The birthday cutoff for kindergarten in Kentucky is moving up two months.
Children must be five years old on or before August 1 of this year in order to enter kindergarten for the 2017-18 school year. The previous cutoff was October 1.
Bowling Green Schools Superintendent Gary Fields says the change won’t affect that many students.
"I think this is an acknowledgement that many parents were not opting to start their children in kindergarten if their sons or daughters were born in August and September," Fields told WKU Public Radio. "As an example, in the Bowling Green schools, we currently have 312 kindergarteners, and this law would have impacted ten of those students."
The General Assembly changed state law to implement the earlier cutoff based on the premise that younger students may not be ready for kindergarten and may not get off to a successful start.
The Kentucky Department of Education says parents can request an early enrollment option for students not meeting the entry age requirement.
