The point is it is common. Not an edge case. Most don’t make the choice going into kindergarten having any knowledge of future sports impact and nor should they.
Get ready folks
- Thread starter soccer4us
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RandomSoccerFan
PREMIER
Right - which is exactly why picking any single date is going to advantage some and disadvantage others. There is no single right answer, because there can't be. All that can be done is either picking a single date that works best for most - or allowing flexible dates so leagues can figure out whatever the heck they want to do.
RandomSoccerFan
PREMIER
Sure. But picking an non-standard kindergarten start date and then expecting everyone else, including sports leagues, to mean that the kid can bend age rules throughout their childhood based on that decision, is entitled and silly.
Maybe they have to find the most common start date for kids born in 2017/18.
soccermom24
BRONZE
If the point of this change is to increase participation, and catch as many potential recreational players as possible, then why wouldn't we want to be flexible for what research shows to be a decent sized amount of kids. As others have stated above, wouldn't it be easier to make it 7/1 so that those kids who start school a year late could have the choice to play with their age group (up a year) or play with their classmates, instead of setting 9/1 and requiring all of those kids to file waivers? (Because you know a young rec kids parents will never even know that waivers are an option, and they wouldn't even bother when they could just choose another more inclusive sport -as mentioned in the podcast). The facts are that most rec players, especially at ages 4-7, want to play with kids they know (from school) for fun. Why are you so upset about setting dates that would capture the most amount of players possible for the sport? As others have mentioned in this thread, if the player has potential at a future in soccer at a higher level, these dates are arbitrary as you need to be capable of playing above your year anyways and no matter what dates they pick, it's still only available to a 12 month cohort, so it shouldn't impact the competition for anyone other than those trying to enter the sport, or find themselves in a trapped situation. Remember also, that trapped is defined by not having a valid available option. These kids that would fall into summer months with a 7/1 cutoff would never be "trapped" as they would have options to play up with classmates if they were in their appropriate grade, or down with classmates if their parents held them back 2 months. I don't see how 7/1 would NOT eliminate the largest amount of trapped players. Please describe your reasoning here.
I also agree that sometimes parents will take advantage or look for loopholes, but again these people will always exist no matter which date is chosen and I repeat, it's still only a 12 month cohort you'd be competing with so I don't really see how this could hurt people.
RandomSoccerFan
PREMIER
Which is I'm sure what's being done (or been done), to land on what they feel is the best date to accommodate most based on the data that they have. It might turn out the optimal line to get closest to the average school date for all players is something like August 9th at 2:30 PM, or Jul 22nd at 10 midnight - but for it to have any chance of reasonable implementation, it's almost certainly going to be something like 7/1, 8/1, 9/1, etc.
RandomSoccerFan
PREMIER
No. Kids can always play up in age. The age brackets exist so kids aren't allowed to skirt the intent of the rules and play down in age with peers that are younger, up until the age where age differences don't matter. Everything else is a distraction.
They might do 9/1 but add the rule that if your district starts within 60 days before 9/1 you're able to play with the grade that you're enrolled in.
Not sure how you'd police this. But it does capture all kids in a specific grade in school into one group. While at the same time not allowing players in a grade up from playing down depending on when the school started.
soccermom24
BRONZE
You completely ignored my entire post and didn't answer any questions. We know you can play up. That's why my solution would trap the least amount of players and include the highest number of rec players. And as I mentioned many times, it doesn't give an advantage to kids trying to "skirt" the system as they can only play with kids that are less than 12 months younger than them. You still haven't answer the question about how a 7/1 start would be bad. It would allow the highest possible number of kids to play with classmates, which I thought was the take home message in the podcast from the CEO.
RandomSoccerFan
PREMIER
Anything's possible, sure, but I don't think it's likely to be implemented that way. For one thing - it means collecting report cards / school info in addition to birth certificates, and dealing with all of the exceptions for people moving into the district, and defining what district applies if the club covers several towns with different school districts. It's messy - and there's no compelling need to add the complication.
RandomSoccerFan
PREMIER
Any chosen date will have kids falling on both sides of it, as that's how dates work. If a 7/1 date is chosen, then any kid that is in an 8/1 cutoff for school, while being born anywhere from 7/1 - 7/31, will be in a older grade then their neighbor who is born a month later. You can keep moving that date earlier to "catch more kids", but at the very same time you're losing kids as you increase that gap. Yes - it's been the stated goal to minimize trapped players, and also have more kids play with their own grade - but it's not possible to maximize either without matching the soccer cut-off dates with the school cut-off dates as best they can.
soccermom24
BRONZE
Most schools in America start between 7/1-9/15. So no, it's not true that if you keep moving the date you keep the same amount of kinds affected. If you move to 7/1, you would have the lowest amount of kids affected (if you're in a state where you start 7/1, maybe you would choose 6/1 - that's the beauty of removing the mandate and giving the flexibility to the localities).
Why are you bringing the age of your neighbors into this? No one is trying to catch neighbors on the same team. And besides, in the scenario you mention, that child would actually have the benefit of choosing to play with their grade OR with their neighborhood friend (which again= higher participation! Yay).
Which kids are we "losing"? Because like I mentioned, kids can always play up (without the burden of paperwork or confusing policies) in order to stay with friends from class. And the best way to maximize both is to find the school cut off date, then go back a month or 2 to collect as many edge cases as you can and make the sport more easily available to them. The kids who are born late July/early Aug and with their proper, older classmates would be able to choose to stay with classmates or play down and get the advantage of RAE. To me it seems like a win-win-win. (Unless your kid has a Jan birthday, in which case I would understand your unwillingness to see the merit in all of this).
Win - for national organization as participation is up
Win - for almost every child being able to play with classmates
Win - for minimal trapped players on the competitive side
Edit to add: if we put the cutoff date BEFORE the school cut off, it gives the edge cases and option, whereas if we put the date AT/AFTER the school start date it traps kids without an option.
Ex: soccer cutoff 9/1, school cutoff 8/1. Kids dob 8/12, would not get an option to play with their classmates with filing for exception(which may not even be allowed).
soccermom24
BRONZE
Sorry I was rushing and that edit included a bad example. Let me try again:
School cutoff and soccer cutoff 9/1 (which would be more likely)
Say your kid is born in August and was held back at a young age for academic purposes, which is a significant number of children in America. These kids would have 0 chance to play with their classmates without applying for waivers, which most entry level parents aren't prepared to navigate. This would decrease participation.
RandomSoccerFan
PREMIER
If you can't understand where your reasoning falls apart, even when clearly laid out, I'm not sure what to tell you.
Let's see what happens.
Let's see what happens.
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This statement is false. Follow the lead of lacrosse, for example, and have a 15 month band with the June through August kids placed with their grade. Providing proof of enrollment with a birth certificate is not that onerous. And this way you can ensure 99.9% of kids are playing with their grade. Increase participation participation and pool of players early on. No more trapped players for older kids. Ta da!
Fully agree with you that it’s better to have cutoffs structured in a way that captures all kids in the grade than have to add a waiver process. But my concern is that waivers won’t even be in mix as a matter of course once the date cutoffs are determined. I would gladly complete a waiver process to let my August kid play with his grade peers, but I haven’t seen any chatter or commentary from the powers that be that suggests that will be a widespread option at all.
soccermom24
BRONZE
No, I don't understand your logic, which is why we've repeatedly asked you for it. Only to get a vague statement in response.
Please tell me specifically, how my suggestion fails to reach these metrics listed below:
It increases participation.
It decreases trapped players.
It reduces the amount of overhead for clubs or orgs.
It increases the possibility for every child to play with classmates.
RandomSoccerFan
PREMIER
Lacrosse seems to allow June/July/Aug to flip up or down depending on grade - so yes - the youngest kid (born in June, playing down) can be 15 months younger than the oldest. Cut off date is 9/1. (link)
They also have the standard 12 month band. No idea how many clubs/leagues have moved from one to the other and/or what they've found by doing so. Would also be good to have some $ info on how much the average player is paying their club, to see how much overhead that particular sport has become accustomed to in managing the overhead. My guess is the average lacrosse player in the US is spending significantly more on it than the average soccer player in the US, but it's only a guess.
You've got it backwards. They already have to provide birth certificate. It's the schooling docs to be added. Not only the collection of them, but the verification of all of the different options to check validity against whatever standards are laid out.
Your suggestion doesn't do #1 or #3. You can say that it does, but you can also say that any of this is likely to be implemented. None of it is more than a hopeful guess - and #3 specifically is quite hard to believe.
It does the 2nd and 4th, by making the soccer year 15 months instead of 12. An even easier suggestion that would also do #2 and #4 is to just stop collecting age data docs and trust that everyone will just play on the team they think is fair for their kid. There would be zero trapped players, every player could play with their grade, and nobody would be subject to any pesky date restrictions. (And they could drive themselves to practice from U12 on.)
Lacrosse is also a lot like basketball.
It's closely associated with private high schools who encourage parents to hold their kids back ("regrade") for better academics or ability to compete in sports (because they're older).
Allowing a larger range of ages to compete in club leagues makes sense because once you get to HS players on the varsity team might be 19 years old.
Proof of enrollment would only be needed for kids in the June to August band that can go up or down. It’s typically just a letter from the school on school letterhead or a screenshot of a webpage showing child’s enrollment in the school for a given school year and the grade enrolled. We actually have to provide this documentation already for our league under US Club Soccer umbrella to establish proof of residency so clearly it can be done without massive added admin. Worth it to maximize kids playing with their grade under a SY enrollment model.