Summer birthday boy - school question (Dallas, Highland Park: apartment, buying, private schools)

[SchoolSearchMom]

Originally Posted by momof2dfw

If he is in a gifted program then do not hold him back. All 5 and 6 year olds act "young". They are kids after all. Even middle schoolers act "young" for their age and they really crank out the "acting young" when they hit high school w/ some of the goofy things they do. That is all part of being a kid.

I don't disagree with your view about this issue at all.

But here, for example, many private schools simply will not admit boys with summer birthdays. So, many of those boys are forced into being held back regardless of how the parents may feel about the issue.

Your middle and high school scenarios made me smile. He's so little now that the thought of him behind the wheel of a car full of kids wouldn't even have crossed my mind!

[TurtleCreek80]

Originally Posted by SchoolSearchMom

Just to clarify, he just finished K and we would put him in K for 2011-2012 and then first grade for Fall 2012 (i.e. he will just have turned 7 when entering first grade). So we would only be holding him back one year. Many privates here do this routinely because they don't want the younger (more immature) boys. It seemed from some other threads I read that it happens in Dallas as well (e.g. Greenhill has a "primer" year). I was thinking it might be easier to find a spot in a preschool given our timing than at an ongoing.

Anyway, thanks for all your help!

ok, gotcha! Then yes, to hold him back this year and start 1st Grade @ age 7 & 1 month would make him "average" aged for the grade. That is a pretty common practice here for birthdays in January & later.

[momof2dfw]

Originally Posted by racehorse

My son was in the gifted program as well. If we had had the opportunity to send him along to the higher grade, we would have. They make this pretty hard to do in Texas. Because he was brighter than average and had already done most of the work in first and second grade, he did have some behavioral issues that were mostly resolved by sending him to a more difficult school. Smart kids have their own set of issues and you cannot give those short shrift.

Agreed. And those same kids need a chance to be a kid and act "young" and goofy.

Originally Posted by SchoolSearchMom

I don't disagree with your view about this issue at all.

But here, for example, many private schools simply will not admit boys with summer birthdays. So, many of those boys are forced into being held back regardless of how the parents may feel about the issue.

Your middle and high school scenarios made me smile. He's so little now that the thought of him behind the wheel of a car full of kids wouldn't even have crossed my mind!

LOL!!! They grow up fast. Mine are now 12 & 16. Yep, a driver and she wants to take her lil sis to the movie later today. Without ME!


As for the holding back in kindergarten. You notice they don't deny them entrance to kindergarten at age 5 but want to hold them back another year in kinder. This really is not for the kids advantage. It's usually for the schools advantage in the later years of their schooling. As I mentioned earlier some schools really like to have them held back so that in high school they perform above other schools that have kids more age appropriate on the playing field. When you put a football field of 18-19 year olds up against a team w/ 16-18 year olds (and most are not going to be 18 in the Fall during football season, they will be 17). Who do you think has the advantage? Of course the older group. They have grown and boys do grow between those ages and can bulk up more as they age later in their teen years. Winning on the football field here is a big deal. And having long records of state championships is a really big deal. Holding those boys back in kindergarten is one way to do it. As I said earlier, holding them back then is socially acceptable. Holding them back in a higher grade to be older and more mature is looked down on as "failing"....... LOL!

The other reason why the schools like holding them back is in the hopes of getting higher academic scores. Those TAKS rankings and such all really do fuzzy up the math when trying to compare schools as you really are not comparing apples to apples. I'd hope that the schools that have a large population of boys that are a year older than their peers scores higher on standardized tests. They should. A lot of people put a lot of emphasis on these rankings and the schools want those higher rankings to flaunt. But did they really do anything any better than any other school would have if all of the other schools were educating kids that were held back in order to have time to "mature"?

[racehorse]

Originally Posted by momof2dfw

Agreed. And those same kids need a chance to be a kid and act "young" and goofy.




LOL!!! They grow up fast. Mine are now 12 & 16. Yep, a driver and she wants to take her lil sis to the movie later today. Without ME!


As for the holding back in kindergarten. You notice they don't deny them entrance to kindergarten at age 5 but want to hold them back another year in kinder. This really is not for the kids advantage. It's usually for the schools advantage in the later years of their schooling. As I mentioned earlier some schools really like to have them held back so that in high school they perform above other schools that have kids more age appropriate on the playing field. When you put a football field of 18-19 year olds up against a team w/ 16-18 year olds (and most are not going to be 18 in the Fall during football season, they will be 17). Who do you think has the advantage? Of course the older group. They have grown and boys do grow between those ages and can bulk up more as they age later in their teen years. Winning on the football field here is a big deal. And having long records of state championships is a really big deal. Holding those boys back in kindergarten is one way to do it. As I said earlier, holding them back then is socially acceptable. Holding them back in a higher grade to be older and more mature is looked down on as "failing"....... LOL!

The other reason why the schools like holding them back is in the hopes of getting higher academic scores. Those TAKS rankings and such all really do fuzzy up the math when trying to compare schools as you really are not comparing apples to apples. I'd hope that the schools that have a large population of boys that are a year older than their peers scores higher on standardized tests. They should. A lot of people put a lot of emphasis on these rankings and the schools want those higher rankings to flaunt. But did they really do anything any better than any other school would have if all of the other schools were educating kids that were held back in order to have time to "mature"?

Yeah, I suspect this is why they make it so hard to send your borderline kid to the next grade up. For my son, K-2 grade were a waste of time academically.

[5stones]

If he is in a gifted program in NYC and did fine i nK-garten with no problems, do not hold him back.
Send him on to first grade, he will be fine and among his peers.

IF you hold him..repeating K-garten again...he will BE BORED, and possible regressed to a k-garten "immaturaty". Why stiffle him?

I could understand if he just turned 5...but 6? he's right on schedule.

And believe it or not...when he is in 5th or 6th grade, kids will tease him and ask if he "failed " a grade etc... wondering why he is a year older than them.

Seriously no learning issues to deal with and you have a bright kid... keep him with his peers.

[SMS_Parent]

If I recall correctly, this poster may be interested in St. Mark's (and several of the other elite privates) but this isn't the ideal time to apply since admission decisions were made several months ago -- so you need to consider her question in that light. Boys at St. Mark's, in particular, tend to be on the older side for their grade level, so it would not be at all unusual at St. Mark's for a student entering first grade to have just turned seven.

As a practical matter a child with a summer birthday can be at a definite disadvantage when testing for schools such as St. Mark's, Lamplighter, Greenhill, Hockaday, etc. in elementary school -- and at least at St. Mark's there are many more slots available for first grade than for second grade -- so the poster is wise to be thinking carefully about the grade in which she enrolls her child this fall if she is interested in admission to competitive privates in the fall of 2012. (At the schools where there is a kindergarten both first and second grade slots are likely to be fairly limited -- so there isn't going to be as much advantage to holding him back at schools other than St. Mark's aside from than advantage that is inherent in being an older child going through the testing process.)

St. Mark's does have a program that allows a boy who is already in first grade to test for admission to either second or first grade -- so going to a public school for a year as a first grader and then testing for St. Mark's might be an option. I am not sure whether Lamplighter and Greenhill would allow this practice, however.

[debtex]

I'll be the dissenting voice , although SMS_Parent and I are on the same page. We're in private and it's been my observation that although official cutoffs are normally Sept 1, the functional cutoff date is more like May 1. Around April we find ourselves attending birthdays for classmates that are turning different ages...in kinder, it's kids turning 7 and 6, for example.

I know this is the case for several of the Catholic schools as well as most of the more prominent private schools such as Greenhill, St. Mark's, ESD, etc.

There are good arguments for and against this, and many have been raised in this thread. I don't debate any of that, but look at it more from the perspective that for private school, the norm is different. A summer boy will not be older than his classmates if he's red-shirted, he'll be in the normative group. A summer boy who is not red-shirted will often be thought of as being advanced early, given the functional dates.

[SMS_Parent]

Originally Posted by debtex

I'll be the dissenting voice , although SMS_Parent and I are on the same page. We're in private and it's been my observation that although official cutoffs are normally Sept 1, the functional cutoff date is more like May 1. Around April we find ourselves attending birthdays for classmates that are turning different ages...in kinder, it's kids turning 7 and 6, for example.

This is definitely our experience as well -- particularly among the boys. My boys have late spring birthdays and they are among the youngest boys in their respective grades. Had we tested either boy for St. Mark's we would have been required by the admission cutoffs then in place to test them for a lower grade than their current grade placement. (Those cutoffs seem to have changed because now St. Mark's only specifies that its first grade applicants must be six by September 1st.)

[EDS_]

Hola,
Our son is a rising university Jr. and still 19yo. former Jesuit student.

For him academics vis a vis his age were not a problem.

He was/is an excellent athlete as well so sports were not issues either.


Driving and, forgive me for this - girls - were. When my son was 14 his best friend turned 16 and his parents gave him a really, really nice car. Suddenly my little 14yo wanted to go out with his pal and girls! He was hopelessly overmatched by the 15/16yo girls from Hockaday, BL and ESD.

We can laugh about this now. As he is ascending towards being an MD. And girls, as opposed to high school, angle to be in his study groups or ask for physics tutoring etc.


Contrasted with our daughter who is a little older for her grade - 15 and 6'1" and looks 20 in the right get-up.......

My advice is be careful with your son. It does not matter much now. And it won't matter later if he continues to do well academically. If he settles in as a normal kid it likely will.

[pepper131]

Some preschools near Lakewood are:
The Children's Center
The Learning Tree
The Science School at Museum of Nature and Science