More affluent parents sometimes enroll their kids in an extra year of preschool so their kids can enter kindergarten older. The city argues that the current age cutoff for kindergarten gives parents access to free childcare through childcare through public school at the earliest age possible. From kindergarten through second grade she said she “asked repeatedly” for permission to repeat a grade so that he could be a bit older. “Kindergarten has become the new first grade,” said Miranda, who wrote about the experience of sending her son with an October birthday to kindergarten at 4. She said her son “went into kindergarten excited to learn and loving school, and left kindergarten thinking he was stupid and bad.