Day: May 24, 2023

A version of this post was originally published by Parenting Translator. Sign up for the newsletter and follow Parenting Translator on Instagram.
“Redshirting” or choosing to delay kindergarten for a year is a popular topic for parents of young children at this time of year. Increased awareness of redshirting may have roots in Malcolm Gladwell’s bestselling book Outliers, published in 2008. In the book, Gladwell points to data on the birthdays of Canadian Hockey League players to argue that being relatively older than peers provides an advantage, and he extends this argument to children’s success in school.
At the same time that ideas from Outliers have circulated, kindergarten has become increasingly academic and rigorous. For parents of children born near the kindergarten cutoff date, the pressure to redshirt feels intense. My oldest child has a late August birthday, which is right around the cutoff date for her school. However, it seemed like all of the children with summer birth..

The Department of Education has found that a Georgia school district may have created a hostile environment for students by banning certain books from its libraries, the agency’s Office of Civil Rights said.
In late 2021, several parents complained at school board meetings that Forsyth County Schools were carrying books with LGBTQ+ and sexually explicit content. Opponents of the bans said the district’s book screening process deliberately left out non-white and LGBTQ+ authors, the Department of Education said in its memo released late last week.
The agency concluded the district limited its screening process to sexually explicit books and did not violate two laws governing institutions receiving federal aid: Title IX, which prohibits discrimination based on sex, and Title VI, which bars discrimination based on race, color or national origin.
But the Department of Education also said that if a sexually or racially hostile environment was created for students as a result of the proces..