Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Skipping/Red-shirting

All sports around here are age based -- usually defined from Aug 1 to July 31 of whatever year. Still, redshirting is pretty common here, particularly for boys. It appears to be more for social/academic reasons. I have heard that some of the local option/charter schools actively discourage kids with late summer birthdays and guarantee them a spot in the following year K class.

Our school district has an October cutoff for K. All of my kids have winter birthdays and should theoretically be some of the older kids in the class. When my oldest was in K, there were only 2 kids who were younger than her in the class. My other two kids have ended up being in the middle.

Most of the time, redshirting doesn't seem to make much of a difference. Maybe because it is so common here it's the norm. The ones who puzzle me are the kids who have been held back, tested into the gifted program and then the parents complain that their kids could be doing more. Why not start by putting them in the correct grade?!

I feel this way, as well. It's inherently rather selfish, and it's the first step on the slippery path toward...

College Admissions Mania!

Argh. Many of my dd's friends (8th grade) are taking zero hour Latin at the high school. For most it seems to be about that particular mania. Not to mention one of them is already taking SAT classes. So not ready to even go down this path.
Re: red-shirting, it is incredibly common around here (South), esp. for boys, esp. b/c of sports and seemingly every pre-k teacher's bias. I suspect that many of dd's friends will be driving long before her (she doesn't care).

Yes! I'm amazed at the number of red-shirted gifted boys. I think it's about a quarter in my son's classroom, and at least that number in my dd's classroom.

In our area, some keep their kids in high school until they are 20 years old. Red-shirting to the extreme? Attempting to contrive an advantage?

Amazing.
When I was in high school, a student who started the school year at 18 had to attend the continuation high school instead, which was DEFINITELY not an advantage (think part-time schedules and day care with the eventual goal of a GED - that school didn't offer a diploma of their own).

We had the opposite of red shirting with DD10 - she's a late November birthday (and here the cut off is calendar year) so she started KG when she was still four. She was very, very sensitive, shy and emotionally not really ready. I felt very stuck though because she was already way above grade level and I couldn't imagine holding her back and creating an even bigger gap.

Now, though, I'm wondering if we had done exactly that - held her back to allow for some emotional maturation - and then accelerated her once she started school - maybe that would have been better? I guess we'll never know.

I see this as particularly concerning. What happens they child becomes rebellious as a later teen? They are legal adults and the parents have very little control. Parents are making this decision when they have a sweet complaint 5 year old not a mouthy disrespectful teen. Not to mention the advantage seems to go away around here by midway through Elementary school for academics anyway.




In district that would never have been seen as red shirting. The kids are starting k at 6 and some turning 7 in K. We had this dilemma as well. We sent two early and will never really know if it was the right thing to do. They both were turning 5 during K. Our school seemed so against Elementary school acceleration, I wasn't willing to take the risk. My dd6 is going to 2nd with 8 years old and a few 9 by the end of the year.

"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... I'm guessing if the district would age base admission testing the red shirting would diminish greatly."

Jtooit, that is an interesting thought. The ACT and SAT could also norm the results by age, irrespective of what individual school districts choose to do. This may be a more equitable representation in terms of National Merit Scholarship, college admissions, etc?

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Just sayin.

~ parent of a 13yo National Merit Commendee who barely missed the NMSF cutline.