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Originally Posted by 33girl
I agree with this and that it's a pain to get your license last and I would prevent my child from being in that position. However, I would do so by just holding the kid back from going to kindergarten for a year. Can't they do that where you are?
We had to be 5 by September 1 to start kindergarten. If you weren't (ex, if your BD was Sept 3) tough - you did not start. I know some schools still do Feb 1, which I think is way stupid. When was this girl's birthday?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by AlphaFrog
Mariana's birthday is Oct 11, and the current cutoff is Oct 16th. It will probably change by the time she gets into school, but if it doesn't we're going to have a decision to make, on whether she should start when she's 4 or 5. If she continues advancing cognitively at her current rate, we'll probably go ahead and start her at 4...but like I said, we probably won't even have the choice by then.
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I am not fond of this trend of pushing the mandatory cut-off earlier and earlier in the school year. Every state has different cut-off ages. Some areas even have cut-off ages determined by town/city school systems.
My area's cut was January 1st so there were lots of 4y9m's in my class. You also could have your child tested if the child missed the birthdate. I would say at least the top 10 kids of my hs class should have technically graduated a year later. They weren't socially inept nor were they immature.
It never dawned on me until I had our first child in the month of September and heard that the cut where we were living at the time was 1 October, other states were even earlier and that this kiddo might miss the cut-off. Quite frankly, 3 years of AMI Montessori was plenty and did not need a 4th year of preschool. Luckily our next assignment was to CA were the cut was 1 December. I made sure the second child was born in the spring so we wouldn't go through this rigamarole again.
The late license wasn't an issue for our late-birthday child. The only thing it affected was that she couldn't have paid employment as a rising junior since she wasn't 16 that summer.
If you want a young child to go to kindergarten and 1st grade when they have missed the cut-off, find a good private school. Many public systems have their hands tied in terms of age waivers but privates can be a little more flexible. My youngest niece has a November b'day. I don't know what strings my sister will pull, but I would be very surprised if that child isn't starting kindergarten at 4y, 10m.