PreK/young 5's. You need a teacher/school recommendation and it will be much better coming from a pre/young 5 program vs kindergarten where there are higher exceptions for behavior.

Personally not a fan of holding back or skipping grades unless it was strongly recommended by teachers/administrators.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Advice for folks - I have a summer child (girl) currently in prek and want to apply to private K, and only got waitpooled this year. Is it advisable to retry for K after going through K at current school? how would schools view that? she is doing okay academically but has room to mature behaviorally.

Kids change a lot at that age. In January, before my DD started K, I didn’t think she’d be ready and by summer, she was very different and very ready.

Or she won’t feel different. We sent my late summer oldest to school on time and it was a mistake. She would have benefited emotionally from another year. I feel bad she missed out on PreK too since ours closed during covid.

We are a September girl birthday and we plan on doing K twice. Private school first and then public. The kindergarten class my dd is going into specializes in young 5 year olds and most repeat K. (All the classes aren’t like this)

I feel weird about holding a girl back, but I really feel like the cutoff should be mid August. No kid should be able to start school at 4. I didn’t want her going a month and a half to school before she turned 5

We benefit from being a fall birthday, but I would hold my kids back if they were Sept, August or July. Academically, kids can hack it, but I think the developmental, emotional and even physical growth they get with that extra year is super helpful. Plus, you get another year with your kid before sending them off to college!

We knew a lot of kids that did a transitional K program that year, which seemed to work well. I would not have them repeat a grade at an elementary school, so if it’s a true repeat, I’d do it in Pre-K.

Look for a mixed-age Kindergarten /Young 5s/ transitional kindergarten program. Our summer DD did mixed-age and we just explained the extra year in the Additional Info section of the application (although full disclosure we only applied to Kindergarten once, so not sure how it would go applying a 2nd time)

You shouldn't make this decision now. A year from now is almost a quarter of her life -- who knows what she'll be ready for then. If she's ready for kindergarten at her current school, then she should go to kindergarten, then next spring evaluate if she's ready (academically and socially) ready to go to 1st grade.

I think it is not abnormal to hold a summer birthday kid back a year. If they were advanced or on par in all areas and doing a similar curriculum then maybe I would rethink this but there are lots of red shirt summer kids in private school and being held back in 2nd or 3rd or not during a transition to a new school is harder.

Anonymous wrote:Advice for folks - I have a summer child (girl) currently in prek and want to apply to private K, and only got waitpooled this year. Is it advisable to retry for K after going through K at current school? how would schools view that? she is doing okay academically but has room to mature behaviorally.

Kids change a lot at that age. In January, before my DD started K, I didn’t think she’d be ready and by summer, she was very different and very ready.

See how K goes. And when the time come to apply, if you are still open to both options or undecided tell the schools that and they can help guide you. DD is a summer birthday and we are happy we sent her on time.

Better to repeat preK

I suggest you ask for feedback from the schools themselves.

We wound up sending a kid to K who had non-academic issues, with the idea that, if things went sidewise, we'd have him repeat the year. He did pretty well in Kindergarten. Some of the behavior problems were reduced, so we just kept him on his current path. In his case, I think having him repeat pre-K or K would have made him worse, because he's now in a very high percentile for his current grade level, and he'd be completely insufferable if he was one year back.

On the other hand, his best female friend had similar issues, went to school on time, and it didn't work out as well. Lots of similarities behaviorally, but not as strong academically. Repeating preK would have put her on a better path. Or maybe it wouldn't.

Future uncertain, try again later.

born in which month? what is K cutoff date in your area?

Advice for folks - I have a summer child (girl) currently in prek and want to apply to private K, and only got waitpooled this year. Is it advisable to retry for K after going through K at current school? how would schools view that? she is doing okay academically but has room to mature behaviorally.