Redshirting is the practice of postponing entrance into kindergarten of age-eligible children in order to allow extra time for socioemotional, intellectual, or physical growth. This occurs most frequently where children’s birthdays are so close to the cut-off dates that they are very likely to be among the youngest in their kindergarten class. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshirting_(academic) )
A gifted athlete will always shine. Parents hold back because they think that one more year will make their kid a gifted athlete. Doesn’t work that way.
A ridgewood parent held his son back because the boy was small. Got news for them, dad is small too. One year won’t make him taller.
I have heard of parents holding back in 8th grade. Manipulating the system. And yes, taxpayers pay for the red shirting. One year 2 eighth grade best friends were magically held back at the expense of taxpayers. I don’t know if the gamble paid off. Never saw the names in the sports pages.
Do you think all day K will stop this problem? It is just another gift for a minority of taxpayers. Taxes are the gift that keep on giving.
No self-respecting district would allow a kid to repeat 8th unless there were extenuating circumstances.
Most of the redshirting parents have their kids attend the 2nd year of 8th grade at a catholic school.
St Peter’s (R Edge), Blessed Sacrament (F Lakes) and St Elizabeth’s (Wyckoff) have taken some of the redshirters in the past.
I know of a handful of athletes in a top 10 NJ public school that left school after 8th, trained in Florida for a year, then returned to school a full year later as a freshman. In this case it doesn’t hurt the taxpayer necessarily, but is pretty telling.