New York City’s longstanding age cut-off for kindergarten has long been a source of heartache and headaches for some parents with kids born late in the year. Now a group of parents say Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s new free childcare program for 2-year-olds is a perfect time to reconsider the deadline.
New York City’s Dec. 31 cutoff is among the latest in the country. That means about a third of students are only 2 when they start 3-K in September, are 3 when they start pre-K, and 4 when they start kindergarten.
Some parents worry the setup can lock younger kids into classes where they’re consistently behind their peers, potentially hindering their academic futures and self-esteem.
“It always felt strange to me that New York City was one of the only places that had this specific cutoff and that it was so different than the rest of the country,” said Caitlin Moses, whose son with a Dec. 28 birthday struggled as one of the youngest kids in his kindergarten class.
Alina Adams, who runs the site nycschoolsecrets.com, said 2-K represents an opportunity to shift the deadline, or at least offer more wiggle room.
“With that in play, the excuse of free childcare goes away, you can move the cutoff to September 1st,” Adams said.Read the entire piece on Gothamist at: https://gothamist.com/news/is-it-time-to-reconsider-nycs-age-cutoff-for-kindergarten