A bill that would change the age cutoff date for children enrolling in enrolling in kindergarten failed to advance out of the House K-12 Subcommittee Tuesday.
Representative Jody Barrett, R-Dickson, says he initially sponsored the bill following a request from a director of schools in his district who wanted to change the cutoff date for when a child must be five years old to start kindergarten.
Barrett’s bill would change that date from August 15 to May 15 and would remove the authorization for school leaders to allow enrollment of students deemed emotionally mature.
“The issue that a lot of our school systems across the state are running into is that school systems now are starting earlier and earlier in the year, August 1 most of them. And with the current law being an August 15 date, we’re getting a lot of four-year-olds in school which is causing a lot of behavioral issues that’s really creating some issues for the kindergarten teachers,” said Barrett. “I was one of those kids that started too early. I skipped kindergarten and went straight into first-grade. I ended up having to do sixth-grade twice with straight A’s both times just because as a ten-year-old, eleven-year-old kid in the sixth grade, everybody else is having growth spurts and shooting up. That has a negative impact, particularly on boys.”
The bill found opposition from members of the subcommittee including Representative William Slater, R-Gallatin.
Slater expressed concern over a number of potential consequences including dropout rates and how the change would affect students transferring in from other states. He also said that potential “redshirting” students, which is sitting athletes out a year, could have consequences years down the line.
“I appreciate your intent, but I’m not sure that we’re going to get the outcome and I’m concerned about the unintended consequences,” said Slater.
Another concern expressed by members of the subcommittee is that the change could cause problems for school districts by taking away the ability to allow students to start early based on the needs of the child and potential childcare issues.
Barrett addressed these concerns, saying there’s data that shows students do better in school when starting later.
“I didn’t have a single negative response back from anybody in the district about what we’re doing here,” said Barrett. “Particularly from the superintendents themselves, they love the fact that they would not have to go through those tough conversations of somebody dealing with a parent that thinks that their child should have some special treatment or be able to move on for maybe not the right reasons. It just puts superintendents in a very difficult situation to have to make these judgement calls.”
Representative Barrett’s assurances weren’t enough to sway opponents who voted down the bill on a voice vote.
Teacher childcare reimbursement advances
Subcommittee members unanimously advanced another bill involving pre-school age children.
Representative Scott Cepicky’s, R-Culleoka, proposed legislation would authorize school districts and public charter schools to reimburse a teacher 66 percent of their monthly childcare expenses.
The teacher must be actively teaching to receive this reimbursement and school districts and public charter schools would be able to divide the amount reimbursed based on the number of days the teacher taught during the month.
Cepicky said this bill would allow teachers to come back to the classroom quickly and maintain their certification.
“What this does is it creates a partnership between the teachers, the districts, and the state of Tennessee with childcare being split 33 percent between each one of us,” said Cepicky. “One of the biggest problems we have is when teachers have children and cost of childcare pulls them out of the classroom for an extended period of time. Hopefully this will allow the districts to be able to invest in this with the state’s help and to keep our teachers in the classroom.”
The bill now goes to the Education Administration Committee for approval.
