Send to Kindergarten or keep at home?
DD's birthday is five days past the cut off for kindergarten. She will be 4y/o for the first few days of school.
She was evaluated for early entrance and denied because of her fine motor skills (I was later able to explain that she had her princess ring on her dominant hand so she was writing, cutting and coloring with her left hand instead). I explained this to the appeals committee and they approved her early entrance to K.
Now I have to decide if she should go. I just lost my job due to budget cuts (I'm a school counselor) so DD will either go to kindergarten or stay at home with me. The appeals committee said that there is nothing DD doesn't know. For the past year she has been a leader in her pre-K class - but she was also the oldest.
While it would be tiring having my daughter at home with me again (I was a SAHM for DD's first four years), I would gladly put my life on hold again if it was what was best for her. She will either be the youngest next year or the oldest the year after that.
Even though DD would be able to repeat K, I don't want to her have a stressful start to her formal education. Right now she loves school. She's outgoing, wants to please and will stand up for herself. But the thought of DD being in a class with kids who are a full year older fills me with anxiety.
At home we would have structured days, we would have 'school' time and take field trips. DH and I would be able to put her in couple of classes (maybe soccer and voice lessons) but I worry about her getting enough social activity. DD is incredibly social.
Thoughts? Ideas? This issue is agonizing. 
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Re: Send to Kindergarten or keep at home?
I'm new to the board but my dd was 4 when she started Kindergarten. It worked ok in Kindergarten but 1st & 2nd grades have been a lot harder. While she is advanced academically, socially is where she has struggled.
There are a lot of noticable difference between her & her peers. She is a lot more sensative and while she always had a ton of friends in Pre-K and K she now struggles because the other kids are just at a different level.
I regret starting her early. I think about now when she is in high school and her friends in her grade will be doing things like driving, dating, etc that she won't be doing because of her age. She will be 16 when she starts her senior year and 17 when she starts college. It's going to make it harder as she gets older.
On the flip side, my little brother started Kindergarten late because of his birthday. He was ready education-wise but the school would not budge on the deadline. He THRIVED!
There is some research that says now that kids should only start KG if they are academically ready and born before the cut off. Personally, I don't believe in holding kids back who are otherwise academically ready and I really don't believe in holding kids back in order to make school easy for them. While I think cut offs are arbitrary, I think that regardless of when it is, the age range is about the same and there can be problems with being the oldest or youngest in the class. Your DD, with a bday 4 days after the cut off will not be the oldest b/c there will be kids who were held back for one reason or another who will be a 1-3 mos older than her.
I also think it really depends on your DC and your school. For some kids, parts of school will never be easy. For some, easy = boring and that causes problems. Some kids don't do well being the oldest or youngest, some thrive in those positions. Some districts have really challenging curriculum and others have more age appropriate KG curriculums - this may depend on your state's cut off, as well.
I have a mid-Sept bday (late cut off in my state) and never had any problems with my friends being older, though (two of my BFFs were older, one was younger ... the younger ones in the bunch are actually more successful as adults as it turns out). for me, I think that it worked in my favor that school wasn't "easy" for me. Not that I struggled, but I had to work hard to stand out. That work ethic followed me into college and grad school and paid off.
It is an agonizing decision. Both of my kids have birthdays just before the cutoff, and I had to make the decision both times whether to start them as the youngest or wait a year. I sent my DD on time, and she has been one of the youngest kids in her grade all along, but I kept my DS home for another year.
Both my kids are bright (reading independently before K), both are on the quieter side, but make friends easily, and both are well-behaved and had the impulse control to not be a disruption to the kindergarten classroom.
What it came down to for me was something I call "with-it-ness." My DD had it; my son just didn't. By "with-it-ness" I mean things like: pays attention and hears his bus called, understands how to deal with lunch in the cafeteria, can find his way from the entrance of the school to his classroom, knows how to ask for help if he needs to open the bathroom door but it's too heavy, can recognize and remember names of adults other than his classroom teacher (librarian, art teacher, p.e. teacher, etc.) I just knew he wasn't quite where he needed to be in terms of this stuff.
Would he have survived? Sure. Do they expect some kindergartners to need support in these areas? Of course. But I knew my son would always be last in the class in terms of these things, and that it would affect his self-confidence, his social, and his academic growth.
And, since there are a few kids with even earlier summer birthdays than his, he's not even the oldest one in the class. Giving him the gift of time turned out to be one of the best decisions I've ever made. I just knew that if I sent him to school as the youngest in the class, I'd be questioning that decision for the next 13 years. Now, I never have to worry about it again.
ETA: I live in Montgomery County as well! I don't know whether you were a counselor in elementary or secondary, but I can say that kindergarten is pretty academically demanding in MCPS. They do reading assessments in late September, and kids are put in reading groups at the end of the first month. When my DD was in K, it was still 1/2 day, and there was lots of time built into their 2.5 hour school day for free play at centers, etc. There's much less of that now. The day is very active and structured with little "down" time. My son, even having just turned 6 at the start of the year struggled at the end of every week because he was SO tired in the evenings.
I teach kindergarten, and my suggestion is to hold her back. Students may be academically ready, but most early entries I see are not ready maturity wise. I would always suggest holding back before sending on.
Why either or?
Look for a preschool and send her in a year. She may make the cutoff, but if other kids in your community are redshirted, she could be attending with kids 18+ months older.
In many ways it's better to be the oldest kid in the class than the youngest. Think about other milestones later on - while the rest of her class is getting their driver's licenses she'll have to wait until the next school year for hers.
I like the rec' from a PP about doing another year of preschool. There is a lot socially that she'll pick up during this time. If anything else you can work on skills with her (handwriting, spelling, penmanship, etc.) during this time. Sure it's more convenient for you to start her this fall, but it really may be in her best interest socially to hold back a year...
::lurking::
I was 17 when I started university and turned 18 a few days later, so I wasn't 17 for very long.
I haven't had to make this decision with my kids, but my mom did with my brother (11 years younger than me) and she put him in so that he was one of the younger kids. She recommends it. It allowed my brother to be challenged and learn things sooner.
As a K teacher, my advice is to hold off on sending your DD. Every year we get a handful of kiddos who are in on early admittance. Even those who do well overall have areas where their age makes school more challenging that it needs to be. It always makes me sad to see kids working so hard to be successful, when the things they are struggling to do are completely developmentally appropriate for the age they are.
Typically we see kids struggling with fine motor issues and maturity. K has become extremely academic (at least in my district) and being asked to read well by the end of the year, do fairly tricky math, write their own stories and hold it together through a full day of school is quite the task, even for our kids who do make the age cut off. Teachers at the older grades also note that these kiddos continue to struggle to meet grade level expectations as the progress through school.
You know your daughter best and I'm sure she will be fine either way, but in my opinion, giving her the gift of a little more time to just be little will only help her. Good luck making this choice!