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Our cutoff in Michigan is December 1st but they are continually talking about moving it back to September 1st. In our school district, kids take a readiness test if their birthday is after December 1st. You could fight for your child to take it a little bit earlier if you wanted to. Kids who don't pass the test go to Young 5's. The test includes an evaluation of social maturity as well as intellectual achievement and fine motor skills. My daughter's birthday is in mid January so she is one of the oldest in her class. She was advanced in all areas except fine motor skills. I chose not to have her take the test early because of the fine motor skills although she was reading long before she went to kindergarten. She is at the top of her class always and that's not a bad thing. I don't know if she would be at the top of her class if she was a grade ahead. I like the Young 5's concept in our district. If a child does extremely well in Young 5's, they sometimes go to first grade afterward. Most start kindergarten after Young 5's though. Development is so varied that a skill can suddenly appear or a child may mature in spurts. So, they may not pass the kindergarten readiness test but after one year, they may be ready for first grade. Flexibility is good. No matter what the cutoff date is though, there is potentially a difference in age of 364 days between the oldest and the youngest and that year can definitely make a difference.
In my mom's day, they had two classes each year. One started in September and one started in January. They graduated at different times. This seems like it would make things more individualized for each group, but it also seems like some aspects of it would be terribly complicated.
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