Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Birthday Rule

I'm not sure what the rules are in each state, but in most southern states, if a child is not 5 by September 1st, they have to wait until the following year to enter kindergarten.

DS5 wasn't 5 until this past December, so he's in pre-K now, instead of kindergarten (if we were in NJ back when I was younger, he would've been in K this year... though I know NJ's rules have changed too).

DD3 won't be 4 until October (yeah we "planned" well), so she won't be going to pre-K until next year... as a side note, my neighbor's son yesterday showed me a cow and had to ask his mom what sound it made after I asked him. DD3 is our "normal" child and wouldn't have hesitated, even a year ago. And of course this child will be going to pre-K this fall.

Anywho, has anyone hear challenged their state's birthday rule? What process did you go through, and what were the results? Even though it's too late for DS5 and probably too late for DD3, I think I might make that a "pet project" of mine (I've always enjoyed a challenge).

DS5 has a boy in his pre-K class that turned 4 on August 31st. He will still be 4 when he enters kindergarten in the fall (we start in August here). Which means DS5 is 9 months older than he is. So there will ALWAYS be a child who is the youngest in the class, by a year (if DS5's bday was on Sept 2nd, he would be 363 days older than this child). The make the rule to "help" kids with December birthdays, but in reality, it's still hurting someone. I have ideas in my head and on paper as what to propose, but I haven't made my first "move" yet... other than the things I did to attempt to get DS5's elementary school to just "look at him" for this school year.

Anyway, sorry that's so long and drawn out and all over the place. What say you?

I have friends who have done it. Their district required testing and such to make sure the child was ready. In our district, the cutoff is Dec 1st.

See if it was Dec 1st here, I probably could've challenged it better. I was told, "if his birthday was in September", even though the cutoff here is Sept 1.

Our district won't accept private testing. But I'm thinking that I should've done it anyway and then pushed harder. I don't want DS5 to be skipping too many grades, but I know he wouldn't have suffered being in K this year.

I have researched the "testing" that each K student has to pass to enter 1st, and DS5 has been at meets or exceeds each thing except one area for over a year now. Drives me mad!

I think it stinks that every parent has a right to hold his/her child back, but I don't have the right to get my two tested to see if they can go forward until they are actually in school... and even then it has to be teacher recommended. grrr.

The State of Ohio mandates school districts have an early entrance policy on file. I don't know the rules in other states. Schools here don't openly tell parents and even push back - but the rules are in place to get over the birthdate. Our kids are 4 and 5 months "past" the birthdate cut. And it isn't too late for the other child to skip over and enter another grade for next year. If your achievement tests keep you in the 99 percentiles in the grade you want to be in... I'd like to think a school would be open to talking.

Around here they are harder on moving boys than girls up... and I CANNOT stand the arguement we got from one person that because so many people now retain or red shirt their kid to "give them an edge" and send them late that going early would be too hard since some of the kids would be two years older than our dds - as if this is my problem.

Interesting. I will have to dig deeper to see if we have a similar policy. And funny, but not funny, a girl in DS5's class got to go into K this year, and she also has a December birthday, but we all assumed it was due to her father working for the school itself.

In NM, the cut off is September 1st as well. I petitioned for early entrance and was denied. They just don't do it here. So we homeschooled for the year and I loved it!

Now he's nominally in K, being skipped to 4th next year so it all works out in the wash.

Thanks... now I wish I would've pushed further... but maybe I can push for 1st since I KNOW that is where he belongs, not in K in the fall...

oh my oh my!!! i found something. thank you so much!!! i even found the early entrance to 1st grade procedures/forms/etc!!!

you have NO idea how much this eases my mind!!!

i'm kickin' myself for not knowing this before, but at least it's an avenue even if it doesn't work out for us!

again, thank you thank you thank you!!!


grrr.. scratch that. it said from my state on the url i found, but it's for maryland... but at least i have that as a start for my "project"...

I live in Texas and here the cutoff date is in September but the state allows for the individual districts input. My district will allow for them to test for early admission but the bar is high: to get into kindergarten they have to pass a test at the 3rd grade level. This seems crazy to me. If the child is that advanced why would you put them in Kindergarten? It is their way of stopping early admission.

My problem is my DD's birthday is in August so i doubt they would even let her take the test being that she would be almost a year younger. At the rate she is going I predict that by the time she is 4 she will be able to pass a 3rd grade test. She is already at 1st grade level and some 2nd grade and she is 2 1/2 now.

Colorado allows for early entrance (I don't live there, but when it came out in the news I was proud of them). In my state, if you complete accredited kindergarten (private), you're eligible for 1st in public regardless of cutoff date. One of my kids skipped Kindergarten with test scores, but all of mine make the cut off by at least 5 days.

private schools wouldn't budge either. he was in a private school at age 2-3, and they wouldn't even consider putting him in for a few hours of the 4 year old class...

it's so sad.
i know he'll get there, but why wait now, when his brain is the freshest and he's eager to learn?

Don't stress it. We skipped K with the first born... it was awesome. I would have done it that way for #2 but I thought she needed the transition to building the behavior set of school skills. If it wasn't for the social wierdness that might develop in public school I'd opt in favor of being bored in K and skipping 1st (looks like a year of sight words).

GOOD LUCK!!

Ditto what kickball said (got to K and skip 1st). Our experience has been that it's not a state mandate but an individual district policy. Our district did require testing, and the tests had to show an age equivalency of 7.

We did early entrance into first, and we're not entirely sure it was the right move for a couple of reasons. The curriculum still doesn't match DS's needs and for the first half of the year the all day schooling was very, very hard on him. Now our kid does need a lot of sleep, so take it for what its worth. But we did underestimate the effect of being in school for a full day. Looking back on it, we might have done better for DS letting him go to half-day K and then doing more afterschool learning.

My two cents.

JB

JBDad, I've read something similar to what you are saying on other boards ie to go to K (more fun, more relaxed, more tolerance for behavior issues) and then skip 1st grade (more seat work, less tolerance, more writing that a 5yr old might not be ready for, etc).

Right. Each situation is different. Truth is you're really not going to know if it was the best decision until after the fact anyways. Luckily kids are resilient.

JB

We are in Ohio and just like kickball said, each school here has an early entrance policy on file. For our school district it was a certain readiness score that was higher for early entrance candidates than other students. Also, for each month that a child missed the cut off, the required score was higher.

DD10 went to a private pre-k and they brought up the idea of early entrance to us. They stated she would be bored with another year of pre-k. The public school district tested DD and she was 99.8 and 99.9th percentile in everything else except fine motor skills that were in the 80th percentile. They denied early entrance based on fine motor skills. Our private school was happy to have her and she started Kindergarten at 4 years old. It was the best situation for her anyway since she was in all day K instead of public half day program.

JJsMom, I hope you find some accommodation that works for you and your child.

Jen

Thanks everyone! DS5 is in all day pre-k. Here they do not have half day pre-k or k. So the time in a classroom environment won't be an issue. He will also know some kids already in k this year that will be in 1st next. He's shy, but not around kids and not when he finds something interesting or challenging. AND I figure worse case scenario is it's NOT good for him to move him up, and we hold him back to be with the kids he's with now.

He actually LOVES to sit down and WORK rather than play outside or games, etc. So the desk thing won't be an issue for him either. He's quite mature for his age, even though he has his "definitely still a 5 year old" moments from time to time. I honestly think that he is on a 2nd grade level (at least 3rd for reading), but I would never push that far b/c I think he would be lost socially, etc.

DD3 could easily be in the pre-k class this coming year, but she has the late bday as well. While socially she would be fine skipping ahead, she is no where near as advanced as DS5 was at her age. So even though she would be capable, the boredom factor won't be as big of an issue as it is with DS5.

I called about early entrance and our county (don't know about the state) says flat out - no early entrance. Unless.. we send our dd to private k and then move her to 1st. We'd have to sign a waiver that we'd agree to put her in K again if she couldn't handle it. Wonder what the exact wording of that waiver is.

I really have no idea right now whether it will even be a good idea for dd-almost-3, but I wanted to see what to plan on.
I also wonder if a home-schooling curriculum would suffice for the 'private' k requirement.

I don't know about your state, but pre-k and k are not required here. However, I have no choice but to work, and DS5 is in the state funded pre-k now and will go to k in the fall (unless that changes, and he starts 1st). But I'm not sure about the home-schooling on either of those levels.

I also had the same issue with our school and county. But I haven't pushed the state yet (inquired, but not pushed). I do know that from the state site (again, not sure about VA, but...), that there are exceptions to the no early entrance rule here. there's just so many hurdles to jump to be considered at all. those will be worked on this summer. unfortunately for us, I am registering DS5 next week for K, so there isn't much time to get many of the tests/docs needed (totally my fault).

halfway down this page might help you:
http://www.townhall.state.va.us/L/viewcomments.cfm?commentid=2593

I am also in a state/district with a hard and fast no early entry- no exceptions policy. Must be 5 before September 30th for K and must be 6 before September 30th for 1st.

Our school did agree to a compromise with us. DS6 attends K in the morning and then 1st in the afternoon. He is officially on the books as a K student.

IMO, I would not ever do this again since my child now attends 2 classes that are not challenging instead of 1 class. I currently look at it as free childcare since I work full time and K is only half day in our district. Live and learn, I guess.

Our state has a "no early admittance" policy as well. We homeschooled for a year until DS was old enough.