Bill would keep children under 5 out of school

Last fall, 24 kindergarten students walked into teacher Keiko Nobusada’s classroom at Oakland’s Thornhill Elementary School, their ages ranging from 4 to 6.

“The developmental levels between a 4-year-old and a 6-year-old are so great,” Nobusada said. “It’s very difficult for that child who turns 5 in November to compete with a child born a year earlier.”

And that’s the crux of a bill in Sacramento that, if approved, would require that a child whose fifth birthday is on or after Sept. 1 wait a year to enter kindergarten.

“Do you really want kids to start school before they’re ready?” asked the bill’s author, state Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto. “The answer to that question is obviously no.”

 

View the full story (San Francisco Chronicle)

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