Did I just make a huge mistake? Moved 1st grader to Kindergarten for the remainder of school year
Apologies up front if this is a long one. Background info: one kiddo who is 6.5 years old (April 2020 birthday). I'm divorced; Dad is in the picture regularly, but defaults major decisions like school to me. Kiddo initially did Kindergarten at a Montessori school, but the class was ages 3-6, and the average age of the class skewed younger last year.
This year, I enrolled my kiddo into a public school, into 1st grade based on age. I knew they were struggling with academics. They hadn't written their entire name, they were struggling with letter identification and sounds, and reading was definitely not happening.
At the end of the last school year, I attempted to talk to their kindergarten teacher to get a gauge on where they were at in the classroom (cause kids can be different at home, right?), to know if I should enroll them in kindergarten or 1st for the coming year. The teacher basically told me, "Well, yeah, that's a tough decision... Good luck!" So, no real guidance on whether I should re-enroll them in kindergarten for a second year, or if they were ready for 1st.
School year starts 4 weeks ago. Current teacher pulls me into a meeting; tells me they are failing in literally every category academically. School counselor calls me; tells me they are very very worried because of the recent evaluations they'd done. My kid is testing/evaluating at the pre-k and kinder level. The school counselor suggests moving them to Kinder now, to give them all year to get the basics. In a strange turn of events, the school had just hired a new kinder teacher and they were going to be shuffling up all the classes anyways next week. So moving my kid would happen at the same time that ALL the other kinder kids would be moving.
To do so, I have to meet with school admin (current teacher, counselor, principal, assistant principal). I go into the meeting thinking we are all on the same page. AP starts the meeting re-iterating that my kid is failing in literally every metric. Then she goes on to say that the school doesn't advise retaining/moving him because there can be behavioral issues down the line. I ask if any of the special programs they offer will actually bring my kid up to where they should be, and the answer is essentially no. AP continues to try to talk me out of moving my child, even though it's clear that they are failing every academic metric.
They make me sign a form saying that I'm retaining/moving my kid to Kindergarten against their endorsement, but that they will follow a parent's request.
Ya'll. I am so gutted. I left their office and didn't even make it to my car before I was sobbing. My ex and I have done so much at home to try to get our kid there. Academic games on the iPad, the Hooked on Phonics program, tons of book reading, trying to sit with workbooks at home, trying to help them learn to write at home. My kid just isn't interested in this stuff and has fought it from day 1.
When I enrolled them for this year, my gut was telling me they should do kindergarten a second year. But I didn't want them to be that "old kid" in class. I hoped that maybe they had the info in their brain and we just weren't necessarily seeing it at home. But then when school confirmed that they didn't have it at school either, it seemed like the obvious choice was to move them back to kinder to get another year of the basics down.
Have I made a massive mistake? Should I have left them in 1st and hoped they would catch up? The AP at the school makes me feel like I just made the absolute worst mistake for my child. Does anyone have any similar experience?