

[Anonymous]

Some schools have mixed-age classrooms that combine PK3 and PK4 students. If you aren’t able to lottery your child for PK3, maybe you could try for PK4 at one of those schools.

[Anonymous]

When we wanted to redshirt our child a couple of years ago, the lottery would not let us register for any grade other than the one for which she was age-eligible. We couldn't enroll her in our preferred grade until kindergarten and had to keep her in private preschool until then.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Talk to the school, we messed this up last year. Principal was perfectly happy to have enroll our tiny, barely made the cut-off 5 year old in pre-k 4, there was nothing he could do (we met in March). So get in and talk to somebody soon!

OP here. Ugh, sorry to hear this. So what did you do? End up enrolling your child in K?

We kept him another year at his preschool. Which other than a year of tuition worked out great. I should say, while the principal was completely supportive of us redshirting, he had no idea how to do it except that it would definitely involve the lottery, which as I said we missed. But we are 1000% sure keeping him in preschool for another year was the right thing to do.

[Anonymous]

You should get in and put your kid in the appropriate class (pk4). They will let you repeat pk4 the following year if you still want to redshirt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You should get in and put your kid in the appropriate class (pk4). They will let you repeat pk4 the following year if you still want to redshirt.

What public school allows this? Our charter does not hold kids back period including those with special needs who could technically benefit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You should get in and put your kid in the appropriate class (pk4). They will let you repeat pk4 the following year if you still want to redshirt.

Yep. This is how my neighbor did it. Probably also helped that her child had some developmental delays.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You should get in and put your kid in the appropriate class (pk4). They will let you repeat pk4 the following year if you still want to redshirt.

What public school allows this? Our charter does not hold kids back period including those with special needs who could technically benefit.

I know of at least two.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You should get in and put your kid in the appropriate class (pk4). They will let you repeat pk4 the following year if you still want to redshirt.

What public school allows this? Our charter does not hold kids back period including those with special needs who could technically benefit.

SN children can be held back but it requires a lot of data and documentation as well as unanimous IEP team agreement. There is pressure on schools NOT to hold back sN kids.

In DC most kids (charter and DCPS) who are red shirted are held back at K. Not before.

[Anonymous]

I know of children who were held back at a charter - redshirted at a charter - held back in dcps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know of children who were held back at a charter - redshirted at a charter - held back in dcps.

At K or before? With common lottery or before?