It’s an AJC-reports-on-legislative bills kind of day. Here’s the latest potential bill that would affect a fair number of Decatur parents…
State lawmakers are considering a proposal that would prevent 4-year-olds from enrolling in kindergarten.
House Bill 100 would require a child to be 5 by Aug. 1 for the start of the 2015-16 school year or by June 30 for the 2016-17 school year.
The bill’s proponents say the measure is needed because many 4-year-olds don’t have prior experience in a classroom and aren’t ready for a kindergarten environment.
Photo courtesy of Wikipedia
Hmmm. My daughter would have just missed this deadline and would now be a grade lower than she is. For some strange, presumptive reason, I felt it was within my discretion as a parent to decide what my kid was or wasn’t ready for. My gall!
I completely agree Scott!!! I am a November birthday and started at the age of 4. I would have gone crazy if I hadn’t started when I did as school was already quite easy for me.
My daughter was born in August, 2010 … and will be held back by law if this passes. I get it if some parents want to choose to keep their kids back, but that’s not us. We’ve been planning on sending her to Kindergarten in 2015 since she was born. Clearly if she needed more time we’d have considered that, but she’s raring and ready to go to Kindergarten, both intellectually and emotionally. Just not, apparently, legally.
Oh you radical libertarians, thinking you know what’s best for your kids and should have some sort of “right” to decide who attends a public school and when. Obviously, the state has Top Men on this, and they have concluded that excluding four-year-olds benefits the collective. I fully trust their judgment and good will and take no issue with this minor abridgment of parental discretion.
🙂 I was going to write something similar, but got lazy and knew you would handle it!
Ya know, if the Republicans weren’t a super-majority, maybe we’d have less of this nanny state. Why, if I were more cynical, I’d think there was some daycare PAC out there pushing this whole thing.
Yup, the R’s and D’s are both awful. Hence the mention of “libertarian.”
Republicans give us a nanny state. Democrats would give us a nanny state on steroids.
“Who?”
“Top. Men.”
and… scene!
Classic reference – and it applies. Government always knows better. Now go about your petty business, peon.
I thought that it was already the case that you had to turn 4 by the start of public preK and 5 by the start of kindergarten. I never thought about whether that was based on state law or local policy. I had no clue that parents had the choice to send their children early. I thought the way that parents got around the rule, if they really wanted to send their children early, was to send them to private kindergartens that weren’t strict on the entry age and then transfer them over to public first grade. I know it takes a fair amount of discussion, process, and advocacy in public school to get permission for your child to skip a grade.
I’m not a big fan of pushing children forward ahead of their age peers unless they are clearly frustrated and unhappy with being at the regular level. Or if they’ve been schooled initially someplace else (e.g. international schools abroad) that have already taught them what they’d have to repeat ad nauseum if put in the regular level. My judgment of where my children were developmentally at ages 3-4 was not at all predictive of their maturity and performance several years later. I was sent to school early, maybe because I had younger siblings and my Mom needed a break, and while I did just fine academically, I didn’t enjoy being smaller and less coordinated than my classmates, never mind hitting puberty later.
The cut-off date is September 1. Currently (and since 1976) a child must be 5 by this date to start Kindergarten. It’s the date we’ve been operating on since August of 2010. It’s the date we worked backwards from when we started her in pre-K. This is the regular level for her and other kids born between 9/1/09 and 8/31/10. If parents wish to they may start their kids the year after, and that’s great if that works for them. My whole family has summer birthdays and my youngest daughter will be on the same schedule as her parents and elder sister — all of whom did (or are doing) fine academically, emotionally and socially.
I believe that there should be some sort of cut-off and that it shouldn’t be written in stone for all eternity, but changing it with six months notice and little chance for public discourse before the legislative process is rushing it and unfair to families and kids caught in the change.
J,
I recommend contacting all of the gentlemen who sponsored the bill to voice your concerns. I am in a similar situation to you and have already reached out to them (and cc’d my representative/senator).
I have and I will continue to do so!
I hope you are in the process of reaching out to your state legislators, and the sponsors of this bill… they need to hear from you, including what you propose instead (pushing back the effective date, etc.).
Under current state law, students must be 5 by Sept 1 to start kindergarten. HB 100 would push this date back to Aug 1.
The bill hasn’t yet been heard in subcommittee, but I’m guessing part of the reasoning behind it is an attempt to align the age requirement with the earlier start date of school districts across the state like CSD.
How about they pass a law that prevents 4 year olds from becoming state lawmakers.
^^ This post should be up for an award of some kind.
+1000
We have one that would’ve missed this new cutoff by 1 week. Yes, he is younger than all his friends in class but he’s more than capable to handle the academics (and is in AP classes).
If the legislature is going to move this date, they should at least consider having a stipulation such as: If a child has already completed a Pre-K year, they’re allowed to progress. Or perhaps have an “entrance exam” of some sort to see if they can handle Kindergarten.
Mine would’ve been terribly bored repeating Pre-K. We considered holding him back so he’d be more in line age-wise with others entering school but were told by all the teachers not to do so. They said he’d be able to handle it and they were right.
This is us, also. I have a 7-year-old second grader with a birthday the first week of August. She would have been super bored if we had held her back. And, kids in a lottery-funded preK can only do it once. So if you have a four year old with an August birthday in it now, then you would have to find a private preK for one year and *then* start them in kindergarten?
There needs to be more of a transition/phase-in period if they are going to change the dates.
I am confused on what the June 30th date for next year has to do with this?
It’s a staggered rollout. By 2016-17, it is their intent is to have only kids who are 5 by June 30 in Kindergarten.
My daughter turns five at the end of July in 2018. This will mean she will not be able to start school until she is 6 years old in 2019? What is the advantage of that for anyone?
I guess I can understand the August 1st date (since school starts right around this time). June 30th is just plain silly, IMO.
I hope this fails.
This is absolutely absurd and is going to cost parents even more money in daycare which, by the way, the state does not fund in any way because they are under the delusion that in is still 1950 and all women are stay at home mothers.
I have a fall birthday, and started kindergarten at age 4 in Florida as did many of my friends. Always did well socially snd academically….so I am very puzzled by these earlier and earlier in the year cutoffs in Georgia. Seems like they turn a blind eye to the reality that most kids are in a classroom since infancy since this country has the worst parental leave policies the world.
Pardon my typo just before academically! Maybe I would not have fat-fingered “and” if state lawmakers had kept me from starting kindergarten before actually turning 5.
“daycare which, by the way, the state does not fund in any way because they are under the delusion that in is still 1950 and all women are stay at home mothers.”
Or they share the belief that it is your responsibility to pay for the care of your child. Why on earth do you think you have the right to my money to care for your child?
…..and that’s what’s wrong with America, this delusion that:
A) early learning starts at 5 – what happens between 0 and 5? Why is that less important?
B) we are not all interconnected. I guarantee you have used some of “my money” for government services.
And FWIW, I don’t personally need help paying for daycare. I am worried about the larger systemic issues affecting kids and women in the workforce.
Don’t even have the time or patience….
If you count Georgia Lottery-funded Pre-K as state funding, then sorta.
But that’s more my-great-aunt-Betty-who-likes-to-do-the-scratch-offs-funded Pre-K…
True, we are lucky to have lottery funded pre-K. Maybe we can have Sunday Sales funded 0-3, at least for certain income levels…
lottery funded pre-K is not universal- meaning there are tons of kids whose parents want to get into state pre-K, but the lottery earnings do not support tuition for all. Seems to me if legislators are worried about Kindergarten readiness, the state should seriously think about funding the gap so that pre-K is universal in Georgia (like some other states have done) rather than move Kindergarten entry cutoff dates by a random month or two.
Amen!
I’ll talk to my great aunt Betty about buying more scratch-offs, too.
My kids are in daycare. My wife and I made a decision to have a lifestyle, mortgage, etc., which requires us both to work. We could afford a much cheaper house way out in the burbs (or south DeKalb) in a less desirable school district, go out less, not pay for our kids’ college, travel less, etc., etc. etc. on either of our incomes and the other could stay home. It appears you have made the same decision. The only difference is I don’t expect anyone else to pay for my choices.
And, of course, we made the decision to have children in the first place. Same as you and almost all other mothers.
(and my kids just missed the cutoff too. not excited about paying for an “extra” year of daycare. but, that’s life)
Where did you get that I expect you to pay for ME personally?
For a supposedly open minded community, I am seeing a lot of knee jerk “my money” reactions here.
Early childhood education is a major issue in this country, and this kind of me-first attitude may be why.
Wow. It has nothing to do with me-first.
Well that is exactly what it looks like.
So having the belief that parents should take responsibility for the cost of raising their own children is a me-first mentality? I would argue that the parent who wants others to subsidize their choices has the me-first mentality.
I trust with this attitude that you will not be sending any kids to public school, accepting Hope scholarships, driving on taxpayer funded roads or collecting social security.
And education doesn’t magically start at a certain age…it begins in infancy. I am simply saying given social trends, why not re-examine what we fund and how? On the flip side, I recently read an article suggesting that student loan $$ artificially inflates college tuitions…I think our whole education system could use an evaluation of where we direct resources and focus.
I will leave that first part alone (paying for “daycare” vs. some of those others things you mentioned are very different). And no, I don’t like public education or SS. I would be fine ending both. Roads are an appropriate function of government. Ok, so maybe i didn’t leave it alone…
“I recently read an article suggesting that student loan $$ artificially inflates college tuitions…I think our whole education system could use an evaluation of where we direct resources and focus.”
Now on this I couldn’t agree more. We probably have different ideas as to where to direct those resources and focus, but hey, common ground!
Yay for common ground…let’s go shut down Sallie Mae!
“I am simply saying given social trends, why not re-examine what we fund and how? ”
That’s not unreasonable. But if adapting to social trends means subsidizing those who want a dual-income lifestyle, I’m with Dawgfan and Walrus. How is that fair to those who choose not to have children at all? If we’re talking about struggling, low income parents, that’s another matter.
Yes to primary concern being lower income parents – maybe I didn’t make that clear. I’m certainly not looking for government funding of my purse habit. 🙂
I do agree with others who have posted that more notice should be given to everyone of deadline changes though – folks need to be able to plan and budget in advance for childcare costs.
You can’t seriously be suggesting that it is acceptable to take 50+% of my income by force, spend it however you want, and then assume that I, because I didn’t agree with the original theft and complain about the way the money is spent, have some moral obligation to deny myself the benefits of those things?
Driving on public roads does not constitute consent to the system that built them.
Word. This is now the common leftist meme: essentially, because the state is so pervasive and cannot be avoided, no one has any standing to complain about its scope. Government as the self-justifying and self-perpetuating machine.
Not to mention, there is ample evidence that pre-K is essentially useless. HHS itself has released studies showing that Headstart provides no lasting benefits. Yet it remains an article of faith for many that pre-K is of such extreme importance that it is yet another “right” to be provided at the expense of others.
You lost at least half your DM cred with the use of “meme”.
Are you arguing with public roads? What is the alternative?
Private roads.
Beat me to it, Josh!
Totally! Each home and business owner pave the portion right out in front of his or her property. That will totally work. Now about those pesky Interstates…
Is there a country in the world that has a system of private roads? I know that private roads existed here and there sporadically in medieval and colonial times. But I don’t think they have ever been viable in modern society.
Maybe South Sudan? I hear things are really awesome over there.
When building your part of the private road, please remember to put a bit of private sewer below it. Or not, that’s your prerogative.
Maybe you all should think a little bit, and do some research, before tossing ideas aside. It will serve you well.
I’ll help you, since you would rather just toss aside ideas instead of having an open mind.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-market_roads
http://reason.com/reasontv/2010/12/03/bruce-benson-private-roads-int
Give us the Reader’s Digest version–how do private roads work? Tolls? How do they interconnect? What if someone or some entity decides that they don’t want to connect with other private road networks?
Personally I think the idea of a workable system of private roads is borderline silly. There are things the government needs to do. But those things are quite limited, and the fact that the government builds roads does not mean it should provide “free” preschool, as only one example.
Have to admit I’d never heard of the Libertopia Festival before! Learning something new on DM every day!
Don’t get me wrong, there are countless other issues that hold more importance to me than privatizing roads. It just annoys me when people reject ideas off hand without actually giving it critical thought. OK, off my high horse…
Not just borderline but flat-out silly. Talking about the privatization of roads suggests that they are simply mechanisms for getting from one point to another. That’s why, at first mention, it seems like something that might be reasonably outsourced. But in a municipal context, streets are just as important (if not more so) as a tool for creating economic value. Get them right and their adjacent and proximate land increases in (taxable) value; as its value increases, its intensity of use increases, leading to more residences, more jobs and more revenue per acre, with less infrastructure and fewer services to accommodate them. It’s an important part of how communities become, and stay, solvent.
Private tollways across the landscape are one thing. In-town streets are something else altogether. Far too few places critically examine the long-term returns (or obligations) on the infrastructure decisions they make.
Scott, that is just not historically accurate. Private roads were created for far more reasons than getting from one place to another.
“Far too few places critically examine the long-term returns (or obligations) on the infrastructure decisions they make.”
The problems you mention are problems we are seeing with government controlled roads.
I’m not arguing otherwise. Chief among those historic reasons was the desire to create value. My point is that, while a private interest seems perfectly comfortable with this proposition, cities continue to view their streets in the same way they view pipes moving water around. My suggestion for why streets shouldn’t be privatized is because doing so on a piecemeal basis doesn’t present the same opportunities for public value (i.e. keeping communities afloat). There’s a need to address and coordinate such infrastructure at a level typically well above the individual landowner.
You weren’t speaking about early childhood education. You were referring to daycare, which isn’t the same thing.
And perhaps I should have used the third person, instead of the second. But, insert “one” or “other parent” everywhere I used “you”, and I stand by my argument.
My youngest child’s birthday is September 7th so she missed the current cutoff by one week, also known in our family as the $10K week since that was the approximate cost of the extra year of daycare. But we knew that would happen when she was born. Whenever they make the cutoff date, someone will be adversely affected. If they want to adjust it there should be a significant phase-in period to allow for folks to plan and budget. Personally, it makes the most sense to me to say that a child should be 4 for Pre-K or 5 for Kindergarten by the first day of school. A June 30th cutoff date seems completely arbitrary and a bit absurd.
+1
The proposed cut off date would align with the start dates of classes. It is not an intellectual qualifier, but rather a developmental issue. Let the 4 year olds be 4 year olds a bit longer. They will face competition and a more challenging world soon enough.
Hope it works out for all concerned; life in public school is a series of logistical challenges and parents are never given enough chance to give common sense feedback IMHO. One thing I would like to clarify is that early childhood education is not the same thing as daycare. Some daycare is quality early childhood education and some is nothing but warehousing, with an entire spectrum of care in between. A reason to fund quality early childhood education for low income working families with no adult able to stay home, besides to prevent injury, death, neglect, and abuse of children, is that the child is already born and going to end up in public school no matter what. They will be a lot easier to educate if they show up in kindergarten having achieved normal developmental milestones and able to learn than if they show up behind after 5 years of warehousing. Decent childcare is hard to afford for a myriad of reasons.
Very well said!
Any teacher will tell you that you can spot a summer birthday a mile away. It’s not about being academically ready. It’s more of a social/maturity issue. Students with may/June/July birthdays are the ones who typically struggle with peer issues. Any teacher will tell you that, while there are exceptions to this, in general, “he has a summer birthday” is enough said in many situations. While teaching fifth grade there have been many times I’ve thought, “this child would make the best fourth grader…he/she would be such a positive leader instead of struggling to fit in with peers who are ‘ahead’ of him/her socially.” I have a son with a July birthday (6 months old now so who knows how “academically” ready he will be) and as a teacher you better believe we will be holding him out til the following year so he is five when he starts kindergarten. I think this law will help students and believe it’s most beneficial. Glad to see some good ideas coming out from under the gold dome.
Um, the kids will all still be spread over a 12-month span, just under this plan the youngest ones will be those born in July and the oldest will be those born in August. Instead of the youngest being August birthdays and the oldest September birthdays. They won’t magically all become the same age/maturity level – there will always be about 12 months difference between the oldest and youngest kids, with the accompanying range of maturity.
The thing is, the school year has changed over time. In the north, where a lot of public schools are not air-conditioned, school starts after labor day, and they will probably keep their Sept 1 (or later – some go as late as Oct. 15) birthday cutoff for kindergarten. Just because we start school earlier here doesn’t necessarily mean our kids should all be going later. The school calendar can and does change – are we going to keep moving the registration date to echo the first day of school, so parents really can never know what’s up? This move seems arbitrary, pointless, and disruptive to families with children between birth and Kindergarten who may have based their family planning on kids being X years apart in school, etc.
And if we’re just going to offer up random anecdotes to support our stances, I was a Sept 13 birthday who kept up just fine with my peers despite my relative youth and managed to eeke out a full ride scholarship to college. My daughter is a Sept 1 birthday, so literally the youngest kid in her grade until or unless there’s a transfer kid, and even though we noticed the social maturity thing a bit in early elementary, it never stopped her from academically succeeding. She overcame and outgrew those maturity gaps just fine, and is a perfectly successful 5th grader. If she were to be rolled back a grade and the the oldest kid in the class, it wouldn’t be a grand tragedy, but considering that she’s already doing above-grade-level work now, it would probably be boring.
Also, FWIW, I wouldn’t recommend deciding at 6 months old what you will do with your child when he’s 5 – why not actually gauge where your child is at academically, socially, and developmentally when they are approaching that age before deciding what is in their best interests?
FWIW=$0.00 (IMO, of course)
I know, sorry, that was terrible advice to actually follow the needs of your child in parenting. By all means, decide now when he’s pre-verbal and barely eating solids what he will need at different stages in life. Probably will work out great for all involved. Carry on! You do you!
As someone said earlier, someone will always be oldest, someone will always be youngest. My son has a sept birthday so he had to ‘wait’ an extra year; it is what it is. My problem is that my August 2010 girl is actually *IN* preK right now. We were planning to send her to Kindergarten next year. That means I haven’t looked at other programs…which, guess what? They have wait lists already. I’m “behind” because they are changing the rules late in the game. And that makes absolutely no sense. If they want to be Aug 1 or June 30 or heck October 13 just for the randomness of the number, that’s fine. But you need to give people proper time to plan. We don’t have an additional option for next year because we weren’t doing the planning BECAUSE WE DIDN’T THINK WE NEEDED TO. We had a plan. For any of you with school kids, imagine being told they need to repeat the year they just did (because of gubmint goons, not anything they did or did not do), but not at their current school and no they can’t just advance to the next grade in your school system…GOOD LUCK! That’s what this is doing. Unless my daughter is allowed to repeat preK at College Heights? You know, the lottery preK that everyone already thinks is unfair that not everyone has access to? I’m guessing that won’t be an option either. So for me, this is about two things: 1) changing the age cut off and 2) the timing of implementing said change. I don’t really care about 1 nearly as much as I care about 2. Again, the cutoff is still arbitrary and there will always be age gaps between kids (a 5 year old has lived 20% more than a 4 year old after all…). But give parents a fighting chance at planning appropriately. To plan for when they should go to preK, to plan for what they should do before preK, to get your child’s expectations set (she’s all set to go to her big brother’s school next year!), to have your kids with their school peer group.
And while there’s a lot of debate about whether kids are ready or not for kinder, I’d argue that has more to do with the pushdown of academics into younger years. We *do* expect an awful lot out of our children at a very young age and I wouldn’t mind seeing that change. Whether or not a kid can handle something doesn’t mean it’s the right thing. Lots to be learned from play rather than worksheets! But that’s a different issue.
I just heard there will be a grandfather clause option for those caught in the middle. You’ll need to file a request for an exemption, and we all know how well the public school system handles paperwork, soooo… But of course this is only if it passes.
Wow, that actually makes sense.
Several posts are mentioning the necessity of a transition period for children who are already mid-stream in the old system of cut-off dates. Transition periods are important when public school rules change whether it is age cut-offs or attendance zones. Folks at a top admin or legislative levels like setting policy, not so much working out the consequences. I was happy that a transition was allowed when attendance zones were last changed in CSD.
This is terrible. Read why on my post at notfornothingyall.com (too long to put my thoughts here)
This is absurd…moving the cut off to an odd date of 30 June…won’t it mean some kid with be 7 years old before he/she is in 1st grade…isnt it an year’s loss then?…really wierd…things would be easier if they just align the ages to the school start dates….. or let the pre K teachers decide the move to K if the kids don’t meet the cut off dates….
It used to be that some kids didn’t start 1st grade until seven, depending on their birthday. I believe it used to be that you had to be seven in the same calendar year that first grade began.
After reading this thread, it seems like what’s new is NOT an age cut-off, but that the cut-off may be moved earlier. So this is not about parents being able to use their discretion about when to start their children in a certain grade–age cut-offs already prevented that. True?