Get a life!! Our child is a spring baby and was held back due to relatively unique development and maturity issues. He has never had an issue with it, and neither has any of his classmates. He now is in middle school. Get a life!!

OP here. I think I won't give out the details you seek, 22:48, because if I did that then the handful of boys would be easy to identify. Why are my options that I am either lying or I must 'out' these kids to thousands of DCUM readers? If I give you their names, will you call them tonight?

How's this? 16% of my child's K class is aged 7. It's a school in the District. Merriam Webster says "several" is more than two but fewer than many. 'kay?

Redshirting has been discussed too much, probably. I do wish the private schools would take a decisive leadership role in putting their students in the right grades.

Hasn't this topic been beaten to death enough on DCUM? I'd bet there are well over 100 pages of posts with people arguing these issues.

OP: Put your money where your mouth is. Tell us exactly how many kids in your child's K class are currently seven years old, and how big the class is. And name the school so others can verify whether it's true or not. If you won't back up your claims with details that others can verify, I assume your claim of "several" seven-year-olds is the usual bullshit.

I don't doubt that there are a couple kids older than the norm in many classes. I can easily imagine a child who was born in the spring (Feb-April) and was held back a year, so that child would have recently turned seven in K. But if anyone here wants to claim "several" that are significantly older than the norm, I think you've got to back it up with verifiable details. In fact, as I'm writing this, I am recalling earlier threads where the exact same challenge was issued. Here are two examples from almost exactly one year ago:
http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/45/56242.page
http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/150/48834.page (pages 11 and 14)

As far as I can tell from those threads, no one had the balls (to quote OP) to back up her claims with details. Is anyone willing to step up this time around? Name names and provide numbers, or else pipe down.

21:00: You prove my point. In privates the number is much larger than three!
20:47 Yes allow I know families who requested redshirting from DCPS at kinder entry and were declined, at the time it was at the principal's discretion. Requests to hold back are not always allowed.

Anonymous wrote:In general publics do not allow as much redshirting as independents.

not true in our Arlington school where the youngest child has an early July bday and the oldest child has a mid July birthday (will turn 7). There were 3 boys who turned 6 before K started.

Anonymous wrote:In general publics do not allow as much redshirting as independents.

"Allow" isn't exactly the right word. "Encourage" maybe?

At least from what I hear, many independent schools actually suggest to parents that hey child with summer birthdays enter K (or PreK) a year later than their age would indicate.

20:32 but what was the birthday spread? That's the issue here.

In general publics do not allow as much redshirting as independents.

When curriculum appropriate to older children is shoved down to younger children, big surprise!!!! The younger children, geniuses though they are, can't do it. So, they have to start putting older children in the grade to be successful. True in both public and private. In the past private schools often returned kids transferring from public who had been skipped, to their proper year level. That's different from the current trend to just have older children at each grade level. Kindergarten means "children's garden" not math and reading cage.

My daughter was in the third grade of a public 2/3 split. Most of the second graders were older than she was.

The publics are the same. My 8th grade son who just turned 14 is in the same class with 15 year olds who turned in January.

My son is in second grade and is still 7. Has kids 18+ months older in his grade.

My child is in middle school, youngest in the grade, some classmates are 20 months older than DC. It's been like this for years at independent schools. You can always go public if you think a calendar year model makes more sense.

My son is in 1st grade. He has not even turned 7 yet, and there are boys who are already 8.

You know how Harvard decided a few years ago to end early admission? And because it's H.A.R.V.A.R.D, well, everyone took notice and additional schools followed suit. It's probably doing the right thing for the right reasons, and because it's Harvard .... it can.

I wish one or more elite private schools in DC would, for once and all, put children in the correct grade. When the admission committee is holding the application of a nearly 6 yr old, I wish, say, Sidwell's admission committee would have the balls to say Hey guess what? You don't belong in kindergarten. I wish that Beauvoir, for example, would put 4 year olds in preK and 5 year olds in K. The applicants whose child will turn 7 will have to apply elsewhere, in my dream scenario.