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Academic redshirting is delaying a child’s entry to kindergarten until they are six, allowing for emotional, intellectual, and physical growth. It is more common for boys and can be a mutual decision between parents and schools.
Redshirting is a fairly common term applied to college athletes and delaying their participation in their school’s regular season athletic program in order to further hone their skills and improve their future seasons. However, academic redshirting is a relatively new term that applies to delaying entry to kindergarten for young children.
Although the eligible school age varies slightly from district to district, the typical age at which a child is eligible for kindergarten is five, provided the child turns five by a date close to the beginning of the year school. Academic redshirting refers to deferring entry to kindergarten until the year following the child’s eligibility to attend, when the child would be six or turns six near the start of the school year.
There are several reasons parents and school administrators may choose to redshirt academically. The main reason is to allow the child to experience further emotional, intellectual or physical growth before starting school. The 2007 National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) National Household Education Survey Program found that approximately 8 percent of parents planned to delay their child’s admission to kindergarten who are eligible for age for the 2008 school year.
Academic redshirting may be enforced in part due to increased demands in public schools where parents feel their child has not yet developed certain required academic or physical development skills. Similarly, parents may recognize the need for extra social and emotional development. Academic redshirting is a practice applied more often to boys than girls, as the 2007 National Household Education Surveys showed. In the survey, academic redshirting affected twice as many boys as girls. This likely stems from a long-held belief that boys mature more slowly than girls, both intellectually and socially.
In some cases where academic redwriting is applied, it is a mutual decision made by the parents and their child’s school. Kindergarten entrance exams are administered to age-appropriate children, and if the results of those tests reveal that the child could benefit from delayed entry to kindergarten, parents and school administrators can conclude that the delay is justified. However, ultimately, unless a child is of compulsory school age, i.e. has reached the age at which school attendance is compulsory, the decision to defer entry to kindergarten is left to the parents .
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