Anonymous wrote:OP, I can relate to your post. We chose to send DD to K a little early, because she was truly ready academically for K, and we figured she would catch up socially. By fourth grade, we found the exact opposite to be true!

We didn’t do it, and though she’s in 8th now and everything has leveled out for the most part, I wish I would have sent her to a different school to repeat 5th, because now that she’s in 8th, I can tell she’s socially behind again. And there would be nothing wrong at all with her having the extra academics.

What do you mean that you sent her early? When is her birthday? Some of these claims that their children “went early” don’t make sense.

Anonymous wrote:5th is the oldest grade I’d repeat. 8th grade has real subjects/periods… would be pretty boring to repeat that, unless he’s really struggling academically. Any public school should let you put him in his age-appropriate grade at any point, I would think.

That has to be socially horrible to see all your classmates move on and you stay back? No matter how brilliant you think your kid is he’ll be seen as the dumb one repeating 5th grade.

Don’t. I have a kid in hs with the same situation. They are glad I did not hold them back. Give him a chance.

OP, I can relate to your post. We chose to send DD to K a little early, because she was truly ready academically for K, and we figured she would catch up socially. By fourth grade, we found the exact opposite to be true!

We didn’t do it, and though she’s in 8th now and everything has leveled out for the most part, I wish I would have sent her to a different school to repeat 5th, because now that she’s in 8th, I can tell she’s socially behind again. And there would be nothing wrong at all with her having the extra academics.

5th is the oldest grade I’d repeat. 8th grade has real subjects/periods… would be pretty boring to repeat that, unless he’s really struggling academically. Any public school should let you put him in his age-appropriate grade at any point, I would think.

There are huge social implications in the middle school years to repeating a grade. Repeating could be detrimental to a teen. However, there is absolutely no draw back to pulling your kid out now if it's needed. Later down the line heay not even be able to enroll at some schools due to be younger then the cut off.

Sounds like you will have to switch to another private school to remedy this. My DD is a late summer birthday and we started her in K just after she turned six at a private school. She was academically advanced (had been reading for several years by then) and within a few weeks they recommended that she move up to first. They said they never recommended that but thought it was right for her. So we did it. Six years later we are now trying to remedy this by moving her to another private school to repeat sixth grade. Academically she's still fine but she's very immature in some ways. Also struggles with organization which is increasingly important in middle school. Pandemic disruptions were also not helpful. I have a summer birthday son who will be doing PK twice (at different schools) so that we're not dealing with the same issue with him down the line. I expect that he will be bored academically for the first few years, but that's preferable to a struggling tween, believe me.

Enroll him in public school next year and don’t tell them he was in K this year. Done deal. He will be in the appropriate age range and ready to go.

Heck, enroll him in a different private school K and don’t tell them he did K last year.

I’m not following why you are looking at repeating- is he struggling?

Anonymous wrote:Publics will not retain your child unless they have made some kind of error that does not allow your child to benefit from his education.

It really depends. We live in a very wealthy area and people make the decision ultimately, especially in the younger grades like K and First. The school may discourage you a bit but at least 5-6 kids are retained a year for social reasons. This is public. I know at least 5 kids in each of my kids class year retained. Not all for academic issues.

Anonymous wrote:Would a different *private* allow DS to repeat 5th or 8th?

Yes, they don’t care as long as the age is appropriate. Since you started him early, his age will be in the exact target range of the grade you are having him repeat in private. You saying you’d like him to repeat a grade to be with his appropriate age cohort is enough justification.

We did this with my son. He started K early. We actually didn’t mean for it to happen. He was in a mixed age classroom and he was advanced through the preschool curriculum early and was academically ready for more.

We switched schools after 6th grade and had him repeat 6th. He wasn’t having issues at all, but I felt it was in his best interest long term to be older rather than the youngest. He is very bright and academically several grades ahead- regardless of if he stayed in the same grade. He would still be far ahead. In middle school, he had access to highly accelerated academic programming, so he was able to be challenged and having him be older gave him some maturity to navigate all the extra work he was receiving and manage it appropriately. He’s in high school now and doing amazing. I do think he would have been fine had we not repeated, but he is doing so well now I’m glad we did.

Publics will not retain your child unless they have made some kind of error that does not allow your child to benefit from his education.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm confused by your post.

Did you send him early, meaning according to cut off dates he should be a grade below? if so that was really dumb. Why would you do that to your kid? You need to get him back with his age group.

No, some areas have a huge number of redshirts. My son is April and 3rd youngest boy of a class of 90. Many kids are 13m older. If he was Aug on time many kids would be 16m older.

They’ll be a lot of 19 year olds in high school. I can’t imagine schools like that, it makes them look bad.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thanks so much for your thoughts!

Agree and that’s why I’d like to wait until 5th or 8th to repeat the grade (if necessary then) as opposed to repeating K next year at a be school. Just not sure if we’d be able to repeat 5th or 8th.

Seems to be average academically and below average in sports but he’s not even 5 yet so want to wait and see.

Don't make decisions like this based on sports.

Academics should account for at least 90% of you decision, and social issues at most 10%. It might be too early to tell if academic problems will persist over the years. And social issues depend much more on personality than age, and putting your kid with younger classmates won't automatically make him a leader or alpha dog. Even youngest boys can end up alpha if they are naturally pushy and over confident.

Disagree. Social is #1. Kids catch up academically and sports are not worth changing over. It's an inflated sense of being "good" if you are a year younger in ES but it can't carry you all the way.

Completely false. Kids do not catch up academically just by being promoted to the next grade year after year. That's why summer school is so prevalent. And public schools never consider anything other than academics when parents request retention. If you say you want to retain Larlo because he is the smallest, youngest, and most immature boy in class, but his test scores show him at grade level, they are just going to roll their eyes and say "NO."

The only time they allowed kids to be held back in our schools is when the child is academically not even close to his classmates. And that wouldn’t be after 1st grade.

My oldest was in a school where the cut off date was December 31st. They’ve changed it to September 1st. When it was December 31 the only ones that held back were boys. The girls were fine. I can’t imagine asking the school to hold a child back because he is the smallest or most immature or youngest.

Plus since when did we rate 5 year olds on sports?