Reply to Redshirting consequences at Lafayette

Forum Index » DC Public and Public Charter Schools

Reply to "Redshirting consequences at Lafayette"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]An eleven month old and a 13 month old might both be early walkers. If you’re having a class for early walkers, it would make sense for the 10 month old and 13 month old to start together. (Not that this class would exist. It would be silly).

If you’re teaching math, it would make sense to have all the kids ready to learn the same concepts at the same time in the same way with the same attention. This is what private schools do that apparently is beyond the comprehension of public school age advocates. This is why the classrooms are so much more chaotic than private. Because the people designing them are not focused on learning.[/quote]

A private school is able to have smaller classrooms and not admit or kick out kids with behavioral or learning disabilities. And they absolutely do. A lot. Same with charters. Your local DCPS school cannot. Of course private schools can skew classes, and do, in no small part to help themselves and their test scores and rankings and alumni donations.

Comparing what a private school can do with how a public school manages to try and find a balance is counterproductive to your argument.

No one, and I mean no one, is telling Lafayette parents they can't send their six year olds to private kindergarten. They are welcome to do whatever with private school tuition they please. But there are so many functional and logistical differences it's silly and offensive to claim that because a private school does something a public school should do the same.

Also public schools do have different levels of math and reading they teach to kids within one grade? Whittier, for example, uses Title 1 funding to pay for both a reading acceleration and separate reading intervention teacher to address needs of both students. And the age, which yeah there has to be some kind of cutoff, is not what places kids in either. [/quote]

Fine, there are a million kids public schools have to take, but they don’t have to take a disruptive child who would not be disruptive if put just one class down. They don’t have to make their lives more challenging than it is. Many public school systems make his adjustment easily. In fact many public schools will also accelerate kids that are ready. This is just red tape that DCPS is taping themselves with.

And this is why public loses support, because it tapes itself with red tape that doesn’t benefit education.[/quote]

I don't think anyone has a problem with the school taking these things into account and making these kinds of decisions.  What people have a problem with is parents unilaterally making the decision based on vibes and no actual criteria.  Some of those decisions — not all, but certainly at least some — are fundamentally based on wanting to give their kids an advantage in academics, sports, or for something like the equitable access preference — which absolutely should not be available to kids who are voluntarily redshirted without some sort of documented issue.[/quote]

We were pushed to redshirt one child who, at the time, we did not want to redshirt. In the words of the teacher, "I cannot have one child over there unable to sit while the rest of the children are in circle time." Our child is neurotypical with no documentable issues. Our child's due date was right after the cutoff. However, our child was born early, several weeks before the cutoff. Our child was technically full term and was not placed in the ICU. Was she right? I don't know. What I do know is that we did redshirt our child, and our child's classroom has been fine.

Is it possible that some parents redshirt to give their kids an advantage? Yes. Is it possible that other kids are redshirted, because they're not right for the class? Also yes. How do you get this perfect? You absolutely can't. So let the parents, teachers and administration in tandem make the best decisions they can for the edge cases and move onto solving the real problem, which is mold in the elementary schools EOTP. This amount of effort to exert control is counterproductive and is literally backfiring. Support for public education over policies like this is dying even amongst teachers.[/quote]

We were pushed to hold back.  I said no and pushed them ahead.  They did have SN but we got therapies and worked with them at home.  No regrets and child is glad I didn't hold back as they are in the most advanced classes and the only one in their grade in the math class.  Sounds like a bad teacher if they are saying they cannot manage their classroom.  Kids will learn and need to be taught but also a proper preschool teaches that.  I think the play based fail kids but not having structure.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics