One of the toughest questions that parents ask me is, “Should I hold my child back in the same grade?”

As such, I’ve given this topic a lot of thought, and the various professional experiences I’ve had with students and parents/guardians helped shape my views on holding kids back a grade.

One of the books in the reading program that I used as a teacher is called The Flunking of Joshua T. Bates.

At first, I wasn’t sure this was a good book to read since it was about…well…the flunking of Joshua T. Bates. Joshua is a student who finds out that he has to repeat third grade.

Despite the less-than-happy theme of this book, it turns out to be a genuine story about the struggles of repeating a grade and the success this student finds with the help of his caring teacher.

Reminiscing about this book and the school year rapidly coming to a close got me thinking about all the decisions that have to be made towards the end of the year. Perhaps the class since is too big in the eyes of a parent, maybe there are other considerations.

Helping a parent make the final determination about whether or not to retain a student in the same grade is probably the least enjoyable responsibility as a principal.

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Modern Mom Blogger, Andrea Benton, posted an article titled Why Parents Should Pay More for Educational Apps. While it’s probably not the best lead-in title for someone like me (read: frugal), it still piqued my interest so I read on. In her post, Ms. Benton cites three main points:

1) Apps cost money to make.

2) Think of apps as a long-term investment.

3) The “One and done” mentality meaning, once our kids have played them they move on to something else

Here’s what I would add in support of Ms. Benton’s position as you consider how much an iPad app for kids is worth:

4) The old saying, “You get what you pay for”, definitely holds true in the case of apps. The difference between a $1.99 app and a free one is often noticeable. And typically the difference between a $9.99 app and a $1.99 app is even greater.

5) Install the AppShopper for Apple products. It costs $.99, which you will easily earn back with your first discounted app purchase, and sometimes it’s free!

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In order to bring some meaningful traffic to my blog, I have been participating in online mom communities like Mamapedia and Modern Mom. It’s fascinating to me the questions that people have about all sorts of topics. Today, one such question got my attention:

“What is the proper etiquette for gift-giving? Do you give gifts for a 5th-grade graduation party?”

As an educator (and a mom), I’m a big believer in celebrating accomplishments: earning a good grade on a long-term project, making the honor roll, placing first in the spelling bee, earning a letter in a sport, being chosen to design the cover of the yearbook, so on and so forth.

However, I am having a hard time with all of the various graduation celebrations these days. Let’s just hope that soon the reduction of class sizes will become reality. That’s more important, wouldn’t you agree?

Pre-school, Kindergarten, Fifth grade, Eighth grade, High School, College, and beyond. It’s overkill. I know for some kids, maybe Eighth grade is as far as they will get, and I’ve worked at schools like that, but is this really what the U.S. education system has come to that we now celebrate the completion of Fifth grade? Fifth grade. Long ago when I was a kid, we didn’t graduate from Fifth grade. We completed it and then moved on to Sixth grade. There was no hoopla.

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My kids are 5 and 2.5 years old, and I am a chronic sufferer of momnesia. If you’re a mom, you may know all too well what I’m referring to. And the more kids you have the stronger your momnesia. I go downstairs to the kitchen and stare at the cabinets wondering for what reason did I come downstairs.

I come back from the grocery store with a bag full of items, only to realize that I forgot to get milk, which was the main reason I went to the store. I spend 30 minutes looking for my sunglasses only to find that they were perched on my head the entire time, and it’s my 2.5-year old who points that out to me.

Momnesia

One time I asked my mother-in-law if My Man (who is now 41) was a good baby. She says she doesn’t remember. I say, she has momnesia…or she doesn’t want to tell me because he was probably the devil’s spawn.

Either way, moms who have older kids often tell me that they don’t remember what their kids were like as babies and toddlers or they gush about how lovely their child was as a baby. That’s called MSM (mom’s selective memory). It’s another disorder common to moms.

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One of the things I quickly learned as a school administrator is that kids enter kindergarten with a wide range of abilities and with differing degrees of background knowledge.

This doesn’t mean that those that don’t know are dumb, and equally, it doesn’t mean that those that do know are gifted, although those parents like to think their kids are. What it does mean is that some kids enter kindergarten accelerated.

Giftedness (true giftedness) is oftentimes fairly obvious and when it’s not as obvious, then it is identified through a variety of testing measures in third grade though, in smaller classes, it is easier to identify. That’s why class since is so important! But, of course, it comes at a cost.

It is commonly agreed upon by educators that by third grade, students “level out” and sort of “fall into their natural ability levels.”

Typically, that’s also the grade level when schools identify and label kids as GATE or GT (Gifted and Talented Education). I believe kids are over-identified due to pressure from parents and GATE standards/cutoffs that are too low.

If a kid attends preschool for a year or two before starting Kindergarten, it is very likely that that child will know a lot more than a child who does not, particularly if the child that does not attend preschool comes from a lower SES (socio-economic status).

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There is absolutely nothing more complicated in middle and high school than scheduling. Whether it’s scheduling for athletics, use of rooms/meeting space, or bus scheduling, it’s all ridiculously complicated.

And the larger the school, the more students; the more students, the more teachers, and staff; And thus, the ever more complicated scheduling becomes. Above all, creating the master schedule is the Mount Everest that every school has to deal with during the summer months preceding the start of a new school year.

The master schedule is the schedule that shows what each teacher is teaching (called sections), in which room, at what time (or periods or mods for schools that are on 10-15 minute increments).

It also shows what is called the “seat count”, meaning, if you have 1600 students in the school with 400 at each grade level, there should be at least that many spaces (seats) per grade level per period to ensure that there’s space for every student as well as some “give” or flexibility for students who may want to transfer courses. A master schedule typically looks something like this:

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