Originally Posted by Anonymous
"Trying to keep the civility in this commentary, there is an overwhelming majority of Maryland prep school kids who have repeated a middle school year."

overwhelming majority? Let's not get carried away. So much of this is driven by perception and not reality. For instance a Canadian club plays their teams down a year because they perceive that that's what all US teams do. What is true that if you have a summer birthday (Sept 1 is cutoff in MD) and go to a MD private grade school that they'll almost always make the kid do a pre 1st. So maybe a third of the private school grammar kids are held back. But what's the percentage of families that are willing and able to foot $20-30K for grade school even amongst the lax community? For the rest of us public school families (the overwhelming majority) you start your kid in kindergarten if he/she is 5 before 9/1 unless you can show the school system a reason. Yes there are some misguided folks who have their kid repeat a grade in middle school for sports- usually 8th grade. But that's just a handful of kids each year and some private allow that and others don't. My point is not to defend reclassing but lend perspective to the reality. I know this by being involved rec lacrosse in Baltimore for many years. My estimate is that on average you will have around 3-4 kids on a grade based MD team that wouldn't qualify for the equivalent age-based with 9/1 cutoff. And most of those hold back kids are in within 3 months of what the us lax age cutoff would be. So personally I think the single year grade works just as well as 2 year age that had been the norm for so many years. Though I would be in full support of single year age. Not sure that will happen.



I do have personal experience in private school here in Baltimore. My sons class had 50% of the boys held back not 30%, maybe others less. Many weren't summer babies, of course many were. One boy whose father is involved in lacrosse had a fall birthday. Kid was already one of the older children in the proper grade but holding him back made him older by far than most in his grade. This is going to be the first year that ALl club teams are grade base in MD. 4-5 held back kids out there is over half the starters. How is that fair to the proper age children??

A two year age compared to a single grade is the same thing in MD due to holdbacks. If the leagues can do single grade , there is no reason not to do single age..unless the held back kids fathers and their cheerleaders want them to play down and get an advantage. Maryland and the drivers of grade base teams know full well what they are doing and the youth Lacrosse community is worst off for this behavior ,,, all in the name of getting a select few an edge.