Reply to Why don’t schools make you just through some hoops for redshirting?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Red shirting is bullshit. It’s basically outright cheating unless you are a month or two away from the cutoff.

Even in soccer leagues we have strict age cut offs to prevent older kids from being in same team as the younger ones.  But somehow school sports think it’s just hunky dory to have almost two years differential in age on a boys team in middle school where there is a huge difference in size and aggression with age.  [/quote]

Cheating is breaking the rules. What rules is redshirting breaking? The schools know exactly how old the kids are.[/quote]

The problem is that age cutoffs are presented as a rule but then are treated as a suggestion. OP is saying that it would be better to create more clarity around that so that families could make informed decisions.

I think the main reason redshirting gets a bad name is because in certain districts, people get blindsided by it. This happens because the rule is not clearly explained, and people are surprised to discover how much of an age gap there can be in the same grade. If you make the rule more clear and communicate it to everyone, there won't be surprises and people can make informed decisions.

My sister when through this with her kids. She had no clue redshirting was even a thing with her oldest, who has a summer birthday and wound up in a grade with a lot of much older kids and it was not a great fit. She just followed the age cut off thinking that was the rule and not realizing others didn't view it that way. And once your kid is in a grade like that, it's hard to go back and change it because there is a lot more stigma around "holding back" than redshirting, plus often kids are on target academically and the repercussions are just social, so then you are stuck with no good options.

She wised up with her second, who she redshirted with a July birthday and he's much happier. But that's only because she had the trial and error of the first, who got screwed. A clearly defined rule would have made for a better school experience for my nephew (and potentially also his classmates).

Clarity is good.[/quote]

I am not sure new rules should be made because your sister can’t be bothered to talk to or learn about her own school district, while other parents clearly did. [/quote]

No, this is a common thing -- parents won't redshirt with a first child but then will with a subsequent child because they "wise up." Often redshirting is not something a first time parent can understand because it's a sort of hidden nuance of the system.

Redshirting is essentially a loophole that is mostly intended for kids "on the bubble" -- kids close to the cut off where they really aren't ready. Most parents intuitively understand that if their kid is close to the cutoff and was particularly immature for the age or had developmental issues, they'd probably hold them back from K, maybe checking with the school to make sure it's okay.

But because age cutoffs are often framed to permit that kind of decision, sometimes people whose kids are not at all on the bubble -- they are of age well before the cut off and they have no maturity or developmental issues that would indicate that they need to wait -- exploit it because they think it will give their kid an advantage academically or, sometimes, athletically or socially. And that's what results in a K class with ages ranging from 5 to 7.

OP is saying go ahead and keep redshirting as a concept for kids on the bubble, but close it as a loophole for kids who aren't on the bubble but have parents who want to try and garner every advantage. This would have no impact on most redshirting -- most kids who are redshirted fall in that on the bubble group where their birthdays are close to the cut off and they have some maturity or developmental issues. And kids who are older but have pronounced maturity/developmental issues could still redshirt, it would just need to be cleared. The only people who would be impacted by what OP is proposing is the people with developmentally normal kids who are well past the cut off but who want an age advantage for whatever reason. Well good, those are the people who give redshirting a bad name when it's actually a perfectly normal, acceptable practice.[/quote]

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