More parents are 'redshirting' their kids for kindergarten - KPLC 7 News, Lake Charles, Louisiana

Students can enter kindergarten at the age of five in South Carolina, but more and more parents are now choosing to enroll their children at a later age.

Some parents think that by doing this, they are giving their children an edge on the competition later on.

It's called redshirting, and it's growing in popularity.

"The psychology behind redshirting is to give your child an advantage whether it be on the sports field, in the classroom, the arts, whatever it might be the leadership role they might take," said Julie Brooks with the Hammond School. "It's a risk, but that is the goal behind redshirting."

According to the US Department of Education, the percentage of boys and girls starting kindergarten age 6 or older has nearly doubled in the last 40 years.

Thirteen years ago, Katherine McWilliams chose to have her son Peter repeat kindergarten at the Hammond School in Columbia.

"I told his kindergarten teacher around Christmas time that I planned to hold him back and she told me I was crazy, that he was intellectually and socially right where he should be, and I said when he got frustrated I just noticed it was on too high of a level," McWilliams said.

For Katherine and other parents we spoke with, redshirting isn't always about giving your child an edge. Some just want to make sure their child is on the same maturity level as their peers, and it turns out Peter's teacher had a change of heart just a few months later.

"She said generally kids are pretty much on the same level up until Christmas and then usually they start changing and maturing and she said Peter stayed the same, so she said absolutely he should be held back," McWilliams said.
 
Peter is now a senior at the Hammond School, a straight-A student, and a leader in the classroom. There's no real way of knowing if that extra year made the difference, but Peter says he's glad his mother didn't risk it.

"It just worked out the way it did," Peter said. "Thinking to myself, if I had ever been in the grade above me, I could feel I would have been out of place. I wouldn't have connected the same way. I realize that I probably would have been less mature than everybody else."

It also doesn't hurt when comes to the dog-eat-dog of world of college admissions.

"Going through through the process of trying to enter a college, everyone is trying to get any edge they possibly can, so now parents are seeing if I can get it immediately from the very beginning and foster it throughout childhood throughout school, then why not?" Brooks said. 

Hammond School Headmaster Chris Angel says private schools offer the flexibility of redshirting that isn't always given in public schools.

"I think it's important for families to have choices with what I think is one of the most important decisions a family makes, and I think that's how to educate their child, and I hope that the public schools can show flexibility in this because really just using a birthdate doesn't make sense to me," Angel said.

In our state, it's nearly impossible to redshirt your child unless the individual district approves it. South Carolina law says that if you bring your 6-year-old in to start school, they will automatically be enrolled in first grade.

"Our current school system -- not just in South Carolina, but across the nation -- is based on grades, and we promote students because they've had a birthday, not necessarily because they've mastered a certain set of skills we want to have at the next grade level," said Education Department spokesman Jay Ragley.

Ragley does point out that some charter schools in our state are attempting to change this mindset.

"They are trying to test out this model of lets group students by proficiency and let's promote them as they master certain skills that we think are important," Ragley said. "We'll see what the date produces, and if that model is successful, then it's an opportunity to scale it up statewide not just in South Carolina, but across the nation.

Some parents are finding ways around not being able to redshirt their child in in South Carolina. One mother who did want to be identified said she is pulling her child out of public school for one year so he can repeat first grade since the district refused to allow him to say back for maturity reasons.

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