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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I doubt this will matter to the already derailed thread, but there have been boys redshirted all over the city.

It's not a strictly Lafeyette, or strictly NW, or strictly Ward 3 thing.[/quote]

I live in NE. I asked to redshirt my August birthday kid (in part due to Covid -- [b]she missed PK3 due to Covid and seemed immature for K to me[/b]) and was told no and that it was not permitted under DCPS rules. We know lots of summer and September birthdays at our school (the young kids from the grade seem to gravitate towards each other) and none are redshirted.

I was very surprised when this story surfaced to learn that redshirting was fairly common at Lafayette or any school. It is unheard of at our DCPS and I can't imagine them allowing it absent SNs.[/quote]
You just described most of the kids your dd’s age. They couldn’t redshirt everyone who needed it after Covid, because that was the majority of kids.[/quote]

Perhaps an uptick in redshirting requests due to Covid disruptions is part of what led DCPS to start cracking down on it. Redshirting is a practice that only works if it's fairly limited. If Covid led to it becoming more common, I could see the district deciding they needed to limit parental discretion. What if 5-10% of parents decides, at their discretion, they need to redshirt? And redshirting also begets more redshirting because in districts where most summer birthdays are redshirted, you start to see May and June birthdays being redshirted too, and it kind of becomes a snake eating its own tail.

To be clear, I am NOT anti-redshirting. But I do think you have to limit it somewhere -- it can't just be a free for all. I'm open minded about how the limits should work. Requiring an eval for readiness seems reasonable for me. I also think flexible cutoffs where there is a window would work.

The problem with the Lafayette parents is that they don't seem to care about creating good policy -- they just want a carve out exemption for themselves. That's hard to endorse.[/quote]

Many privates have many redshirted children. It creates quieter classrooms. The youngest children with April and May birthdays are just fine.

Imagine a class where the kids are learning addition. All NT children reach a point where there is no relative benefit to being older when it comes to learning addition. Or perhaps at a younger age, kids are learning about sharing. All NT children reach a point where they’re not struggling with sharing because if immaturity. The fact that you’re past this point by a month or six doesn’t make a difference. It doesn’t give the six month older kid an advantage.

What it does do is create learning-oriented classes. This is why I support redshirting. Even for my kids who would never be redshirted because of the way their birthdays fall, I appreciate redshirting. It does impact them: it creates fewer conflicts. It’s better to be around mature, well-behaved children for many reasons.

Behavioral problems do exist in private, but I’m glad the schools eliminate as many as could possibly exist.[/quote]

Teachers set their lesson plans to the middle of what their particular class can handle. So if a class with a large proportion of redshirters can, to use your example, easily handle single digit addition, they might introduce double digit addition to stretch the class. The youngest on time kids might struggle with this and internalise that they are slow or dumb, not realising that the “ smart” kids are over a year older than them and had been exposed to that material more than them. That’s significant.[/quote]

No, teachers teach to national standards. A May birthday will not be as disruptive or impacted like the youngest in late September almost October. This is why privates do it without impacting the younger spring birthdays.[/quote]

That’s rude to continually suggest that non-redshirted September boys can’t keep up or that they’re disruptive. My Sep baby excelled no matter who was in the class and wasn’t ever a distraction. Went to a college people on DCUM are vying to get into and now makes lots of $$. [/quote]

They have to say it to justify their holding back their kids. [/quote]

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