Reply to Redshirting consequences at Lafayette

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]They’re still at it

https://wapo.st/405wrSF[/quote]

Why are these people getting so much press? This applies to like 10 children (per the article)?  [/quote]
Why is DCPS digging in if this isn’t a widespread problem? What kind of resources are they willing to commit to fighting so few students enrolling late?[/quote]

DCPS isn't "digging in." They are finally enforcing a two-decades old policy that the entire rest of the city follows, at the small handful of upper NW elementaries that imagined themselves somehow exempt from this policy.

Also, the policy doesn't say that a kid will never be allowed to do K at 6. It's just that in DC, parents are not allowed to unilaterally make that decision. You have to do it through the school. This is the rule every other family in DC follows. That 10 families at wealthy schools in the city's richest neighborhoods somehow think it's "unfair" for them to follow it does not mean DC is "digging in." They are following the rule.

I live in another ward, have a kid with a summer birthday, and I had zero opportunity to redshirt. But these Lafayette parents should get it because.... they are richer than me? They can afford housing in more expensive neighborhoods? They can afford extra time in private PK whereas I relied on DCPS PK for financial reasons?

Tell me why they get special rules. What is it about their situation that means they deserve a separate system?[/quote]
No, they should get it because their previous principal’s policy for years and years was that parents could redshirt if they chose to do so. He had the discretion to allow it. Then DCPS decided to start enforcing their official policy more vigorously and a new principal came to Lafayette. Apparently, no one made their community aware that redshirting was no longer up to the principal’s discretion, and therefore, registration age requirements that had not customarily been honored would now be enforced. Had they been made aware, they probably would have sent their kids on time. DCPS’s policy didn’t change, but Lafayette’s did — with no notice. Now DCPS is refusing to budge on this for just 10 families at one school, for one more time only, and has taken the extraordinary position that these children should skip kindergarten entirely. If decisions were being made based on what is best for these children, rather than making these parents an example, the kids would be enrolled in kindergarten this fall.[/quote]

Wow you come off as entitled.

“But officer, I’ve been breaking this law for years and haven’t gotten in trouble, why are you deciding to now enforce the law as it’s been written this whole time???”[/quote]
They weren’t breaking the law. They weren’t even violating DCPS policy, because DCPS policy left redshirting up to the principal’s discretion until recently. DCPS decided to change that aspect of policy enforcement at the same time these families redshirted these children. They were unaware. The kids shouldn’t be punished due to the change in enforcement. This is a problem of DCPS’s own making.[/quote]

This isn't a problem of DCPS's making because, from DCPS's standpoint, there is no problem. These children will likely begin 1st grade testing higher academically than most 1st graders in the city, by dint of being from wealthy families with educated parents. On top of that, they've been attending preschool for several years.

The "problem", as these families perceive it, is that it is "unfair" for their kids to have to go straight to 1st grade. But academically and socially, they aren't really missing anything they didn't already receive in their private ECE. And no one else sees it as unfair for these families to be held to the same standards and rules as all the other families in the city. In fact, [b]most of us see it as unfair that there was ever any discrepancy[/b].[/quote]
That is the problem of DCPS’s own making. They allowed principals discretion and then rescinded it. [/quote]

If so, then they also feel they have solved this problem by rescinding that discretion. They do not view this kids having to go into 1st grade as a problem. They feel that is the appropriate grade for them and that they will be fine. Only the kids' families view this as a problem.[/quote]

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