My youngest son will miss the cut off for kindergarten by about 33 days. I was told there are no exceptions to this rule. A coworker told me that if I were to homeschool my son for kindergarten, he can then advance to 1st grade without issue the following year. Is this common practice? I only want to do it if he’s ready from a psychosocial standpoint.

Homeschooling will give your son a great head start on education.

If you get behind, you pretty much fall further and further behind.

If you get a good foundation, you are setting up a path of learning.

We home schooled our children for K-5th, then they went into the Magnet (gifted & talented) in Middle and High Schools.  We set the expectation that "A" is target and you can do it if you try hard.

Sure enough, they did again and again and again and again...

GREAT thing in that you have flexible schedule you can actually TEACH instead of the .GOV time required wasting B.S.

We went on our own field trips to museums and the actual places history happened.   We take time to personally cover areas of difficulty without worry that we were holding up the other 35 students in the class.

Key is to get a good program of Instruction & Curriculum - don't just try to make it up yourself or you may miss some needed study...

BIGGER_HAMMER

Your choice also will either make your son one of the youngest in the class or one of the oldest in the class.  Being older, he will also be a year more mature than the other kids and be able to pick up concepts easier.  My opinion would be to not use homeschool as a "loophole" to push him ahead.  Keep him out of school and let him be a kid for another year.  But being one of the oldest will have huge benefits to being one of the youngest.  IMO

If you really want to homeschool, then do it. There is a great video out there call Indoctrination by Colin Gunn about why you should homeschool.  Here is a clip.

https://vimeo.com/13912103

We faced this question a few years ago. Everybody we know (including the grandparents, several friends who are teachers, you name it) suggested that we let him be the oldest/biggest kid in his class rather than the youngest. He spent that year in a good pre-school with a good teacher. He went into Day 1 of kindergarten able to do virtually everything they would do by the end of the year. Fortunately, his teacher really pushed him with enrichment stuff because of his capabilities. He made it into advanced placement in 3rd grade, and is doing great in a great school. That kindergarten year was critical to his emotional development, so I am glad he didn't jumpstart his way into 1st grade.

-shooter

I realize this is too late for OP, but may help someone else.

I'm that guy, I have a late November birthday and was put in the class ahead of where I was supposed to be.

Pretty simple way to do it, private kindergarten and first grade, public school didn't really have much choice when looking at the marks from first grade as they were pretty good.  It worked in the early 80s, no idea if it'll still work.

As far as being the youngest, it was never an issue, I accepted it and moved on.  It forced me to grow up quicker competing against kids who were as much as 14 months older than me.  Call it an early dose of tough love.

Overall, I think it was the right move, had I been with the correct class it would have been much easier in terms of scholastic work as well as school athletic teams.

It is a choice, and in all reality, should be based on what a kid can do and their overall scholastic, emotional, and physical maturity.

Our oldest has an October birthday. She was smart, almost reading and had a big vocabulary. We had her tested and she started kindergarten early. She struggled with the social and maturity part for a few years.

I'm not sure we did her a favor by starting her early. She had/has some behavioral issues that may have been caused or worsened by being in the classroom all day sooner rather than later.

I think this is a very individual decision that needs to be made.

A kid has the rest of his life to be an adult and only a short time to be a kid. Don't rush it.

Let him learn about being a kid for another year, then he can start school when its time.