Parents of children born in November 2002 (or September - December 2002)?

Question

If your child was born after September 2002 was

he or she able to go to kindergarten?

What were your options? What did you do?

My youngest son is three and he was born in November.

He is in preschool now but I was thinking he might have to go to pre kindergarten for two years since his birthday is after

September.

Answer 1

i think where i live it's any day after like september 1st (not sure though). i was born in november in 1992, and i had to wait another year to go to kindergarten. it's honestly better though, most people who i know who started later are doing better than the kids that made the cutoff and were able to attend.

Answer 2

It is not really the district... it is the STATE that you live in. In Michigan, your child must be 5 on or before December 1. Bottom line. Most states have fall deadlines, but I have heard of a few that have spring deadlines. The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) has done many research projects regarding the deadlines. What they have found is that if your child is in a developmentally appropriate classroom, there should be no question of "is this child ready for Kindergarten." Instead, it should be "is Kindergarten ready for this child."

Contact your school's administration building. They should know where to place your child.

Best of luck to you.

Answer 3

Been there and done that as both student and parent.  It makes no difference in learning ability.  By forcing what I call Christmas babies (both myself and my daughter are December) to wait an extra year, the board is separating them from their friends in the neighbourhood and giving these kids the opportunity to treat the December baby as slow.  The criterion should be any child who is toilet trained and will attain the cutoff age in the calendar year that school starts.  If your board is against it try an appeal based on age discrimination.

Answer 4

When my Sept. childs preschool teacher let me know that my child was assisting her with teaching the other kids I decided to homeschool. I only wish I had skipped the preschool part entirely. I've spent a huge amount of time undoing the damage to my childs handwriting thanks to a school system that insists on cut off dates and doesn't offer the option of advancement to kindergarten aged children. If your child is on the same ability levels as the other preschool age children he'll probably be fine but if he is more advanced talk to your school to see if there is anything they can or will do to help him. One other thought... have you thought about tlaking to a private school? That could also be an option if it's in your budget. I didn't choose that option because it's almost 20 miles(one way) to a good private school in my area.

Good luck

Answer 5

Well my child was born in Nov. of 2000.  I didn't have any options.  I put him in pre-k when he was 4 and he turned 5 while he was going and I put him in Kindergarten when he was 5 and he turned 6 shortly after.   Mine had a speech problem and was not ready for Kindergarten yet.  He has delays with his fine motor skills also ( he has a hard time writing).  We had him in speech since he was 3 and that is something easy to detect but we didn't find out about the fine motor skills till he was in pre-k.    I think that holding him back was good for him b/c of his delays .  You know your child better than anybody, but it worked well for us.

Answer 6

momof4 is right, they're all different.  In our school district the cutoff is Dec 5 or something, so my June child is in the middle of his class rather than being on the young side.

If your cutoff is before November, you won't have much choice.  There's a kid in my son's class who is gigantic and missed the cutoff by a week.  He still had to wait.

Good luck!

Answer 7

My son is 5 and was born in Oct. 2002, he was not able to start kindergarden this year because of his birthday.

Answer 8

this depends on your school district.  some districts have hard-and-fast cutoff rules with no exceptions.  some allow exceptions for kids who pass readiness assessments.  some districts make the cutoff september, others make it december.  call your local school and ask.

edit -- as for what we'll do (one of my kids has a November birthday), we'll wait, since our school district has a firm september cutoff and makes no exceptions.  he will start pre-k when almost 4, go for two years as my other kids did (though they started when just barely 3), then go on to kindergarten.  where i live, it's very normal to have 2 years of pre-k.