Kindergarten 'Redshirting' Gets Tougher in N.Y.C., With Repercussions We "redshirted" our son last year, and I'm so glad we did. Before anyone jumps down my throat, our decision to delay kindergarten for a year had nothing to do with dreams of a stellar athletic career or gaining an edge as the biggest kid in class. We kept him in private preschool because he wasn't ready, with his Dec. 29 birthday, to meet the tremendously high standards required of kindergartners today. Early-childhood educators often speak of learning readiness. He wasn't ready. Now he is, and a year's difference is enormous. But New York City families who delayed kindergarten registration this year, as we did last year, are just now finding out that, because of new rules from the Education Department, redshirting is no longer an option they can depend on. Tuition for that extra preschool year has been paid, plans have been made, half a school year has passed. Yank, rug pulled out. Starting this fall, children will be expected to start kindergarten or first grade in keeping with their birth year. Kindergarten, which had been considered optional, is now mandatory, although parents can home school their children or send them to a private school for the year. Children with birthdays in the kindergarten range who are not enrolled in public kindergarten will still be expected to enroll in first grade the next year, with exceptions requiring the approval of the superintendent, rather than the school principal. Regulations released in December by the New York City schools chancellor, Dennis M. Walcott, state: Children whose fifth birthday falls within the calendar year of admission are required to attend and must be admitted to kindergarten, commencing in the 2013-14 school year, except that such children are not required to attend kindergarten if: (a) their parents elect instead to enroll them in first grade the following academic year or (b) they are enrolled in nonpublic schools or in home instruction. This was always the official line, but individual elementary schools had a lot of leeway, and, as with our son and many of his peers, plenty of exceptions were made. No more. "It's total panic at this point," said the parent coordinator at our local elementary school, where at least a dozen families are scrambling, midyear, to come up with alternate plans. It's one-size-fits-all legislation at the 11th hour, and it's killing some of these families. Some of them have made life-altering, big decisions around this, and now, in the middle of the year, they're stuck without a plan. It's rough. For lots of reasons, the new rules are a good thing. The trickle-down effect, however, brings challenges, especially for parents who suspect their child isn't ready to attend kindergarten on the Education Department's timeline. Watching my son's current progress through kindergarten, I cannot imagine him having skipped this crucial year to enter first grade directly. Academically, socially and emotionally, kindergarten is a big deal nowadays. Kindergartners are reading and writing, doing science and social studies, and, most importantly for school success, acquiring the discipline to sit, listen and learn for six hours a day. Had my son missed kindergarten, the ramifications would spread, wavelike, into his elementary school future. "Now that kindergarten is mandatory, many more kids will be applying, and there will be far fewer seats available for principals to work with," said Jean Mizutani, education program director at Resources for Children with Special Needs. A parent still has the discretion to hold a child out, but the likelihood of that child then being able to enter kindergarten is much slimmer now. Exceptions are possible but unlikely. A child whose parents delay kindergarten will be enrolled in first grade the next year. Then, if the school principal and the child's teacher agree that a different placement is necessary, a case can be brought to the superintendent. But moving back to kindergarten at that point, should the superintendent approve, would depend on seat availability. That's where things get tricky. Our local elementary school is very crowded, and next year's classrooms will certainly be filled to the last available seat. A 2011 survey by the United Federation of Teachers found that 6,978 New York City classrooms were overcrowded. In other words, moving a first grader back to kindergarten sounds unlikely. The parents of children with individualized education programs will have access to special education mediation to contest placement decisions. This may sound like a wealthy person's quandary: keeping a child in private preschool for an extra year is costly. But in spite of the crushingly expensive tuition we paid at my son's preschool - we continue to pay off that credit card debt today, and will for a while yet - I would do it again. Public preschool seats are virtually impossible to come by in my district, and we believe in high-quality preschool education. There are two concerns at the heart of this issue: a kindergarten curriculum that many parents and educators believe looks more like first grade once did, and a late, Dec. 31 kindergarten admission cutoff date that forces parents to rig expensive, and now no longer viable, workarounds for children not yet mature enough for kindergarten. "The kindergarten curriculum is a nightmare for early childhood educators," one preschool director told me. "It's what has led to this backlash where parents are saying, "What you are presenting my child is not developmentally appropriate." " The issue here isn't about the haves and have-nots. It's about flaws in the system. Making kindergarten mandatory is a good thing. Now let's advocate for changing the admission cutoff date and lightening the academic load. With these two problems solved, the contentious issue of redshirting could finally, happily, be laid to rest.