When 3 year olds went to preschool and 5 year olds went to Kindergarten…
Pencil in Sharpener with shavings showing
A few weeks ago, the NY Times published an article about “Redshirting,” a practice in the parenting world that has become more commonplace with parents of children with late August birthdays. School cut-off dates have been controversial for some time, especially since they vary from state to state and it was refreshing to see a viewpoint in a major US Newspaper that mirrored mine.
Here in Illinois, the cut-off for 3 year old preschool and 5 year old kindergarten is September 1. It’s a firm date with both public and private schools alike making no exception to the rule. I’ll come right out and say it, I’m not a fan.
In a day and age where testing and test scores have seemed to take over our educational systems as economics continue to play a majority role in how our children get educated, it feels like we’ve lost sight of the child as a social being as well as an academic one. And truth be known, academics and test scores don’t always co-exist peacefully side by side, not in the real world anyway. There are smart kids that just don’t do well on standardized test, smart kids who by virtue of having a birthday later than the September 1 cut off are waiting out a year.
And beyond academics is the social aspect of school, the part where recess, playing and interacting with other kids their own age is part of the learning process as well. A three year old is very different emotionally from a four year old and a five year old is very different from a six year old but that seems to be lost in the shuffle, in the translation and it’s those kids especially that are on the cusp, the early September birthdays especially that are hurt by this.
Fast forward ten years. The six year old that was in kindergarten with your child because of a September 2nd birthday shows up the first day of sophomore year of high school driving, because they are sixteen and they can…there are other aspects to this, emotional, legal and physical that play into this, aspects which I think are easily forgotten as school districts are scrambling for funds.
Growing up in the mid-70’s (and I am an April birthday and grew up in California, just to note), there were plenty of kids in my class whose birthdays were past the lazy days of summer. We’re still saying “Happy 40th” to several classmates on Facebook and more to come as we go into fall. And to the best of my knowledge, all of these same kids survived the same academics I did and are doing well as adults.
Yes times have changed since I was a child, but the basics of being a child haven’t. Present a child with something to learn and they will learn it. Give them the opportunity to create with blocks and books, crayons and chalk and they will create. The younger ones may need a little more TLC but the older ones will guide them if we let them. But only if we let them.
Maybe it’s time to put the test score frenzy aside and consider revamping the school cutoff date. Just maybe we’d be pleasantly surprised at how well those kids would do if we gave them the chance instead of making them wait out a year.
When she’s not schlepping her 3 and 5 year old around (February and April birthdays respectively) or sitting on the Eden’s Expressway in traffic, Serena Beltz can occasionally be found at www.bentothebento.wordpress.com
No related posts.
Category: Birthdays, Chicago, Mom Challenges, School
I completely agree with you about the birth dates. We see it a lot in our community with boys whose parents want them to excel in sports. They figure if their son is older than the rest of the class, then he’ll be bigger, faster, stronger, better at whatever sport. The problem, as you noted, is that he is also going to be dealing with hormones and emotional changes in earlier and earlier grades. A friend who teaches middle school says it’s a nightmare now because you can have a nearly two year difference between the youngest and oldest kids in her classes. It’s a big difference when you’re in sixth grade.
@Shari, it’s funny because even my kindergartener notices and brought it up the other night. “Mom, if so and so is six, why isn’t he/she in 1st grade?” The whole athletic aspect to this bugs me as well. It really seems like we’re just reaching these days for some quick fix to solve our educational problems!
Just last week I had our Superintendent of Curr. admit to me that the age based grade structure is not a good method of schooling at all. Ok, so why don’t we fix it!?!?!
@Lisa, it’s time we fixed it. The question is, where/how do we start?
I see nothing wrong with mixed age classrooms. Being 16 isn’t that much older than being 15 and if your child wasn’t ready for kindergarten at 4.5 then they weren’t ready. That said, I know many kids who aren’t ALLOWED to start kindergarten at 4 even though they’re reading and writing at a 1st grade level. I homeschool my children and if my 4 year old (who turns 5 in a few weeks) were to have to go to public kindergarten next year she’d be horrendously bored. She’s READING. And doing K-1 math.
I can’t imagine the damage that not allowing bright children into kindergarten early does to them. I also despise the change that our schools have made by not allowing kids to skip grades anymore. Rather than basing what they learn on their numerical age, we should base their curriculum on what they are able to retain. Really, IMHO, schools should be run completely differently, but there isn’t the funding available (or so they say) for the drastic changes I would want to set in motion…
I have to disagree that there are no exceptions to the age cut-offs. It varies from district to district. My daughter has a September 3 birthday. Our school district allowed us to apply for a waiver of the cut-off date so she could enter kindergarten a few days before she turned 5. She was evaluated by the principal, the reading specialist and the school psychologist and deemed ready for kindergarten. She entered the class with her preschool friends and has been thriving in school ever since. She’s bright, mature and tall, so no one could tell that she is the youngest in the class. And because of red-shirting, she is a full year younger than some of her classmates! A little flexibility goes a long way.
@Emily, you’re lucky and it’s good to know that outside the city, there are exceptions. CPS and most private schools within the city are pretty rigid. And you’re right, considering the sad state of affairs with CPS especially, a little flexbility would go a very long way.
I’m going to take the unpopular trail and argue the other side of this coin. I think cutoff dates are important. You can legitimately argue when those date should be, but without them there can be huge imbalances. For example, when my 18 year old twins started kindergarten, there was 23 months difference in age between the oldest child in their class and the youngest child. It didn’t make much of a difference in kindergarten, but it certainly did in other years. Keeping to a 12-month admission plan, where every child in a particular cohort is born within a 12-month period, seems to be the most reasonable approach. Children born on the cusp of a cutoff, whenever that cutoff date is designated, will always be challenging for decision makers.
I was one of those 70s kids with a late fall bday. I started K at age 4 and turned 5 the day before Thanksgiving. For me, I think it was a good thing. But that’s the thing — it’s so hard to get schools to look at the individual child instead of the numbers on the page. Makes me wish I wasn’t too lazy to home school, sometimes.
As a math mentor for gifted students (ages roughly 5-15) I’ve seen all imaginable levels of flexibility (or, more typically, lack thereof) on the part of schools dealing with academically talented children. It seems to me that the real problem is that, if your child is an excellent LEARNER, s/he is likely to learn faster than most of the other kids in the next grade classroom and simply be bored in a different room. There is so little funding available for meeting the needs of children at the top end of the ability spectrum, and such neediness at the other end, the situation is not likely to improve soon. Please keep your bright little ones engaged in learning about things they find interesting. I’m not sure there’s a solution to the ills of schooling children with their age-mates. I’m always interested in proposals, though!
There are exceptions. My 5 year old is in 1st grade, not kindergarten. She spent 1 week in K before the school bumped her up. She’s been getting invited to tons of 7-year-old birthday parties and she won’t be 6 for another month.
She’s a head shorter than her classmates (she’s small for her age), but she’s also one of the most academically advanced kids in the class and thriving.
In Michigan, our cutoff is December 1. This was problematic for myself and my oldest daughter who have January birthdays, (we were bored to tears when we started Kindergarten despite the almost 20 year age gap)thrived in Preschool and stayed ahead of the class once we did start until we were “bumped up”. My other two children, 1 Aug birthday, 1-October birthday, started Kindergarten early. They were part of a program called, “early 5′s”, which is basically pre-k, which is BASICALLY, preschool. =) My son was not ready for Kindergarten whereas my daughter was adn is currently enrolled and doing wonderfully. Her class ages range from 4 (herself and another student), all the way up to six. The older kids nurture the younger kids and they are all learning at a normal pace. I really do believe there are more than just academics and numbers attached to beginning a child in their educational journey. The social-emotional aspect of things trumps the learning aspect anyday in my book. After all, if I have the smartest kid on the planet but she struggled in all other areas, causing her to drift from her studies, what then, would be the point in forcing her to be there? I’m a fan of a standard cut off date to use as a point of reference, but I am NOT a fan of being so stern about not allowing a child in Kindergarten just because they were born a month or two past the cut off.
Please call your local school board council or an organization called P.U.R.E parents united for resposible education they can tell you which way to go with this. I also like to invite as many people as I can to the CPS board of education meetings. They not the state keep that rule in place. The state only requires that your child is not under 4. It is the local school boards place this artifical date in place. To make matter worse kindergarten is not mandatory. No it is not there is also a cut off date for 1st grade the same Sept 1 you must be six. There are a few ways around it if your child attends the same private ( usally paid for )preschool and kindergarten they can go to first grade. Also your child in Illinois is not require by law in Illinois to attend school until he/she is 7. That is how CPS skirts the issue. They feel that all early childhood education is a bounus and not the responsibility of the city. Others (township/private schools)follow suit because they do not want the overflow from CPS. Please go on Illinois Board of Education website please contact you state representive/ senator and please contact CPS know the meeting days and go to the meetings and raise your voice!!!
So, this is an old post, but I stumbled upon it and find it hard to believe that it’s based on the premise that any child born in the month of Sep is doomed to be bored in school because they will be so advanced. I am a public school teacher and let me break it to you gently, this is SO not the case. Age plays very little into the sucess/achievement of the child, whether old or young. In fact most of my struggling students academically/socially have one thing in common- a summer birthday. I am all for redshirting the late summer birthday kids if their parent has an inkling of doubt in their readiness. Also, if a Sep child will be bored and ahead of their peers, well then won’t the Nov kid as well…after all, he’s only TWO months older. If you use that mindset the madness would never end. Parents need to relax and let kids be kids.