Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Advice on Early K Entry Mtg. with Superintendent

We are scheduled to meet with our school district Superintendent soon regarding our request that our son be able to go through a process for determining if early entry to Kindergarten would be appropriate.
....Except that...we are in California and there is no such process at our local school AND children under 5 are not permitted to attend K.
I'm curious if anyone has tried this in California. What I am asking of them to consider our request by going through what process they find reasonable, knowing full well that they will say there is no process and that they do not recieve funding for children under age 5.
The school district tested him and he scored 99.5%ile for his FSIQ and 99.9%ile on a other assessments.
Our local school board policy states that early entry to K is possible on a case by case basis. I think this may be outdated or there never is a case by case basis.
I'm hoping the Superintendent will tell me to take it to the school board, which I will and perhaps they can grant an early entry.
We plan on starting him when he turns 5 (in February) as our last option (and likely only option).
Has anyone asked their local school board for early entry?
Thank you

Great suggestion! My understanding is that in CA, you cannot enter 1st until age 6. So I do need clarification on that.

It doesn't hurt to try. I regret not having tried to get early K entrance for my DD. In retrospect I think now maybe I could have home schooled her when she was 5 and tried to start her in 2nd when she was 6. I don't know if that would have worked, but it's an idea.

I don't know of anyone who did early elementary to K in my CA school district. I didn't even try. The only work around I've heard of what to keep the kid in K & 1st in private school and THEN move them to the public school. There are a few private Montessori schools in my area that go up to 1st grade although it takes a bit of convincing to get them to enter their K class early.

Good Luck. If you have a meeting with the Superintendent perhaps you have a chance.

I read up on the CA law. What a hard-line mess for a gifted or advanced child who happens to be born after Sept. 1. You have the advantage of test results that show that your child is outside the norm. It's very reasonable to go into the meeting asking what they would propose given the situation. Personally, I would be positive and go in with an attitude of "how can we meet this child's atypical educational needs together?" Then see what happens. It's really a roll of the proverbial dice. So much depends on the superintendent. I would try to get it handled outside the school board, though. No sense involving people who don't know your child nor are likely to understand highly gifted children in this decision if you don't have to...

Is the funding piece for the full school year? Or does the school get the money beginning at the time he turns five? It looks as though enrolling him at five in Feb. would be possible... can you get a copy of the fall curriculum to go through with him ahead of time? The whole think seems odd, but no one ever said laws make sense all the time.

Another thing you could do is pay for private school for a year and then transfer, putting him directly into first grade fall 2016.

Our state has a policy that kids born in the first part of the school year can go into K early (fall birthdays) if they have certain test scores which the parent pays for themselves. DD has an Oct. birthday. I didn't know how advanced she was or I probably would have tried to get her in early. But we waited and then K was a disaster where she was the only kid in the class that could read. So we accelerated her into 1st in November of that year. The district had more rigid cut-offs though (for acceleration vs. early entry), requiring the child to score 98 percent accurate on all tests for material that was already covered and will miss. It would have been so much easier to get her in early. It wouldn't be an option even for you here, though, because Feb. is too late. I'm not sure if exceptions are ever made.

Looks like the clearest route (see excerpt from CDE below) is enrollment in private K for a year, followed by admission to public K according to age, with immediate promotion to first on district & parent agreement.

First Grade Enrollment

California law requires a child to be six years old on or before September 1 for the 2014–15 school year and each school year thereafter to be legally eligible for first grade EC Section 48010.

A child who was legally enrolled in an out-of-state kindergarten for one school year (using that state's requirements), but who does not meet California age eligibility for first grade, may, with parental consent, be enrolled by the district in first grade (EC Section 48011).

A child who was not age-eligible for kindergarten (that is, the child turned five after September 1 in the 2014-15 school year or thereafter) and who attended a California private school kindergarten for a year is viewed by the CDE as not legally enrolled in kindergarten, pursuant to EC Section 48000 requirements. Therefore, this child, upon enrollment in public school, is enrolled in kindergarten, assessed, and may (but is not required to) be immediately promoted to first grade if the child meets the following State Board of Education criteria, pursuant to Title 5, Section 200:

The child is at least five years of age.
The child has attended a public school kindergarten for a long enough time to enable school personnel to evaluate the child's ability.
The child is in the upper 5 percent of the child's age group in terms of general mental ability.
The physical development and social maturity of the child are consistent with the child's advanced mental ability.
The parent or guardian has filed a written statement with the district that approves placement in first grade.
A statement, signed by the district and parent/guardian, is placed in the official school records for these five-year-olds who have been advanced to first grade (EC Section 48011). This action prevents a subsequent audit exception for first grade placement of an age-ineligible student.

Considerations. Young children who are placed in kindergarten or first grade may feel stress as they try to achieve academic expectations and relate to older children. Parents/guardians and early childhood educators are the best judges regarding what may be gained by acceleration and whether it is worth the price. CDE recommends that educators and district employees explain to parents/guardians of under-age children the following:

The academic, social, physical, and emotional readiness required for kindergarten or first grade
The rigorous nature of the academic standards
The potential for harm to a child's disposition to learn by inappropriate acceleration, and,
The important concepts, skills, and knowledge imparted at each stage of a child's education, including preschool.
Often it is helpful if school or district staff members arrange for parents/guardians to read content standards for kindergarten through first grade, visit classrooms, and observe instruction. Districts may provide additional information for parents/guardian.

Thank you all for replying. Aeh, thank you for your input as well.

There are other options.

Remember that schools can use state law to force your child to repeat kindergarten. However, they can't use it to force a child to repeat second grade. I'm not sure about first grade, because I can't find much information --- first-to-second may be a grey area, or it may be that everyone just moves to second grade. I don't know.

Once a child has been through second grade, they can only retain him because of poor academic achievement (as measured by grades and classroom achievement) or poor standardized test scores.

Schools have to create promotion and retention policies based on California education code. Search for "retain" in your browser to highlight.

Here's a sample of a school district policy that's been formatted for easy reading, unlike the CA education code.

See also here for an explanation of CA law.

My daughter skipped kindergarten at a very small private school in our area. We moved her to a bigger school for 3rd grade, and the principal had no choice but to promote her. His exact words were, "We're stuck with it."

I'd be wary about assuming that a child who had finished a private kindergarten would be moved quickly into first grade. Schools can be very skeptical about this kind of thing. For example, my eldest was offered a skip to fourth grade at a private school, but we had been thinking about moving him. The public schools in our area all said no to a skip, except for one, which said, "Well, we can put him in 3rd grade for at least 6 weeks and then decide." This was their way of saying no. Moving after 6 weeks would have been too disruptive for him as a new student, and they knew it.

Not all schools are so narrow-minded about acceleration, so my advice would be to call them and ask. Tell them something like, "Little Joey finished kindergarten at a private school, and he turns 6 in February. What's your policy about promotion to first grade?" If you don't like that answer, ask, "What if we kept him in private school for another year? What's about promotion to second grade?"

Some schools are wonderful and will try to work with you. Some have blanket NO ACCELERATION, EVER policies. Others are in between. My advice is to find out where your local principal fits on that spectrum and plan accordingly.

Here in MA, we know of a family with a bright girl having an autumn birthday who put her in private school for KG and 1st grade, intending to transition to public school for 2nd grade, as two of our children have done. When it was time for her to transfer, the principal strongly encouraged them to put her in 1st grade because the 2nd grade class sizes were getting too large! They agreed, and their daughter was bored in 1st grade. I guess the moral is not to take anything for granted when it comes to acceleration.

Love this: "the potential for harm to a child's disposition to learn by inappropriate acceleration."

Clearly, inappropriate holding back has no potential for harm whatsoever, right? They did not even attempt to have their criteria sound balanced.

Tigerle, isn't that amazing? Selective wording, for sure, I suppose one would need something like that to ward off the parents whose child arrived in early Sept. and who now absolutely has to wait a year more for school that those who were able to be born just a wee bit sooner.

There are also references to the "research" about how younger children can be harmed by trying to keep up with older ones. Hmm. I've not come across that research yet. Could it be that children could be harmed if their educational needs aren't met at their level (i.e. no ability grouping) regardless of age, and it's just convenient to blame age?

Oddly enough, our children have flourished in mixed age classrooms starting at very young ages (Montessori and project-based programs). I know that is a sample of two, but having seen more than a hundred kids in the programs go through that experience, I don't think that they were being harmed by "trying to keep up" with older children.

Are these kindergarten curriculums of the 21st century really all that difficult? I keep seeing that claim, but am starting to question whether it is just fluff.

Bostonian, I would have never agreed to that after spending two years on private school tuition to meet my child's educational needs. Class size is the principal's problem to solve. Would he/she have suggested that to a family moving into the district with a rising 2nd grader? "Oh, we are out of room, so your child will have to repeat 1st grade since there's space there." Good grief. Logic be damned.

Here is some from the UK:
How does birth month affect your child's future? find the results here
by Ami Sedghi
The Guardian
November 1, 2011
I have seen research saying that gaps close in post-elementary grades in the U.S., but the point is that educators can point to research showing that the younger children in a class are more likely to struggle in the early grades. And this makes sense, because older children are smarter, have more endurance, and have more self-control on average than younger ones. What is true for children in general is probably not true for high-IQ school starting school early, however.

Now that you mention it, my eldest signed up for honors pre-calculus in tenth grade. The class should have been small-ish, but lots of kids had signed up for non-honors pre-calculus, so the school decided to move some of them into the honors class because of class size issues. I'm not sure how many got moved; my son knew 3 of them personally, but says that there were more.

Fast forward to early January. The teacher got injured and couldn't work. None of the subs could teach pre-calc. One of them told the kids (while doing her knitting), "Honors students can teach themselves." But of course...they weren't all honors students, and even if they were, if they could teach themselves, there wouldn't be much need to take a class, would there?

Fast forward to early March, and they were finally given an online system to use. But...they had to complete the ENTIRE one-year course by Memorial Day (unless they were seniors, in which case it had to be done a few days earlier). And they lost a week to standardized testing in there, to boot.

I have no idea how things shook out for the non-honors and other students, but I remember my son telling me in mid-May that a lot of kids still had so much of the course left that finishing was effectively impossible for them. I felt then, as I do now, that the school cheated children out of a learning experience that they had a right to get.

Funding issues aside, three thoughts:
3) Iowa Acceleration Scale, 3rd edition (also called IAS or IAS-3)
2) Recent threads on acceleration
1) What does the kindergarten program offer, and will that meet your child's academic, intellectual, and social needs?
Here is a link to a related article, Disillusion With the Perfect School, by Carol Bainbridge

Update!
We met with the superintendent and principal. It was a predictable meeting (heard the same ol' routine about how early is damaging).

However, they agreed to consider an early Kindergarten scenario, which would be either transitional kindergarten in the fall or traditional kindergarten in the spring once he turns 5. Transitional K gives some flexibility in on the legal end because he is two months after the cutoff and they felt the board might see that as a possibly solution because four year olds do attend TK. Then, after winter break, traditional K would be considered, moving him into 1st at age 5.5. Which of course, will not be his academic level but the best compromise available. He will be at a 2nd and 3rd grade level at age 5.5.

They are asking for letters of recommendation from our child psychologist and anyone who feels he would be best served by entering Kindergarten early, a copy of his full psych report which was done by the school district and a letter from us with our request.

They said they will read the documents and decide if they would like to present it to the school board for a final decision.
There are only two more board meetings before school begins.

I'm relieved we got this far. Not sure if they are taking us seriously or placating us with more paperwork to come up with in a very short amount of time.

My husband feels strongly that if they say no, they should have a plan of what would they do to accomodate him. They literally have no alternative at this time and freely admit that they have no options for him.

They did say an academic assessment would be involved. I can't help but hope it's a district academic achievement assessment that could qualify him for DYS.

I'm sick to my stomach thinking about-what if he can't go to K early, what are we going to do? We feel that entering at 5.5 is absolutely not an option. So now we are outlining other options and trying to expand our mind about things like skipping K altogether.

A few thoughts:

1) Seeking a process - You may have read this elsewhere on the forums, The Iowa Acceleration Scale ( IAS ) is a tool which outlines a process for evaluating the appropriateness of a full grade acceleration. If your district is unfamiliar with the IAS, you may wish to mention it to them. The Acceleration Institute offers Policy Guidelines to facilitate the establishment of acceleration policies within school districts.

2) It is not wholly true that your state does not permit early entrance to kindergarten. Although mentioned in a recent post: "we are in California... children under 5 are not permitted to attend K", according to this State Policy summary, for CA as presented by Acceleration Institute: If your child misses the cutoff by only two months, it appears that starting kindergarten after those 2 months have elapsed may be an option, and your child may not need to wait for the next school year. It appears that at age 5, a child may also be admitted to the first grade.

When advocating, it is very important to be familiar with your current State laws and district policies. Because these can change over time, you may wish to print them and keep them in a file, ring binder, etc, arranged by year.

3) Other options available A person "feeling" something is not compelling, nor does it obligate the other party to take actions you may wish to see them take. You may wish to do some research on acceleration. Review your State law. The Acceleration Institute has gathered many resources together in one place to make this much easier for today's parents, than it was a decade ago.

One resource offered by the Acceleration Institute, the Iowa Acceleration Scale, is subtitled: "A Guide for Whole-Grade Acceleration K-8"... and single-subject acceleration is mentioned briefly in the Manual on page 104, and Planning Record page 3. Some schools may use the IAS to prepare a complete record of a student's scores and "thoroughly discuss the case and to consider other curricular options and recommendations for the student." (Manual page 34)

4) Next steps You've received valuable information from several posters upthread about possible future acceleration strategies.

5) Have you thought ahead... are you well aware of tradeoffs (possible downside) to early entrance? There are several threads on this, including Grade skipping tradeoffs. Here is also another thread on what to ask about early K. I am a strong proponent of acceleration, and believe its success is enhanced when parents are well-informed, anticipate and are prepared for trade-offs, and have realistic expectations.

6) Linking to your related thread, Help me write compelling points in letter... as this may be helpful to future readers.

Did they show you any evidence to support their belief that early admittance is damaging for children like your son? I'm guessing no.

My guess is they realize, even if they aren't willing yet to say it out loud, that your child is indeed ready for K. So that's a good thing.

Well, he was enrolled in K before turning five a few weeks ago.
He's thriving. I've never seen him happier.
This was a long, emotionally exhausting process, but worth all the tears and sleepless nights.

Wonderful news! Thanks for the update and kudos to you for all the effort on behalf of your son.

That's really great. I'm so glad it's all working out for you son. And for YOU, because you had to work hard to get him there.