Stop trying to make life easier for your kids. Sooner or later life is hard and they are better off getting used to it early on. There is always going to be competition. Someone taller, better at things, smarter.

(To the poster who said they planned the timing of their pregnancy to avoid having a child in certain months and suggested others do the same: you are absurd.)

LOL! Just imagine a world when all children are born in October! Birthing centers would go out of business the rest of the year. Obstetricians would no longer have trouble scheduling vacations. And, best of all: redshirting would no longer be a topic on DCUM.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I emailed FCPS about this back in 2010. At that time, they said they didn’t capture statistics for redshirting.

More info in this old thread: http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/356621.page

Interesting! Are you the one who analyzed the VA DOE data or was that someone else?

It was another poster who analyzed the VA DOE data - not me.

And to 17:51, I agree. Capturing the information is the first step in providing another data tool. What are the patterns observed? Is redshirting on the rise, decline, or held fairly steady over the last 5-10 years? How does the information correlate with other measures, if at all? What are the policy implications?

It would be nice to have a dataset to examine rather than the anecdotal reports here on DCUM.

(To the poster who said they planned the timing of their pregnancy to avoid having a child in certain months and suggested others do the same: you are absurd.)

I live in N Arlington and my kid goes to a large, popular preschool there. All the parents who seemed on the fence on February when they had to decide between Kinder and applying for another year of preschool chickened out and are sending their kids on time.
I think there is a lot of talk about reshirting and agonizing over it, but not many people do it.

I would like to echo a PP's comment regarding illness or adoption being factors. We made a difficult decision to have our son repeat Kindergarten when he moved from private to public school due to health issues. We didn't know exactly what and needed more time to figure the issues out before the curriculum got tougher. Some parents/kids have interpreted his age being a year older as "being held back" which is uninformed and hurtful. Turns out he has some complicated and serious health issues. BTW, I know of two other red-shirted kids in his class, none of whom stand out due to size. And some of us tried to conceive but took longer than planned. We were happy to get pregnant -- we didn't care when.

My DS was born in mid September, we sent him on time so he’s the youngest in his class. However, I only know of one kid in his grade who is more than a year older, and that child repeated K. Many summer birthdays (a couple months older) and many oct-nov birthdays (almost a year older but they just missed the cutoff to be a grade up.

Sample size of one but I do not know of any kids that were redshirted in his grade. I also do not know all the birthdays however.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think you just sort of figure this out as the school year starts and your child is invited to various bday parties, or your child is in soccer/other activities and you realize that one or two kids are notably older/taller than the others (or the kid mentions how old s/he is). You realize how many are older -- but it's usually not that many. Statistically, only 25% are going to be summer bdays, right? And only a portion of those are going to hold their kids back.

If a kid (or his or her parent) mentions how old he or she is, that is one thing. But don’t just assume that a kid who looks older/is taller was redshirted (or that a smaller kid is young for his or her grade for that matter). I know several kids who are both among both the tallest & the youngest in their respective classes (FWIW, the reverse is true, as well).

True. My DS has always been 95-99th percentile for height and his BF ended up needing growth hormone therapy. They were three weeks apart in birthday but so many people assume 1 yr + because of the height thing. We're well beyond the K/1st red-shirting obsession but I remember someone commenting back then that they were sure DS was red-shirted until his bday invitation went out half way through the school year.

Anonymous wrote:I emailed FCPS about this back in 2010. At that time, they said they didn’t capture statistics for redshirting.

More info in this old thread: http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/356621.page

I think it would be helpful as another data tool for the achievement gap. If certain areas are redshirting more than others, perhaps the achievement gap isn't as large.

I also think they should tighten the redshirting allowed.

Anonymous wrote:I emailed FCPS about this back in 2010. At that time, they said they didn’t capture statistics for redshirting.

More info in this old thread: http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/356621.page

Interesting! Are you the one who analyzed the VA DOE data or was that someone else?

Anonymous wrote:OP, if it was so important to you that your child wasn't the youngest, why didn't you plan better? We did. And I'm in South Arlington. We specifically didn't start trying until baby would be due in late October. Thanks to the miracle of birth control, ovulation kits, and charting, it was a guarantee that we wouldn't even need to consider "red shirting." Frankly, you have more nervous energy than I do, so I continue to be surprised that you didn't employ similar tactics to ensure your desired outcome.

Anyway, you didn't. So get over it and stop worrying about everyone else.

Gosh. This is just about as bad as OP. Seriously? You timed it so your kid would be the oldest? Creepy.

I emailed FCPS about this back in 2010. At that time, they said they didn’t capture statistics for redshirting.

More info in this old thread: http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/356621.page

Just wanted to chime in that there are a number of other less visible reasons for redshirting like serious childhood illness or adoption issues.

Good gravy some of you really need some perspective. Do you have any real problems in life?

Stop saying size. DD and two of her friends are 1-2 heads taller than many in their grade and have been from k-2nd. None of them were redshirted.

OP, if it was so important to you that your child wasn't the youngest, why didn't you plan better? We did. And I'm in South Arlington. We specifically didn't start trying until baby would be due in late October. Thanks to the miracle of birth control, ovulation kits, and charting, it was a guarantee that we wouldn't even need to consider "red shirting." Frankly, you have more nervous energy than I do, so I continue to be surprised that you didn't employ similar tactics to ensure your desired outcome.

Anyway, you didn't. So get over it and stop worrying about everyone else.