HARTFORD, Conn. — Parents of children born in September, October, November or December, referred to as “-ber babies," were hit with a big change to Connecticut law last year.
Nearly a year ago, the state legislature changed the cutoff to begin kindergarten from Jan. 1 to Sept. 1, meaning children born in fall of 2019 will not be automatically eligible to start public school in fall 2024.
The change happened relatively quickly. Many families said they felt blindsided.
Connecticut will now fall in line with most other states with the new age cutoff. The change is well intentioned: professionals say four-year-olds aren’t usually emotionally ready for kindergarten like five-year-olds.
“Going to another school with kids they don’t know with bigger classrooms, it’s hard for them,” said Julie Bostrom, preschool director at the Children’s Museum Preschool in West Hartford. “You have to be ready to be able to do that.”
Bostrom said her school is changing classrooms by adding a class with almost five year olds, who before the new law, would mostly likely be headed into kindergarten. Now, with the new cutoff, these kids will be doing what’s called “redshirting.”
Like many early-learning centers, the Children’s Museum Preschool will have to slightly adjust the curriculum to accommodate children who have already done two or sometimes three years of preschool learning.
“They had been with us for all these years, and we don’t want to say, ‘great you don’t have a spot!’ We had to get creative,” Bostrom said. “The biggest thing with parents is, ‘will my child be bored?’”
Bostrom discovered she was also navigating an enrollment puzzle.
“We thought there were spaces in the classrooms for the upcoming children,” she said.
But with more children not “graduating” onto kindergarten, there is less space for new incoming students. Bostrom wanted to make sure they had space for every child who would be “redshirting.”
Not all the “-ber babies” will stay back. Connecticut school districts are required under law to offer a waiver or kindergarten-readiness assessment. Many are offering a blanket waiver and families can easily apply.
Anita Chu’s daughter was born Sept. 9, 2019, only days after the new cutoff. Her family decided to go through the West Hartford Public School’s assessment process. She believes her daughter is more mature for her age, and educators agreed, rating her above average during the assessment. The district approved their request and her daughter will go to kindergarten in August.
“I think if they prepared us for the bill to pass, parents would have been less nervous about this whole situation,” said Chu, a mother of two.
The Connecticut Project ran a survey of superintendents. It found 87% of superintendents believe the state should do more to support early childhood education and 53% wanted the age change to go into effect next year to give them more time to plan.
Overall, the report finds districts have spent time and resources updating policy or coming up with new assessment tools.
According to data from the Connecticut Office of Early Childhood, 9,000 Connecticut kids are affected by the change and half of those kids come from low-income families or families who lack access to critical resources.
“Essentially, what this means is [the enrollment change] is adding stress to a system that was already stressed, adding stress to parents, adding stress to early childhood educators who already might not have had enough slots for kids to begin with,” says Meghan Holden, the director of communications at The Connecticut Project.
Thousands of families wanted the legislature to delay the rollout, even staging rallies at the capitol, but that didn’t happen during the 2024 legislative session.
Many of those families argued they weren’t given enough time to save money and now would have to pay for another year.
“In our state, that can cost somewhere between $13,000 to $15,000 a year for one child,” says Holden. “Parents were getting hit with a sudden need to find childcare in the middle of a childcare crisis and afford childcare.”
Many parents have had to take a step back and think more critically about whether their “-ber baby” is actually ready for kindergarten.
Bostrom has worked in early childhood education for nearly 30 years. She says every child is different.
“I look at it like, give them an extra year to be a kid. It’s better to hold them back now," she said.
The American Academy of Pediatrics says to assess school readiness, parents should look at their child’s development and discuss milestones with a pediatrician and their preschool teacher.
The AAP said it is also about trusting one's gut and even thinking ahead to the future.
“Do you want to send your 17-year-old off to college?” asked Bostrom.
Like it or not, the cutoff will go into effect officially July 1. Teachers and parents alike would agree kindergarten is a big childhood milestone and a major learning leap for a four or five-year-old. Perhaps, the change is a leap for Connecticut education too, settling into the new policy.
Holden said, “Now that’s it’s done, the state needs to step up and address childcare.”
The Connecticut Project has resources for all families, including for people who are facing challenges in getting their child enrolled in kindergarten.
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