It's super common in my district. My two of my kids are young for the grade. They are 6 & 13 starting 2nd/9th(credit wise a sophomore) next week. They both have friends 2 years older in the same grade. My 6 year old has large number of friends already 8 and more than one turning 9 by the end of 2nd grade. It makes me a little crazy as most of them are doing it for the academics alone. The sports team stink here and the GT program is fairly competitive and the admissions test used are grade based. I know one family the child was sick and they gave it another year at home for good reason. They really believe the children will have better placement, grades, and college admission test scores later. Hmm… someone ought to show them the research on the topic.
It's rather annoying to listen to the parents talk about their kids results. It's not that impressive that your kid a year or two older than the norm for the grade can out score kids of the appropriate age for the grade. Mean while if I mention my young for the grade child out scored theirs I get a snarky response or look. Hence, I don't mention it. I'm guessing if the district would age base admission testing the red shirting would diminish greatly. Excuse the vent, I find the volume of redshirting super annoying. There are legitimate and valid reasons for some kids to go both early or late to school. Getting the edge in sports or academics isn't one of them in my book.
