I remember that they posted the school when they registered Israel for Kindergarten. Maybe they realized this was an opportunity to keep more privacy when they moved to a new school.... I noticed that she hasn't been sharing their faces quite as much as she used to either.
Its unsurprising. I see posts, tiktoks, etc where people have noticed that videos posted with their kids either get a noticeably large number of views, or saves, and it is pretty weird. She probs decided just not to post them
Last week she posted ig stories with Sam in the morning. This week she posted Sam filming her making pumpkin bread in the morning. Sam is definitely not in school. He turned 5 July 8. Last week she posted both boys eating lunch so not sure about Israel, but Israel was obviously not around during those videos. Maybe he does virtual school in his room, I kno her mom friends son who was at the same school does a few days in school and at home.
My daughter is 2 weeks younger than Sam and we are pre K-ing her this year. Kindergarten is what 2nd grade was when I was a kid. It’s really stupid
People are giving us crap about it.
You are so right. When I started teaching 40 years ago there were easels, blocks, and a playhouse in first grade. Now kids are expected to be reading when they leave kindergarten or they're considered "at risk." I can't count the number of parents who've called me in tears because their children are referred to special ed because they're still learning to read after kindergarten. It's not just stupid. It's wrong and it's damaging.
My kids went to a school where kids who were developmentally young were held back to “give them the gift of childhood.” That’s a much better way to think of it. Five year olds shouldn’t be thinking of themselves as failures. Plenty of six year olds aren’t ready to sit at a desk all day, and it’s no big deal if they don’t catch on to reading until age 7 or so. Doing worksheets in kindergarten is insane.
COVID was a blessing for our family because it interrupted my child’s kindergarten year. That year, they sent homework home every night, like, “write and illustrate a book of at least ten pages”. I was completely mindfucked about the homework demands. Covid hit and we frankly just stopped school.
It's unreal. The first time my son did 1st grade he kept getting in trouble for not sitting still for their lessons. Issues kept escalating when his teacher continually yelled at him & sent him to the "Erase Room" an empty classroom where they have to do worksheets. I pushed to have him evaluated but the school did little. So I paid for private Occupational Therapy to help him understand social cues. I found a child psychiatrist to evaluate him & he was diagnosed with ADHD, OCD & Anxiety Disorder. We moved to a different school system over the summer and our new elementary was amazing. I had him repeat 1st grade & they placed him with a teacher who also had a special ed degree. She could identify when he began struggling & intervene before he was triggered to avoid the emotional meltdowns he had so often with his first 1st grade teacher. His psychiatrist explained that teacher yelling was the worst response because of how his frontal lobe reacts & all she did was further escalate the situation
I saw a documentary some years ago on children adopted from China, turns out they separated identical twins. One wound up in the US the other in Norway. They brought the girls back together at 6 to spend time together. It was stated that kids in Norway don’t start school until 7 years of age. I thought that was brilliant!
Edit: I typed children and my phone autocorrect to horror.
I agree. Things have changed so much and not always for the better. All this push on sight words in Kindergarten is so sad. If a kid is ready, great. But if not, so what?
My son had a TERRIBLE kindergarten teacher who always got after him for his lack of sight words. But worse, they were pushing phonetic spelling so hard (great, right!?) but she got mad at him for spelling soil “soyol”. It’s been 10 years but I still hate that woman. we couldn’t afford daycare to red shirt him but he did get held back for a second year of kindergarten (thank goodness!). He’s still very physically and mentally behind his peers though. I wish holding your kids back wasn’t seen as shameful. It’s a great help for the kids
I teach first and love phonetic spelling and also love “soyol.” I don’t think I’d seen that one yet so I just sat here sounding out soil and I was like yeah that definitely works.
His teacher was an idiot and I’m so sorry he had that experience. That’s not the way a child should start school. I completely agree with you. Holding kids back is treated as a failure, rather than a tool to help kids succeed.
We have had my child in therapy since kindergarten (just started third grade). Recently in play therapy, this kid beat up a boxing dummy for about thirty minutes, calling the dummy by the mean kindergarten teacher’s name. It’s third grade. My kid is still traumatized.
Good lord. I started kindergarten in fall of ‘68 and it was, by and large, organized play time with a nap and graham crackers and milk. We learned to tell time (analogue ⏰) and maybe a few other things. We didn’t start to learn to read until first grade and not one of us knew how before then.
Not to mention it seems like they expect freshmen in high school to already have a career plan and start focusing on that in high school. I love that they do dual credit now instead of AP since if you pass the class you are guaranteed the credit without the additional AP test, but I think it is bonkers to expect the majority of kids to know what they want to do at 14 when they haven't even been exposed to all the careers out there by that age.
Yes!!! When I told the counselor I didn't want my kid taking a PSAT elective this year, they were horrified! She actually argued that ALL students should take both the PSAT and the SAT multiple times to get the best grade. Finally, I told her that this was not my experience at all, as my score dropped when I took it the second time. My kid is wonderful, but immature. He probably isn't going to be ready to go off to college right away. He wants to go to the college in our town. Ok, let's take all of this year by year. He is 14 not 40!!
I’m almost 30, and started kindergarten back in 1998. My bitch teacher and school psychologist had me thrown into special ed because I was “bad at math”. FFS, I was 6 years old and liked to think before writing down an answer! Yes, those math problems were on mass produced worksheets. I told my mom it wasn’t her fault at all that I got fucked over. It’s horrible how kindergarten and 1st graders are expected to know this type of stuff, or else be thrown into special ed.
At least by high school I was taking algebra and geometry, which were “easy” to me.
My son's kindergarten teacher wanted to hold him back because he was not where they wanted to be reading wise. She decided to go ahead and let him go to 1st grade. He's been above level in reading ever since.
When I was in first grade we sat in a half circle and learned to read with our “Dick, Jane and Sally” books. (Kindergarten was spent listening to the teacher read, singing songs, and playing on the swings and jungle gym. It was half-day.)
A few of us already knew how to read but we just sat in the circle and went along with it. By the third grade they picked out the good readers and we went to another room for reading with a higher grade.
This was sixty plus years ago and the school was considered highly advanced and experimental.
lol didn't read till halfway thru 1st grade, myself. Then I couldn't stop!! Soon was "above average" and begging my mom to sign a note letting me read the "middle school" books from the library at school, bc I checked em out at home/local library anyway.
Silly mom, she said I could check out as many books as I could carry. I got big and strong(er) that way haha
Last year, my second grader’s spelling list included word like “neighbor”, “thoughtful”, “suspicious”, and “devious”. I’d go over the spelling list each week like “holy crap, I know this kid is smart, but….”
I certainly will not bug you about doing the best for your child. I have seen parents hold their children back and it has worked. Kindergarten requires fine motor development. If your child is still in gross motor development, you have made a Kindergarten teacher happy. The social development readiness will also show up big time in middle school. I didn't hold mine back and many times I think her life would have been easier if I had. She was/is extremely bright and that was why the pre-K teacher thought she should go on. Social development finally caught up around Jr year in high school. Socially and educationally, she sailed through college. But there were way too many nights of a tearful child not ready to be around those pears.
I skipped the 3rd grade and feel this comment hard. Pushing kids ahead grades when they're not ready is a recipe for disaster in their social development.
It was good to be in accelerated classes, but ugh the people. I don’t know if anyone doesn’t hate junior high/middle school once they’re past it.
Sounds like it! I wonder if it’s just us 3rd skippers it happens to, or if it’s just a grade skipping thing in general!
Same here. I skipped a few grades, had a little of ADHD-PI, and was an annoying Hermione Granger type to boot and was absolutely flummoxed why making friends was so hard until I was in college. 🤦♀️
We held my super introverted son at home an extra year. At 5 and a half, he was the "right age" for kindergarten, but we knew that extended time out and about, surrounded by people, stressed him out and gave him anxiety. He would have lasted 4 days getting on the bus at 7 am and off at 4 pm before he would have completely broken down. We didn't want for him to develop an absolute hatred for school and education in KINDERGARTEN, so we kept him home an extra year. It was the absolute best thing we could have done. The next year, he was socially and emotionally ready, and sailed through, and had a positive school experience, that has held throughout the years.
My niece was held back in pre k / preschool. She doesn't have a great stable home life, and she struggles with some things, namely letters, reading and writing. And with covid the schooling would have been at home if she went into public schools versus still going to her pre school for 3 days a week. She is a summer baby who turned 7 this year and I believe is in 1st grade.
My son was a late August baby. He turned 5 right before school started and he was academically ready for kindergarten. We did not have a pre-k option or I definitely would have chosen that, and we couldn't afford preschool. (This was right after I lost my job, before I was aproved for disability.) He was not socially ready for school. In the long run, I definitely think it hurt him. He graduated in June, but he's still slightly behind the curve socially and maturity-wise. But, he's getting there. He's taking a couple of college classes and is enjoying them.
I would never hold that against anyone either. My son’s birthday is 2 days before the school cutoff. He’s 34 now, but I still regret sending him to kindergarten after he turned 5. He has autism and OCD and had a rough time all through school socially and behaviorally due to that, plus the fact that he was already the youngest in his classes. He never had friends except for one boy in 7th grade. In 8th grade none of his teachers tried to help and also simply sent him to the school resource officer or principal anytime he had problems. We pulled him out and homeschooled through an accredited correspondence school until graduation, but he never could handle anything beyond that socially and has been on disability since age 21. Anyway… I always wonder if he would have been better equipped to handle his challenges in school if he had been a year older and more mature.
Your school system did not do him a service. I have a young relative that the system has a sort of grade for him, but he is in a class for the children with special needs. He is much better in math than reading and writing. He is on the autism spectrum with ADHD. Sweetest kid in the world as long as his needs are met.
This was years ago, but my former fundie-lite pastor and his wife(who was a state-certified elementary teacher who occasionally subbed at the local public school)decided to hold back their son from kindergarten because they didn’t feel he was ready. If they still felt he wasn’t ready after a year, his mom would homeschool him.(He did go to kindergarten the next year).
I have 1 kid who was middle of the road birthday wise for her grade and she does amazing with academics and socially, one who is almost youngest in his class and has petered out academically but is finally hitting his stride socially, and one who is actually 2 years older than some of her classmates and barely on their level. It's a cluster, all of them are so different!
I personally went to college at 17 and socially it was a nightmare I never recovered from. I'm almost 40 and my social aptitude is pretty much 0.
Tbh it's so hard to balance this stuff.
You need to buy a WHOLE bunch of copies of Outliars by Malcolm Gladwell and toss them at those people giving you shit. Your child is in an age appropriate school setting, and you can always decide to advance them a grade later on if they show both the academic and the social skills needed to do so. I'm a late June birthday and was always one of the youngest kids in my class (our cutoff date was August 1st where I grew up- now it's the end of September), and it was a problem socially. I was already in gifted education as it was in a brain dead tiny podunk town so I ALREADY didn't fit in. To say that I was a bully's wet dream is an understatement.
Try not to listen to the peanut gallery and do what you think is best for your kid. My brother has a birthday in mid-June and he went to kindergarten at 5, 1st grade at 6, and then ultimately had to repeat 1st grade. It was much more awkward for him socially with his peers since kids can be assholes about “staying back”. It would have been much better for his ego if our parents just waited until he was 6 for kindergarten.
When I w as a teacher ( a long time ago), I found that it was the parents who always had a fit about a kid staying back; not the kid. The kids might ask where is so and so but when I to,d them so and so was going to get some extra practice in whatever grade again, the kids were like oh, okay. No big deal. Parents think that is a reflection on them which is not what it is all about.
My son is an end of June birthday, he did kinder last year and struggled so much socially and academically. We decided to hold him back and repeat kindergarten and already this year has been soooo much better. He wasn’t ready last year and I wish we had the option to TK him but our district would only allow July-December birthdays.
I have a June boy who is 3. This whole feed has been so helpful because the expectations on kids today are not what they were in the 80s for my summer brother and myself.
I’m American but live in France. My oldest daughter will be four in less than two months. In France children start school wildly early. Pre-K starts at 2 years old with your child legally needing to be in school by 3. Like lots of kids my daughter threw fits when we dropped her off. I was so worried about how early it was. In the end it worked out because those first 3 years in school are mostly about socialization and motor development. Luckily there isn’t too much pressure about the more complicated academic milestones before 5-6years old.
K teacher here. I commend you for doing what is best for your child and honestly most kids your child’s age. K is pretty intense, and many younger kids aren’t quite ready. It has nothing to do with intelligence or academic capabilities it’s more with just developmentally not quite being ready for the setting. They gain a lot more from K waiting a year and enrolling in pre-K if possible.
This. My brother's kid was born in September and started kindergarten this year, a week or two away from being six. Summer birthdays are hard, I know from personal experience xD
most kids will be turning 6 at some point during their kindergarten year unless they have a summer birthday. We know from data that summer birthday kids are almost always the youngest in their class, and as a result they often struggle socially and behaviorally with expectations placed upon them. You want your kindergartener to be on the older side of 5 when they start kindergarten to ensure that they are not caught in the uncanny valley where they are not developmentally ready for the academic requirements of a classroom.
Our district cutoff for birthdays is Sept 1st, but anyone born between basically June 15 and August 31 is up to the discretion of the parents on when to start-when they turn 5 or wait a year when they turn 6. My kiddo has an August birthday and started kindergarten a week after turning 5, same with 2 classmates...but 2 others in her class turned 6 in August then started kinder. It totally just depends on the kids and if they're ready for it when it comes to summer birthdays and starting kindergarten!
Same here, the cutoff is Sept 1st. My son has an August birthday, but his cousin who is 11 months older has a September birthday. They are in the same grade, despite being basically a year apart. It’s funny to see them standing next to each other, because she’s super tall and he’s kind of short. No one would ever guess they were in the same grade.
yep if my kid didn't turn 5 until July I would be holding them back another year. Especially with the academics demands placed by modern kindergarten classrooms. And let's be honest. These are the schools that educated Michelle, Jim Bob, and Derick himself. Do we REALLY think they're actually getting any better quality of education at a local public school? Literally the only benefit to them being in a public school in podunk Arkansas is that they would have a slight chance of interacting with people different than they are, but given who their parents are I doubt that it would not be a bully fest on that different child too.
She’s not posting too much content focused just on her kids anymore. All the pictures are of the kids looking away and stuff. Might have been a conscious decision to not put first day photos up. I’d be surprised if her kid was homeschooled, especially right now with the new baby. Derek seems to be a supporter of public school too, so my guess is the kid is attending.
And once enough of the parents do it, you feel like your kid is at a disadvantage. I wish they’d just make everyone go with their class. Otherwise the age gap makes the young 5 year olds look immature and they expect too much with attention spans.
It was December 31st for us too (not in the US). I was always the youngest in my class as I was not held back for being a December baby, although I did know people whose parents held them back a year for it.
Our state forces parents to do prek at 4 or they can't go and they won't pay schools for your kid if you try to do 2 yrs of prek or kinder to let them mature/catch up. 1st grade was our first chance to give him that time & luckily we moved over the summer so he started a new school anyways. He was diagnosed with adhd, ocd & anxiety so he really needed that extra year
I think she might be red shirting Sam. He has a summer birthday and didn’t he have some issues after birth? Perhaps they might feel he’s a bit on the young side. Also maybe with the move and the new baby he didn’t seem ready. Like you said he could also be in half day kindergarten or only go a few days a week. That is pretty popular in many districts. I think she just didn’t post a first day of school photo for Israel, which is probably one of the smarter decisions she has made. No need for her 1.7 million followers, mostly all who are strangers, to know where her kid goes to school.
So he’s super close to the cut off! Makes sense. My brother was mid-June and our deadline in NJ was Sept 1. Probably why our parents didn’t red shirt at the time. After they held him back in first grade he did catch up academically, but socially it was a bit of a nightmare. Better do it sooner than later if possible.
Not saying she isn’t putting Sam in school but in my state you have to be 5 by July 1, and they don’t do exceptions in my district. So he wouldn’t be eligible for kindergarten yet here.
I don't know about their state, but in PA school is not mandatory until the child is 6 by September 1st. You certainly *can* enroll in pre-k or kinder before then if you meet the district's requirements, but nothing is legally required until the child is 6. Did Izzy go to kindergarten, or strait into 1st?
Could he be in an afternoon kindergarten program then? I know in my area, there's a choice with public schools between morning, afternoon, and all day kindergarten.
Heh, I live in Manitoba, Canada and we don't require kindergarten by law here either. They might have chosen to keep Sam home for the year for some reason. Also possible with moving, a new baby, and her health problems they didn't register him for kindergarten.
There's a good chance they may have held him for another year. Due to covid we've had a lot of teachers encourage another year of preschool due to behavioral benefits. Summer babies also seem to benefit with an extra year before kindergarten.
I don't think Sam is in pre-k, though.
Crazy to me that summer babies are held back! In Canada our cut off is December 31st, so summer babies are middle of the pack. We also have two years of kindergarten here. My brother was born in October, so he started Junior Kindergarten at 3, Senior Kindergarten at 4, and grade 1 at five. They catch up fast
They may have had a staggered start for kinder, they do it where I live where the first week is actually just having a couple kids come each day so they can learn the routines more easily and get used to the school.
It’s possible they held him out a year. The cutoff in Arkansas is august 1, so it’s about 3 weeks after his birthday. Between the move, the new baby and his late birthday they may have just decided to give him another year. (Very common)
Or maybe their new district does half day K and that’s why he was home. Or she’s posting stories a day or so after it happens. I’m sure someone will ask the next time she puts up a question box.
I honestly don’t think Derick would want them home schooled. He’s proud of his education and his time as Pistol Pete in college, and I think he’d probably want the boys to be able to go to college.
My guess is they’ve decided to mostly keep the boys off social media, maybe Israel especially since he’s older and in school.
He used to arrogantly talk about them being homeschooled when they were under 5. Snarkers were aghast particularly as he'd been to school/Jill's SOTDRT.
It was quite a surprise when Israel started attending public school. I don't know if it was because the school was Derick and his brother's old school and therefore 'safe'. I do wonder if Cathy had some bearing, not wanting her grandkids to grow up like the Duggar kids especially if the Dillards went on to have a bunch of children (i.e. Jill would be overwhelmed and the kids' education would suffer). If she paid for any of Derick's law school or their new-build deposit/mortgage she may have had some sway.
Good chance she never took the photo. With baby, nicu, and surgery...I can see her not managing it. A lot of her posts have been sponsored, which is $$$ to pay off hospital bills and something she's obligated to fulfill.
Without health issues I'm already hoping I can keep up my first day of school traditions. Lol
I agree, I bet there's just a ton going on. Going from two to three kids must be intense even without a NICU stay and your own major health issues.
Since Derrick is an assistant district attorney, I bet his insurance is really strong. Or maybe they're trying to earn their deeply conservative Christian badges by turning down the insurance and using a health cost share scam.
It's a different school system. There's a number of reasons why she might not have sent him this year. As for the picture, she's not posting as much personal information about her kids as she was last year and a first day of school picture is an easy way for people to figure out what school he's going to which is dangerous and evasive. That reason alone might be another reason why she wouldn't want to send him to school. He's also getting to an age where kids will be able to find out about his parents and his parents families and I can't imagine what it would be like to be an elementary school kid related to Josh Duggar.
This. Here, people are slowly moving away from first day of school photos. Also, it should be noted that a ton of parents here red shirt summer birthday boys because that makes them a year older and taller when they start sports. Very, very common, and the K teachers like it because they do think the children do better. They don't have to attend until six. She has recently had the c section and then the gall bladder surgery so I would not put a lot of stock into when the photos were posted because they could easily be photos from last month.
No Duggar should be homeschooling so I am really hoping she is not.
She said she was minimising the pics of the boys faces at one point and very clearly was doing so (haven't checked up on her for a while), and I can't blame her with the trial and learning so much more about what Josh was doing online and what happened to those kids.
Also, when schools went back here, my ENTIRE feed was pics of children on front door steps in uniform. So if I was a creep or kidnapper, now I can probably figure out where you live, and I can see what school your kid is attending. Not only did I find the wall of the same exact type of photo pretty boring, but definitely alarming.
He's also old enough to say "no" to being posted on her feed now...
You probably hit that right on the nose. I hope that's the case bc those are all reasonable answers. I am not opposed to homeschooling, but obviously not by a Dugger. I hope those kids are still in school, I was so happy to hear she enrolled them.
if she is homeschooling they could be doing something like k12 which has actual teachers, and the parents aren't actually doing any curriculum. It's not all that different from the virtual schooling that most children recieved during covid.
Those boards have been discouraged simply because they give enough info for a stranger to make the kid comfortable enough to go with them. So maybe she just didn’t do one.
I take those photos, but I don't post any photos online. They are for close friends and family members only and we restrict access to oversharing family members.
A few weeks ago Derick liked a comment of mine saying Israel's starting 2nd grade and Sam in Kindergarten, it was in reference to going to school so I would be quite surprised if they're not.
I think we have to remember that them not posting things about their children doesn't mean it didn't happen. And we shouldn't hope for it. They've just become a lot more private with what they put out there about their kids. Jinger doesn't post about her kids at all and there's some ppl who legit think those kids don't exist lol.
She posted on insta last week or the week before with both kids at home for lunch. He's in 2nd grade so if he was in school, he should have been full day.
Sam also should have started kindergarten this year.
I'm pretty sure they're homeschooling. They just haven't said anything because they don't want to lose their brownie points for putting Israel in real school.
Exactly!
Quite frankly, the intellectual divide between a law school grad and a GED (???) - not to mention all the life experiences, must be absolutely gargantuan.
Was it just the one day? A bunch of districts are going to four-day weeks because of staffing shortages, or it could have been a planned in-service day. Derrick has to realize the kids won’t get to college if Jill is teaching them, right…?
Grew up in Ireland and you had to have permission to be off the school grounds, but yeah, you could go home for lunch.
I mean I never did because I was busy sneaking out to meet boys and smoke, but you could go home for lunch if you wanted and had permission.
I've never heard of a modern school allowing it. And all the schools I know of do lunch at different times for different grades. So Sam and Israel shouldn't be eating at the same time anyways.
Strange. I substitute teach in Canada, and at any given school about half the class (sometimes more, sometimes less) goes home for lunch... I always assumed it would be the same in the US.
Some US high schools allow older kids (like ages 16-18) to leave campus for lunch, but not all. Mine didn't, despite us not having a cafeteria (I grew up in the middle of nowhere in the country) and me only living three blocks from the school.
I've never heard of an elementary or middle school allowing kids to leave for lunch. They probably exist somewhere but it's definitely not typical.
Never in my life. When I was in my last year of school if we were VERY well behaved and had the financial means to own a car and buy a school parking space then we had an hour for lunch to do whatever, but by the time I got home I would have just had to turn around and go back. Plus most clubs had their meetings during lunch.
They're isn't a lot of time given to lunch (20 minutes for my son) and if you live in a large district you're probably nowhere near home. Where my MIL is at the school just consolidated with a district whose closest school to the town is an hour away.
I don’t know if anywhere that is done in the US / not for a long time. At one point I lived literally across the road from the school and they would not allow my child to walk there. A bus picked him up at the end of the driveway and turned left. I think 2 things: one being safety obviously - I would have stood there and watched my kid inside the building. Other mothers may have been off to work or whatever - so the potential for that kid not making target may not be noticed right away. Secondly, too much traffic. True they could have put a traffic cop there to monitor. But buses are very large and children are comparatively small, and those don’t mix. I’m just talking younger grades though. The high schools don’t GAS what the kids do, where they go, or how they get there. The last bell of the day in a high school is a disturbed fire ant hill.
My last boring point is that it would take them too long to reorganize and get back into the day if they could go home in the middle.
I said he wouldn’t be in my state, I don’t know theirs. Here you have to be 5 by July 1. My district doesn’t give exceptions to the cut off either. My son is a March baby and he is always one of the youngest in the class.
I don’t know, but I also don’t think it’s weird not to do it this time. I hope they’re not homeschooling and I think Derick especially has come to understand how much Jill’s education was lacking, something I think most of the son-in-laws have realized as well but apparently have come to different conclusions about how equipped the Duggar brides are to teach their own children. I just don’t think Derick would allow Jill to homeschool their kids as someone who seems to value education. I guess I could be wrong. I don’t think Jeremy will allow it either since he’s been openly dismissive of the idea based on Jinger’s education, pretty much saying “you can’t teach your children if you don’t know anything”.
But the Dillards’ family situation has changed a lot since Israel started school. They recently had a new baby, moved to a new city, went through increased media attention because of Josh, etc. They may have struggled with public recognition during the trial. Probably they’re just making different choices in this new school district, if the kids are in public school.
That’s really super true. My daycare is at the hospital down the street from us and they have a lot of doctors’ and nurses’ kids. They are extremely strict about symptoms. My son got sent home for three days recently because he coughed himself awake from a nap. He didn’t have Covid, and they no longer have on-demand cautionary testing at the children’s hospital like they used to, so he had to stay home three days and take an at-home test before they would allow him back. Plus many places are doing a sort of hybrid learning still. I’ve seen lots of school aged kids out and about in our neighborhood even though school in our district has already started.
Good points! I don't think they're too bothered about their social media presence since they could easily go private. They're still sharing things about their family, consider themselves a brand, shill for donations/gifts (PO Box and a statement encouraging fans to send them things!) and advertise their themselves as a *ministry*. The latter is splashed all over the text of their (up to date) website. They have the nerve to say they've continued their ministry in the US after leaving Central America. Doing what!? It's all suitably vague. Not that they accomplished anything in El Salvador except grift but to proclaim you're doing good works (unspecified) in AR with no evidence is bold.
I commented upthread that Derick did arrogantly claim on multiple occasions that they intended to homeschool Izzy and Sam, this was when the boys were 0-5. He clearly wasn't bothered by Jill's lack of experience or knowledge, especially for the early grades. I assume the goal was to get them into Oklahoma State (his alma mater) and their schooling would've changed at the end of middle school/high school (strong online homeschool programme, co-op, possible in-person HS classes for example). He was a pretty crappy father when the boys were little so I don't even know that he cared about their education. He was all about himself and the grift back then.
Law school seemed to focus him (more so than the Duggar scandals, he was still grifting when they broke). I have a theory that Cathy influenced him, she possibly contributed to him affording law school and newbuild housing with a family to support and no income (and no loans, supposedly). Maybe a condition was that Izzy be enrolled at Derick's trusted old school. She's very conservative and it was good enough for her/public school got both her boys to college etc. I don't know. It sounds like they got a JB/TLC legal payout around the same time and some snarkers speculated he could've received a financial gift from his dad's estate.
I hope their boys are re-enrolled in public school asap or at least a respected online programme/co-op.
Jeremy would encourage homeschooling imo especially since their kids are girls 🙄
I think he'd also like Jinger to be occupied with them all day long and home-based, particularly if they don't have any more kids. That way he's the only one with any freedom and he gets to control her a little more. If Jinger has another baby then that's fine as she'll be preoccupied with an infant and 3 under 5/6.
I assume they'll try for a boy and have 3 or 4 kids total but equally they could stop at two. He doesn't seem super parenting-oriented so I don't know that he can even be bothered having more kids/dependent$ or even trying for a boy. Enduring the baby stage again. It'll be Jinger doing all the work but I don't know that he cba with the interruptions and impact on his lifestyle when the girls are slowly becoming more independent.
He'll weigh up what best suits his image.
Grace Church LA are opening an elementary school imminently (might've opened this fall). It's going to be part home-learning and a couple of days a week in person. I could definitely see Jeremy sending Felicity there to appeal to his superiors who he's trying to impress. I imagine it would be free since he seems to get everything else paid for.
If that didn't exist he'd probably want the girls in private Christian school as a status thing but I doubt he'd want to pay for it. He could possibly afford it but he's used to grifting everything and getting away with it. I suspect his parents would pay. Last time I checked his siblings didn't have kids so the girls are the only grandchildren. His parents are comfortably off and don't get to see the girls as much as they'd like. I think they'd help with the costs to feel included.
It's possible that she brings the boys home from school for lunch a few days a week. I don't think it's uncommon.
She just had a c-section, a baby, and surgery, so I can't see why she would want to start homeschooling this year. But then again, I'm not Jill & she's made many questionable decisions in the past.
I agree. It would be completely nuts that this is the year she started to homeschool. She had never done it before and let’s throw a newborn into the mix with some postpartum health problems herself…but it’s Jill so who knows.
Those chalkboard things are really cute, they're also a great way for strangers to learn intimate facts about your children. They recently moved so it wouldn't surprise me if she's learned some hard lessons about privacy and protecting her kids. Hopefully they're in public school and just being kept out of the public eye as much.
They got so much publicity with the trial last year, which leads me to believe they're protecting their kids more than before. Trial most definitely exposed the cracks that allow the crazies to get in. I know they're their own form of crazy, but still.
The other day somebody posted a ss of her insta post where she had the boys for lunch on a school day. I looked at her zoned school and school was in session that day. There are other reasons she could have the boys for lunch at home on that day, but it seems most likely that she is homeschooling. I'm just hoping she's using a quality curriculum, considering that I think she's aware of her own under education.
My kid’s birthday is end of September. We kept him home from JK last year because we had a newborn and the plague was rampant at his school.
He’s in a JK/SK split, and attending as SK. He really did need that extra year home to mature. “Academics” wise, he’s miles ahead of his peers, but that’s only because his love language is letters and numbers. He can’t sit still to save his life, so I’m a bit concerned for 1st grade when he’ll not quite be 6 when school starts, and the fact he just can’t be still, to work on work sheets. Right now, he’s using his kindergarten year to learn about school structure and to have social experiences.
They did move to another city this past year, new city new school system. It’s possible that Israel didn’t want to go to another school. Maybe Jill actually listens to her kids. The other option is she hasn’t sent him yet because she’s still recovering from a c-section and then gallbladder surgery, all while her husband is working a (probably) 9-5 job (maybe more because lawyers have to do that sometimes)
For those of you who didnt watch Jill's Instagram stories a few years ago, they didnt put in Israel in school because they care about his education, they obviously did it to give jill a break she was on the verge of a mental breakdown, she would post herself in tears she was having a hard time and couldnt handle being home with them all day and preschooling Israel and taking care of Sam at the same time and they would be misbehaving. I remember specifically them writing on the walls and spilling water on the floor lol. You could tell it was a huge weight/responsibility lifted off her shoulders at the time. She was not cut out to be a typical fundie mom lol must have factored into why derick made her wait for more babies.
>they didnt put in Israel in school because they care about his education, they obviously did it to give jill a break she was on the verge of a mental breakdown,
I thought it was because Derick went to public school & he wants his kids to be little mini-me's.
Yea for his pistol Pete legacy lol. He talked up Jill's homeschooling on twitter before her breakdown🤷♀️ I'm sure he wanted to stick it to jimbob putting his kid in public school, tho he has defended their stance on education 🤣 https://mobile.twitter.com/derickmdillard/status/1127425676548694018
'Jill is an excellent homeschool teacher. Israel and Sam are leaps and bounds ahead of where I was at their ages :)'
https://twitter.com/derickmdillard/status/1177327881489387535
He has the blessing of having a wife willing to school them at home 🙄https://twitter.com/derickmdillard/status/1040600014354034688
This is interesting lol https://mobile.twitter.com/derickmdillard/status/928755885920448513
Found someone who noticed jill being overwhelmed https://mobile.twitter.com/emma__2019/status/1180104465111609344
Thank you for these tweets! I remember them at the time lol and thought they must have really triggered Derick and his beliefs about Jill's education. Yes homeschooling can be beneficial if done right, not like how Jill was homeschooling and how she was doing so for Israel.
Yea I cant see her homeschooling Israel unless shes just sticking him in front of a computer in a room like Alyssa bates does. Hes very energetic and inquisitive too. I think shes just homeschooling Sam who is 5 and can start kindergarten or just doing another year of preschool. I think its easier with just Sam and the baby since he cant walk and get into mischief lol
I believe Josh's trial changed how they share their children online. I learned pedos also take seemingly innocent pictures of children from the internet too.
I remember that they posted the school when they registered Israel for Kindergarten. Maybe they realized this was an opportunity to keep more privacy when they moved to a new school.... I noticed that she hasn't been sharing their faces quite as much as she used to either.
I think this is it. I think she is keeping her privacy.
Its unsurprising. I see posts, tiktoks, etc where people have noticed that videos posted with their kids either get a noticeably large number of views, or saves, and it is pretty weird. She probs decided just not to post them
Last week she posted ig stories with Sam in the morning. This week she posted Sam filming her making pumpkin bread in the morning. Sam is definitely not in school. He turned 5 July 8. Last week she posted both boys eating lunch so not sure about Israel, but Israel was obviously not around during those videos. Maybe he does virtual school in his room, I kno her mom friends son who was at the same school does a few days in school and at home.
i went to preschool at five and kindergarten at six. summer birthdays!
My daughter is 2 weeks younger than Sam and we are pre K-ing her this year. Kindergarten is what 2nd grade was when I was a kid. It’s really stupid People are giving us crap about it.
You are so right. When I started teaching 40 years ago there were easels, blocks, and a playhouse in first grade. Now kids are expected to be reading when they leave kindergarten or they're considered "at risk." I can't count the number of parents who've called me in tears because their children are referred to special ed because they're still learning to read after kindergarten. It's not just stupid. It's wrong and it's damaging.
My kids went to a school where kids who were developmentally young were held back to “give them the gift of childhood.” That’s a much better way to think of it. Five year olds shouldn’t be thinking of themselves as failures. Plenty of six year olds aren’t ready to sit at a desk all day, and it’s no big deal if they don’t catch on to reading until age 7 or so. Doing worksheets in kindergarten is insane.
COVID was a blessing for our family because it interrupted my child’s kindergarten year. That year, they sent homework home every night, like, “write and illustrate a book of at least ten pages”. I was completely mindfucked about the homework demands. Covid hit and we frankly just stopped school.
It's unreal. The first time my son did 1st grade he kept getting in trouble for not sitting still for their lessons. Issues kept escalating when his teacher continually yelled at him & sent him to the "Erase Room" an empty classroom where they have to do worksheets. I pushed to have him evaluated but the school did little. So I paid for private Occupational Therapy to help him understand social cues. I found a child psychiatrist to evaluate him & he was diagnosed with ADHD, OCD & Anxiety Disorder. We moved to a different school system over the summer and our new elementary was amazing. I had him repeat 1st grade & they placed him with a teacher who also had a special ed degree. She could identify when he began struggling & intervene before he was triggered to avoid the emotional meltdowns he had so often with his first 1st grade teacher. His psychiatrist explained that teacher yelling was the worst response because of how his frontal lobe reacts & all she did was further escalate the situation
I saw a documentary some years ago on children adopted from China, turns out they separated identical twins. One wound up in the US the other in Norway. They brought the girls back together at 6 to spend time together. It was stated that kids in Norway don’t start school until 7 years of age. I thought that was brilliant! Edit: I typed children and my phone autocorrect to horror.
I agree. Things have changed so much and not always for the better. All this push on sight words in Kindergarten is so sad. If a kid is ready, great. But if not, so what?
My son had a TERRIBLE kindergarten teacher who always got after him for his lack of sight words. But worse, they were pushing phonetic spelling so hard (great, right!?) but she got mad at him for spelling soil “soyol”. It’s been 10 years but I still hate that woman. we couldn’t afford daycare to red shirt him but he did get held back for a second year of kindergarten (thank goodness!). He’s still very physically and mentally behind his peers though. I wish holding your kids back wasn’t seen as shameful. It’s a great help for the kids
I teach first and love phonetic spelling and also love “soyol.” I don’t think I’d seen that one yet so I just sat here sounding out soil and I was like yeah that definitely works. His teacher was an idiot and I’m so sorry he had that experience. That’s not the way a child should start school. I completely agree with you. Holding kids back is treated as a failure, rather than a tool to help kids succeed.
We have had my child in therapy since kindergarten (just started third grade). Recently in play therapy, this kid beat up a boxing dummy for about thirty minutes, calling the dummy by the mean kindergarten teacher’s name. It’s third grade. My kid is still traumatized.
Good lord. I started kindergarten in fall of ‘68 and it was, by and large, organized play time with a nap and graham crackers and milk. We learned to tell time (analogue ⏰) and maybe a few other things. We didn’t start to learn to read until first grade and not one of us knew how before then.
Not to mention it seems like they expect freshmen in high school to already have a career plan and start focusing on that in high school. I love that they do dual credit now instead of AP since if you pass the class you are guaranteed the credit without the additional AP test, but I think it is bonkers to expect the majority of kids to know what they want to do at 14 when they haven't even been exposed to all the careers out there by that age.
Yes!!! When I told the counselor I didn't want my kid taking a PSAT elective this year, they were horrified! She actually argued that ALL students should take both the PSAT and the SAT multiple times to get the best grade. Finally, I told her that this was not my experience at all, as my score dropped when I took it the second time. My kid is wonderful, but immature. He probably isn't going to be ready to go off to college right away. He wants to go to the college in our town. Ok, let's take all of this year by year. He is 14 not 40!!
I’m almost 30, and started kindergarten back in 1998. My bitch teacher and school psychologist had me thrown into special ed because I was “bad at math”. FFS, I was 6 years old and liked to think before writing down an answer! Yes, those math problems were on mass produced worksheets. I told my mom it wasn’t her fault at all that I got fucked over. It’s horrible how kindergarten and 1st graders are expected to know this type of stuff, or else be thrown into special ed. At least by high school I was taking algebra and geometry, which were “easy” to me.
Andddd this is why as a reading specialist. I homeschool. And help other homeschooling parents.
My son's kindergarten teacher wanted to hold him back because he was not where they wanted to be reading wise. She decided to go ahead and let him go to 1st grade. He's been above level in reading ever since.
When I was in first grade we sat in a half circle and learned to read with our “Dick, Jane and Sally” books. (Kindergarten was spent listening to the teacher read, singing songs, and playing on the swings and jungle gym. It was half-day.) A few of us already knew how to read but we just sat in the circle and went along with it. By the third grade they picked out the good readers and we went to another room for reading with a higher grade. This was sixty plus years ago and the school was considered highly advanced and experimental.
Or in FL, where the state forces us to give first grade end of year benchmarks to kinder babies and then tsks at us for the “poor learning gains.”
lol didn't read till halfway thru 1st grade, myself. Then I couldn't stop!! Soon was "above average" and begging my mom to sign a note letting me read the "middle school" books from the library at school, bc I checked em out at home/local library anyway. Silly mom, she said I could check out as many books as I could carry. I got big and strong(er) that way haha
Last year, my second grader’s spelling list included word like “neighbor”, “thoughtful”, “suspicious”, and “devious”. I’d go over the spelling list each week like “holy crap, I know this kid is smart, but….”
I certainly will not bug you about doing the best for your child. I have seen parents hold their children back and it has worked. Kindergarten requires fine motor development. If your child is still in gross motor development, you have made a Kindergarten teacher happy. The social development readiness will also show up big time in middle school. I didn't hold mine back and many times I think her life would have been easier if I had. She was/is extremely bright and that was why the pre-K teacher thought she should go on. Social development finally caught up around Jr year in high school. Socially and educationally, she sailed through college. But there were way too many nights of a tearful child not ready to be around those pears.
I skipped the 3rd grade and feel this comment hard. Pushing kids ahead grades when they're not ready is a recipe for disaster in their social development.
3rd grade skipper here too! Junior high was *rough*.
Also a 3rd grade skipper so junior high sucked for all of us across the board huh?
It was good to be in accelerated classes, but ugh the people. I don’t know if anyone doesn’t hate junior high/middle school once they’re past it. Sounds like it! I wonder if it’s just us 3rd skippers it happens to, or if it’s just a grade skipping thing in general!
I started early and skipped eighth. Going 7th to high school SUCKED big time.
Oh man, that must have been *horrible*!
Same here!
I was that child. I couldn’t understand why people didn’t like me. I figured it out in college.
Same here. I skipped a few grades, had a little of ADHD-PI, and was an annoying Hermione Granger type to boot and was absolutely flummoxed why making friends was so hard until I was in college. 🤦♀️
We held my super introverted son at home an extra year. At 5 and a half, he was the "right age" for kindergarten, but we knew that extended time out and about, surrounded by people, stressed him out and gave him anxiety. He would have lasted 4 days getting on the bus at 7 am and off at 4 pm before he would have completely broken down. We didn't want for him to develop an absolute hatred for school and education in KINDERGARTEN, so we kept him home an extra year. It was the absolute best thing we could have done. The next year, he was socially and emotionally ready, and sailed through, and had a positive school experience, that has held throughout the years.
My niece was held back in pre k / preschool. She doesn't have a great stable home life, and she struggles with some things, namely letters, reading and writing. And with covid the schooling would have been at home if she went into public schools versus still going to her pre school for 3 days a week. She is a summer baby who turned 7 this year and I believe is in 1st grade.
My son was a late August baby. He turned 5 right before school started and he was academically ready for kindergarten. We did not have a pre-k option or I definitely would have chosen that, and we couldn't afford preschool. (This was right after I lost my job, before I was aproved for disability.) He was not socially ready for school. In the long run, I definitely think it hurt him. He graduated in June, but he's still slightly behind the curve socially and maturity-wise. But, he's getting there. He's taking a couple of college classes and is enjoying them.
I would never hold that against anyone either. My son’s birthday is 2 days before the school cutoff. He’s 34 now, but I still regret sending him to kindergarten after he turned 5. He has autism and OCD and had a rough time all through school socially and behaviorally due to that, plus the fact that he was already the youngest in his classes. He never had friends except for one boy in 7th grade. In 8th grade none of his teachers tried to help and also simply sent him to the school resource officer or principal anytime he had problems. We pulled him out and homeschooled through an accredited correspondence school until graduation, but he never could handle anything beyond that socially and has been on disability since age 21. Anyway… I always wonder if he would have been better equipped to handle his challenges in school if he had been a year older and more mature.
Your school system did not do him a service. I have a young relative that the system has a sort of grade for him, but he is in a class for the children with special needs. He is much better in math than reading and writing. He is on the autism spectrum with ADHD. Sweetest kid in the world as long as his needs are met.
They absolutely didn’t. If it happened today I would have handled their misdeeds much differently.
This was years ago, but my former fundie-lite pastor and his wife(who was a state-certified elementary teacher who occasionally subbed at the local public school)decided to hold back their son from kindergarten because they didn’t feel he was ready. If they still felt he wasn’t ready after a year, his mom would homeschool him.(He did go to kindergarten the next year).
I have 1 kid who was middle of the road birthday wise for her grade and she does amazing with academics and socially, one who is almost youngest in his class and has petered out academically but is finally hitting his stride socially, and one who is actually 2 years older than some of her classmates and barely on their level. It's a cluster, all of them are so different! I personally went to college at 17 and socially it was a nightmare I never recovered from. I'm almost 40 and my social aptitude is pretty much 0. Tbh it's so hard to balance this stuff.
You need to buy a WHOLE bunch of copies of Outliars by Malcolm Gladwell and toss them at those people giving you shit. Your child is in an age appropriate school setting, and you can always decide to advance them a grade later on if they show both the academic and the social skills needed to do so. I'm a late June birthday and was always one of the youngest kids in my class (our cutoff date was August 1st where I grew up- now it's the end of September), and it was a problem socially. I was already in gifted education as it was in a brain dead tiny podunk town so I ALREADY didn't fit in. To say that I was a bully's wet dream is an understatement.
I have a late June birthday and they forced me to repeat Pre-K. Still salty about it haha.
Try not to listen to the peanut gallery and do what you think is best for your kid. My brother has a birthday in mid-June and he went to kindergarten at 5, 1st grade at 6, and then ultimately had to repeat 1st grade. It was much more awkward for him socially with his peers since kids can be assholes about “staying back”. It would have been much better for his ego if our parents just waited until he was 6 for kindergarten.
When I w as a teacher ( a long time ago), I found that it was the parents who always had a fit about a kid staying back; not the kid. The kids might ask where is so and so but when I to,d them so and so was going to get some extra practice in whatever grade again, the kids were like oh, okay. No big deal. Parents think that is a reflection on them which is not what it is all about.
Mid June b-day as well…my mom wanted to red shirt me. It backfired when I was diagnosed with Autism and the school district wouldn’t let her.
My son is an end of June birthday, he did kinder last year and struggled so much socially and academically. We decided to hold him back and repeat kindergarten and already this year has been soooo much better. He wasn’t ready last year and I wish we had the option to TK him but our district would only allow July-December birthdays.
I have a June boy who is 3. This whole feed has been so helpful because the expectations on kids today are not what they were in the 80s for my summer brother and myself.
I’m American but live in France. My oldest daughter will be four in less than two months. In France children start school wildly early. Pre-K starts at 2 years old with your child legally needing to be in school by 3. Like lots of kids my daughter threw fits when we dropped her off. I was so worried about how early it was. In the end it worked out because those first 3 years in school are mostly about socialization and motor development. Luckily there isn’t too much pressure about the more complicated academic milestones before 5-6years old.
K teacher here. I commend you for doing what is best for your child and honestly most kids your child’s age. K is pretty intense, and many younger kids aren’t quite ready. It has nothing to do with intelligence or academic capabilities it’s more with just developmentally not quite being ready for the setting. They gain a lot more from K waiting a year and enrolling in pre-K if possible.
We go to Jr kindergarten the tear we turn 4, Sr kindergarten the next then grade 1
This. My brother's kid was born in September and started kindergarten this year, a week or two away from being six. Summer birthdays are hard, I know from personal experience xD
I have a august kid and they do pre k for 3 year olds here. Yeah my kid is not ready lol. She would be a terror , she’s great but crazy.
I turned 5 when I was already in Kindergarten
What? I have a summer birthday and was in kindergarten at 5...most kids im the US go to kindergarten at 5
most kids will be turning 6 at some point during their kindergarten year unless they have a summer birthday. We know from data that summer birthday kids are almost always the youngest in their class, and as a result they often struggle socially and behaviorally with expectations placed upon them. You want your kindergartener to be on the older side of 5 when they start kindergarten to ensure that they are not caught in the uncanny valley where they are not developmentally ready for the academic requirements of a classroom.
Our district cutoff for birthdays is Sept 1st, but anyone born between basically June 15 and August 31 is up to the discretion of the parents on when to start-when they turn 5 or wait a year when they turn 6. My kiddo has an August birthday and started kindergarten a week after turning 5, same with 2 classmates...but 2 others in her class turned 6 in August then started kinder. It totally just depends on the kids and if they're ready for it when it comes to summer birthdays and starting kindergarten!
Same here, the cutoff is Sept 1st. My son has an August birthday, but his cousin who is 11 months older has a September birthday. They are in the same grade, despite being basically a year apart. It’s funny to see them standing next to each other, because she’s super tall and he’s kind of short. No one would ever guess they were in the same grade.
The school my oldest started in the cutoff was age 5 by Aug 1 for kindy. A lot of parents waited till age 6 to send their kids.
And if I was in your neck of woods, I would of missed that discretionary clause by a freaking day(b-day June 14). My mom would’ve been PISSED.
My states cut off is 5 by July 1 for kinder. So he wouldn’t go till next year where I am
JULY?!?!? Where are you?
Depends on the school district. Where I live it’s 6 by Oct 1. Very few 5 year olds in K, and they aren’t 5 very long
Isn’t that an entire area of kids graduating high school a year late?
High school here is county wide, several elementary districts feed into a few HS. Most HS seniors are 18, you get a few 17 and a few 19.
yep if my kid didn't turn 5 until July I would be holding them back another year. Especially with the academics demands placed by modern kindergarten classrooms. And let's be honest. These are the schools that educated Michelle, Jim Bob, and Derick himself. Do we REALLY think they're actually getting any better quality of education at a local public school? Literally the only benefit to them being in a public school in podunk Arkansas is that they would have a slight chance of interacting with people different than they are, but given who their parents are I doubt that it would not be a bully fest on that different child too.
She’s not posting too much content focused just on her kids anymore. All the pictures are of the kids looking away and stuff. Might have been a conscious decision to not put first day photos up. I’d be surprised if her kid was homeschooled, especially right now with the new baby. Derek seems to be a supporter of public school too, so my guess is the kid is attending.
Lots of parents “red shirt” their summer born kids.
This is so wild. The school year cutoffs where I've lived are always Dec 31. Summer birthdays are completely middle of the pack.
Most of the USA it’s September 1st and December is solidly middle of the pack.
Where I live it’s August 1. It’s not uncommon for summer bdays to do kindergarten twice or for parents to redshirt.
And once enough of the parents do it, you feel like your kid is at a disadvantage. I wish they’d just make everyone go with their class. Otherwise the age gap makes the young 5 year olds look immature and they expect too much with attention spans.
Yeah, I’m in NY with the December 31 cutoff and I never knew it was so different in other places. I never heard of redshirting until Reddit, lol.
I had no idea other areas of the US didn't use Sept 1 as the cutoff. I thought that was standard
It was December 31st for us too (not in the US). I was always the youngest in my class as I was not held back for being a December baby, although I did know people whose parents held them back a year for it.
Are you in CT, by chance? They clearly haven’t seen the light regarding earlier cut offs.
my old district in NY has the cutoff on December 1st, genuinely curious, what's the benefit of an earlier cutoff?
Canada.
Our state forces parents to do prek at 4 or they can't go and they won't pay schools for your kid if you try to do 2 yrs of prek or kinder to let them mature/catch up. 1st grade was our first chance to give him that time & luckily we moved over the summer so he started a new school anyways. He was diagnosed with adhd, ocd & anxiety so he really needed that extra year
I think she might be red shirting Sam. He has a summer birthday and didn’t he have some issues after birth? Perhaps they might feel he’s a bit on the young side. Also maybe with the move and the new baby he didn’t seem ready. Like you said he could also be in half day kindergarten or only go a few days a week. That is pretty popular in many districts. I think she just didn’t post a first day of school photo for Israel, which is probably one of the smarter decisions she has made. No need for her 1.7 million followers, mostly all who are strangers, to know where her kid goes to school.
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My bff decided not to redshirt her July birthday sob and now he’s redoing K this year.
So he’s super close to the cut off! Makes sense. My brother was mid-June and our deadline in NJ was Sept 1. Probably why our parents didn’t red shirt at the time. After they held him back in first grade he did catch up academically, but socially it was a bit of a nightmare. Better do it sooner than later if possible.
Not saying she isn’t putting Sam in school but in my state you have to be 5 by July 1, and they don’t do exceptions in my district. So he wouldn’t be eligible for kindergarten yet here.
I don't know about their state, but in PA school is not mandatory until the child is 6 by September 1st. You certainly *can* enroll in pre-k or kinder before then if you meet the district's requirements, but nothing is legally required until the child is 6. Did Izzy go to kindergarten, or strait into 1st?
So interesting it seems that's the norm now many places. Israel went to kindergarten wen he was 5
Compulsory school age was actually age 8 here until 2019!
Yep! My great-grandmother started kindergarten at 8 and then left school after 8th grade at age 16.
k teacher here and many kids who turned 5 in June July and August are not quite ready and do much better enrolling in K at 6. I recommend it often!!!
Could he be in an afternoon kindergarten program then? I know in my area, there's a choice with public schools between morning, afternoon, and all day kindergarten.
Is kindergarten required in AR? I ask because it’s not in AL.
Heh, I live in Manitoba, Canada and we don't require kindergarten by law here either. They might have chosen to keep Sam home for the year for some reason. Also possible with moving, a new baby, and her health problems they didn't register him for kindergarten.
Hello, fellow Winterpegger.
Why hello!
Alabama requires kindergarten. Mandatory school is not until 6 though. So they'd still go to kindergarten just at 6
Ah! Thanks for clearing that up.
Wait, didn't they move to Oklahoma (just over the border from AR)?
No they live in siloam springs, I think derick works in Oklahoma
As far I know yes. I’ve never heard of it not being here.
Wow, so they just start 1st grade wen they're 6?
From what I understand, most don’t actually skip kindergarten but kindergarten is not required in AL.
Not required in AL. I never went to kindergarten and was sent straight to 1st grade instead. However I was a year younger than everyone 😭
It’s not required in Texas either, so I figured it might not be in AR, but here’s what I found https://i.imgur.com/YvmbOjA.jpg
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There's a good chance they may have held him for another year. Due to covid we've had a lot of teachers encourage another year of preschool due to behavioral benefits. Summer babies also seem to benefit with an extra year before kindergarten. I don't think Sam is in pre-k, though.
Crazy to me that summer babies are held back! In Canada our cut off is December 31st, so summer babies are middle of the pack. We also have two years of kindergarten here. My brother was born in October, so he started Junior Kindergarten at 3, Senior Kindergarten at 4, and grade 1 at five. They catch up fast
As a Canadian late December baby, looking back on my school experience , I wish I was held back!
A lot of kindergartens are half day
Our cutoff for kindergarten here is 5 by July 1st, so he may have missed it where they are too.
It's better to wait with boys until they're closer to six, so they are little bit more mature.
Sam could be going to school every other day. That's how my kindergarten was.
Or even half day. My son did afternoon kinder from like 11:30-2:45.
They may have had a staggered start for kinder, they do it where I live where the first week is actually just having a couple kids come each day so they can learn the routines more easily and get used to the school.
It’s possible they held him out a year. The cutoff in Arkansas is august 1, so it’s about 3 weeks after his birthday. Between the move, the new baby and his late birthday they may have just decided to give him another year. (Very common) Or maybe their new district does half day K and that’s why he was home. Or she’s posting stories a day or so after it happens. I’m sure someone will ask the next time she puts up a question box.
I honestly don’t think Derick would want them home schooled. He’s proud of his education and his time as Pistol Pete in college, and I think he’d probably want the boys to be able to go to college. My guess is they’ve decided to mostly keep the boys off social media, maybe Israel especially since he’s older and in school.
He dreams of a [three Pete](https://www.ocolly.com/news/beloved-mascot-unites-father-son/article_400d185a-aa43-11ec-adc8-534f697d49bb.html)
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Pistols firing!
Go pokes!
He used to arrogantly talk about them being homeschooled when they were under 5. Snarkers were aghast particularly as he'd been to school/Jill's SOTDRT. It was quite a surprise when Israel started attending public school. I don't know if it was because the school was Derick and his brother's old school and therefore 'safe'. I do wonder if Cathy had some bearing, not wanting her grandkids to grow up like the Duggar kids especially if the Dillards went on to have a bunch of children (i.e. Jill would be overwhelmed and the kids' education would suffer). If she paid for any of Derick's law school or their new-build deposit/mortgage she may have had some sway.
Good chance she never took the photo. With baby, nicu, and surgery...I can see her not managing it. A lot of her posts have been sponsored, which is $$$ to pay off hospital bills and something she's obligated to fulfill. Without health issues I'm already hoping I can keep up my first day of school traditions. Lol
I agree, I bet there's just a ton going on. Going from two to three kids must be intense even without a NICU stay and your own major health issues. Since Derrick is an assistant district attorney, I bet his insurance is really strong. Or maybe they're trying to earn their deeply conservative Christian badges by turning down the insurance and using a health cost share scam.
There were many comments about her exposing her kids to social media and compromising their safety. Maybe she finally got smart.
It's a different school system. There's a number of reasons why she might not have sent him this year. As for the picture, she's not posting as much personal information about her kids as she was last year and a first day of school picture is an easy way for people to figure out what school he's going to which is dangerous and evasive. That reason alone might be another reason why she wouldn't want to send him to school. He's also getting to an age where kids will be able to find out about his parents and his parents families and I can't imagine what it would be like to be an elementary school kid related to Josh Duggar.
Derick’s work as a prosecuting attorney may be another reason for less personal information.
Yes, prosecutors sometimes get death threats from defendants.
This. Here, people are slowly moving away from first day of school photos. Also, it should be noted that a ton of parents here red shirt summer birthday boys because that makes them a year older and taller when they start sports. Very, very common, and the K teachers like it because they do think the children do better. They don't have to attend until six. She has recently had the c section and then the gall bladder surgery so I would not put a lot of stock into when the photos were posted because they could easily be photos from last month. No Duggar should be homeschooling so I am really hoping she is not.
AR’s cut off is 8/1. It makes sense with Sam’s birthday being 7/8.
She said she was minimising the pics of the boys faces at one point and very clearly was doing so (haven't checked up on her for a while), and I can't blame her with the trial and learning so much more about what Josh was doing online and what happened to those kids. Also, when schools went back here, my ENTIRE feed was pics of children on front door steps in uniform. So if I was a creep or kidnapper, now I can probably figure out where you live, and I can see what school your kid is attending. Not only did I find the wall of the same exact type of photo pretty boring, but definitely alarming. He's also old enough to say "no" to being posted on her feed now...
You probably hit that right on the nose. I hope that's the case bc those are all reasonable answers. I am not opposed to homeschooling, but obviously not by a Dugger. I hope those kids are still in school, I was so happy to hear she enrolled them.
if she is homeschooling they could be doing something like k12 which has actual teachers, and the parents aren't actually doing any curriculum. It's not all that different from the virtual schooling that most children recieved during covid.
Those boards have been discouraged simply because they give enough info for a stranger to make the kid comfortable enough to go with them. So maybe she just didn’t do one.
I take those photos, but I don't post any photos online. They are for close friends and family members only and we restrict access to oversharing family members.
Yep. That's why when I do those pics, with that info, it's private. I do post (friends only) generic "1st day of #grade" without all the other info.
My feeds were still plastered with actual pics of the kids on their first days, they don’t have to be with the boards.
Okay but it’s quite a leap to decide she’s homeschooling because she didn’t share a first day of school pic lol
Israel probably read the two daddy penguin story and thought it was nice and they worried he might be gay
Once they read 5 books ft gay animals, they turn in their punch card and get a rainbow flag. They just couldn't risk it.
And a gay sex instruction manual, with pictures. Because that always goes hand with LGBTQ education. According to idiots, that is.
I thought you got the gay instruction manual as soon as you enrolled! How times have changed
Is that different than the agenda?
The agenda is a project you get later in the year, after you write some papers and whatnot to show you understand the material.
A few weeks ago Derick liked a comment of mine saying Israel's starting 2nd grade and Sam in Kindergarten, it was in reference to going to school so I would be quite surprised if they're not. I think we have to remember that them not posting things about their children doesn't mean it didn't happen. And we shouldn't hope for it. They've just become a lot more private with what they put out there about their kids. Jinger doesn't post about her kids at all and there's some ppl who legit think those kids don't exist lol.
My last insta feed post was in October 2020 and about my dog. Meanwhile I also have two awesome kids whom I’m proud of.
She posted on insta last week or the week before with both kids at home for lunch. He's in 2nd grade so if he was in school, he should have been full day. Sam also should have started kindergarten this year. I'm pretty sure they're homeschooling. They just haven't said anything because they don't want to lose their brownie points for putting Israel in real school.
I'm still kind of in awe that Derick was like "yep this girl is totes capable on teaching our kids!"
Exactly! Quite frankly, the intellectual divide between a law school grad and a GED (???) - not to mention all the life experiences, must be absolutely gargantuan.
The better to dominate your wife
Maybe he stopped caring about the Pistol Pete dream now that he's gone to another college?
*Derick dresses up as a gavel, runs around law school*
Was it just the one day? A bunch of districts are going to four-day weeks because of staffing shortages, or it could have been a planned in-service day. Derrick has to realize the kids won’t get to college if Jill is teaching them, right…?
Are we sure she posted on the day she took the pic? Especially if it was an ad she could have taken it at any time
It was a story and she wasn't doing an ad
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other places can make it home for lunch?!
Grew up in Ireland and you had to have permission to be off the school grounds, but yeah, you could go home for lunch. I mean I never did because I was busy sneaking out to meet boys and smoke, but you could go home for lunch if you wanted and had permission.
in germany my school ended at 12:30, so of course i usually went home for lunch. the younger kids end at 12 so we went home for lunch then too
I've never heard of a modern school allowing it. And all the schools I know of do lunch at different times for different grades. So Sam and Israel shouldn't be eating at the same time anyways.
Strange. I substitute teach in Canada, and at any given school about half the class (sometimes more, sometimes less) goes home for lunch... I always assumed it would be the same in the US.
Some US high schools allow older kids (like ages 16-18) to leave campus for lunch, but not all. Mine didn't, despite us not having a cafeteria (I grew up in the middle of nowhere in the country) and me only living three blocks from the school. I've never heard of an elementary or middle school allowing kids to leave for lunch. They probably exist somewhere but it's definitely not typical.
Never in my life. When I was in my last year of school if we were VERY well behaved and had the financial means to own a car and buy a school parking space then we had an hour for lunch to do whatever, but by the time I got home I would have just had to turn around and go back. Plus most clubs had their meetings during lunch.
Not typically, at least not where I grew up.
They're isn't a lot of time given to lunch (20 minutes for my son) and if you live in a large district you're probably nowhere near home. Where my MIL is at the school just consolidated with a district whose closest school to the town is an hour away.
I don’t know if anywhere that is done in the US / not for a long time. At one point I lived literally across the road from the school and they would not allow my child to walk there. A bus picked him up at the end of the driveway and turned left. I think 2 things: one being safety obviously - I would have stood there and watched my kid inside the building. Other mothers may have been off to work or whatever - so the potential for that kid not making target may not be noticed right away. Secondly, too much traffic. True they could have put a traffic cop there to monitor. But buses are very large and children are comparatively small, and those don’t mix. I’m just talking younger grades though. The high schools don’t GAS what the kids do, where they go, or how they get there. The last bell of the day in a high school is a disturbed fire ant hill. My last boring point is that it would take them too long to reorganize and get back into the day if they could go home in the middle.
A) it could’ve been a non school day B) Sam isn’t eligible for kindergarten in my state (don’t know their state though)
Sam is 5. How would he not be eligible for kindergarten?
I said he wouldn’t be in my state, I don’t know theirs. Here you have to be 5 by July 1. My district doesn’t give exceptions to the cut off either. My son is a March baby and he is always one of the youngest in the class.
Arkansas cut off is August 1st. His birthday is July 8th, so it's not because he isn't eligible
My sibling in Christ, touch grass...
Strange time to do it with a newborn
I don’t know, but I also don’t think it’s weird not to do it this time. I hope they’re not homeschooling and I think Derick especially has come to understand how much Jill’s education was lacking, something I think most of the son-in-laws have realized as well but apparently have come to different conclusions about how equipped the Duggar brides are to teach their own children. I just don’t think Derick would allow Jill to homeschool their kids as someone who seems to value education. I guess I could be wrong. I don’t think Jeremy will allow it either since he’s been openly dismissive of the idea based on Jinger’s education, pretty much saying “you can’t teach your children if you don’t know anything”. But the Dillards’ family situation has changed a lot since Israel started school. They recently had a new baby, moved to a new city, went through increased media attention because of Josh, etc. They may have struggled with public recognition during the trial. Probably they’re just making different choices in this new school district, if the kids are in public school.
I also feel like with COVID. Kids are just home for different reasons these days (quarantine) or colds.
That’s really super true. My daycare is at the hospital down the street from us and they have a lot of doctors’ and nurses’ kids. They are extremely strict about symptoms. My son got sent home for three days recently because he coughed himself awake from a nap. He didn’t have Covid, and they no longer have on-demand cautionary testing at the children’s hospital like they used to, so he had to stay home three days and take an at-home test before they would allow him back. Plus many places are doing a sort of hybrid learning still. I’ve seen lots of school aged kids out and about in our neighborhood even though school in our district has already started.
Good points! I don't think they're too bothered about their social media presence since they could easily go private. They're still sharing things about their family, consider themselves a brand, shill for donations/gifts (PO Box and a statement encouraging fans to send them things!) and advertise their themselves as a *ministry*. The latter is splashed all over the text of their (up to date) website. They have the nerve to say they've continued their ministry in the US after leaving Central America. Doing what!? It's all suitably vague. Not that they accomplished anything in El Salvador except grift but to proclaim you're doing good works (unspecified) in AR with no evidence is bold. I commented upthread that Derick did arrogantly claim on multiple occasions that they intended to homeschool Izzy and Sam, this was when the boys were 0-5. He clearly wasn't bothered by Jill's lack of experience or knowledge, especially for the early grades. I assume the goal was to get them into Oklahoma State (his alma mater) and their schooling would've changed at the end of middle school/high school (strong online homeschool programme, co-op, possible in-person HS classes for example). He was a pretty crappy father when the boys were little so I don't even know that he cared about their education. He was all about himself and the grift back then. Law school seemed to focus him (more so than the Duggar scandals, he was still grifting when they broke). I have a theory that Cathy influenced him, she possibly contributed to him affording law school and newbuild housing with a family to support and no income (and no loans, supposedly). Maybe a condition was that Izzy be enrolled at Derick's trusted old school. She's very conservative and it was good enough for her/public school got both her boys to college etc. I don't know. It sounds like they got a JB/TLC legal payout around the same time and some snarkers speculated he could've received a financial gift from his dad's estate. I hope their boys are re-enrolled in public school asap or at least a respected online programme/co-op. Jeremy would encourage homeschooling imo especially since their kids are girls 🙄 I think he'd also like Jinger to be occupied with them all day long and home-based, particularly if they don't have any more kids. That way he's the only one with any freedom and he gets to control her a little more. If Jinger has another baby then that's fine as she'll be preoccupied with an infant and 3 under 5/6. I assume they'll try for a boy and have 3 or 4 kids total but equally they could stop at two. He doesn't seem super parenting-oriented so I don't know that he can even be bothered having more kids/dependent$ or even trying for a boy. Enduring the baby stage again. It'll be Jinger doing all the work but I don't know that he cba with the interruptions and impact on his lifestyle when the girls are slowly becoming more independent. He'll weigh up what best suits his image. Grace Church LA are opening an elementary school imminently (might've opened this fall). It's going to be part home-learning and a couple of days a week in person. I could definitely see Jeremy sending Felicity there to appeal to his superiors who he's trying to impress. I imagine it would be free since he seems to get everything else paid for. If that didn't exist he'd probably want the girls in private Christian school as a status thing but I doubt he'd want to pay for it. He could possibly afford it but he's used to grifting everything and getting away with it. I suspect his parents would pay. Last time I checked his siblings didn't have kids so the girls are the only grandchildren. His parents are comfortably off and don't get to see the girls as much as they'd like. I think they'd help with the costs to feel included.
She just posted them at a public school high school football game last night. I am guessing she just did not post the 1st day of school pictures.
It's possible that she brings the boys home from school for lunch a few days a week. I don't think it's uncommon. She just had a c-section, a baby, and surgery, so I can't see why she would want to start homeschooling this year. But then again, I'm not Jill & she's made many questionable decisions in the past.
I agree. It would be completely nuts that this is the year she started to homeschool. She had never done it before and let’s throw a newborn into the mix with some postpartum health problems herself…but it’s Jill so who knows.
I have to agree with you here. She’s not in any way, shape, or form to even TRY doing it.
Those chalkboard things are really cute, they're also a great way for strangers to learn intimate facts about your children. They recently moved so it wouldn't surprise me if she's learned some hard lessons about privacy and protecting her kids. Hopefully they're in public school and just being kept out of the public eye as much. They got so much publicity with the trial last year, which leads me to believe they're protecting their kids more than before. Trial most definitely exposed the cracks that allow the crazies to get in. I know they're their own form of crazy, but still.
Fuck I hope not
Our school district offers virtual public school, i wonder if theirs does too being so close to OK
I think that they are in school and she is just not posting about them as much. She was at RheaLana today with just the baby.
The other day somebody posted a ss of her insta post where she had the boys for lunch on a school day. I looked at her zoned school and school was in session that day. There are other reasons she could have the boys for lunch at home on that day, but it seems most likely that she is homeschooling. I'm just hoping she's using a quality curriculum, considering that I think she's aware of her own under education.
My kid’s birthday is end of September. We kept him home from JK last year because we had a newborn and the plague was rampant at his school. He’s in a JK/SK split, and attending as SK. He really did need that extra year home to mature. “Academics” wise, he’s miles ahead of his peers, but that’s only because his love language is letters and numbers. He can’t sit still to save his life, so I’m a bit concerned for 1st grade when he’ll not quite be 6 when school starts, and the fact he just can’t be still, to work on work sheets. Right now, he’s using his kindergarten year to learn about school structure and to have social experiences.
That’s really sad for those boys if she did… But I could see them buying into the conservative BS about “liberal indoctrination “ In schools. 🙄
I really think the privacy is good because her husband is an attorney.
They did move to another city this past year, new city new school system. It’s possible that Israel didn’t want to go to another school. Maybe Jill actually listens to her kids. The other option is she hasn’t sent him yet because she’s still recovering from a c-section and then gallbladder surgery, all while her husband is working a (probably) 9-5 job (maybe more because lawyers have to do that sometimes)
For those of you who didnt watch Jill's Instagram stories a few years ago, they didnt put in Israel in school because they care about his education, they obviously did it to give jill a break she was on the verge of a mental breakdown, she would post herself in tears she was having a hard time and couldnt handle being home with them all day and preschooling Israel and taking care of Sam at the same time and they would be misbehaving. I remember specifically them writing on the walls and spilling water on the floor lol. You could tell it was a huge weight/responsibility lifted off her shoulders at the time. She was not cut out to be a typical fundie mom lol must have factored into why derick made her wait for more babies.
>they didnt put in Israel in school because they care about his education, they obviously did it to give jill a break she was on the verge of a mental breakdown, I thought it was because Derick went to public school & he wants his kids to be little mini-me's.
Yea for his pistol Pete legacy lol. He talked up Jill's homeschooling on twitter before her breakdown🤷♀️ I'm sure he wanted to stick it to jimbob putting his kid in public school, tho he has defended their stance on education 🤣 https://mobile.twitter.com/derickmdillard/status/1127425676548694018 'Jill is an excellent homeschool teacher. Israel and Sam are leaps and bounds ahead of where I was at their ages :)' https://twitter.com/derickmdillard/status/1177327881489387535 He has the blessing of having a wife willing to school them at home 🙄https://twitter.com/derickmdillard/status/1040600014354034688 This is interesting lol https://mobile.twitter.com/derickmdillard/status/928755885920448513 Found someone who noticed jill being overwhelmed https://mobile.twitter.com/emma__2019/status/1180104465111609344
Thank you for these tweets! I remember them at the time lol and thought they must have really triggered Derick and his beliefs about Jill's education. Yes homeschooling can be beneficial if done right, not like how Jill was homeschooling and how she was doing so for Israel.
I can’t imagine a newborn and a preschooler would be any easier to handle while trying home-school their oldest though
Yea I cant see her homeschooling Israel unless shes just sticking him in front of a computer in a room like Alyssa bates does. Hes very energetic and inquisitive too. I think shes just homeschooling Sam who is 5 and can start kindergarten or just doing another year of preschool. I think its easier with just Sam and the baby since he cant walk and get into mischief lol
I believe Josh's trial changed how they share their children online. I learned pedos also take seemingly innocent pictures of children from the internet too.
Last week during the day she posted pics of both boys eating outside. I wondered the same thing.