All-Star Age Grid 2020-2021

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Very curious is age cut off changed bc no one has mentioned youth moving up but it says birth year 2008 is eligible for a youth team. Kids born in that year until today (really until August 31st for that matter) are already 12 so under old grid wouldn’t be eligible for youth but it appears they are eligible now?



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Very curious is age cut off changed bc no one has mentioned youth moving up but it says birth year 2008 is eligible for a youth team. Kids born in that year until today (really until August 31st for that matter) are already 12 so under old grid wouldn’t be eligible for youth but it appears they are eligible now?



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No they’re not all already 12. Some are but others turn 12 during the rest of 2020. If true it would change things for kids born in Jan-Aug 2008 (like my CP), they would now be eligible for youth even if they have turned 12 by the old cut off date. Kinda weird. Grades will be split up. Just like in soccer.
 
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No they’re not all already 12. Some are but others turn 12 during the rest of 2020. If true it would change things for kids born in Jan-Aug 2008 (like my CP), they would now be eligible for youth even if they have turned 12 by the old cut off date. Kinda weird. Grades will be split up. Just like in soccer.

Yes that is what I was thinking too. Seems to open door for more 12 year olds vs just the ones that turn 12 after August. I think it’s great.


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I can't think of a single activity in the past 17 years raising kids whether it be softball, an art class, tennis lessons, cooking class, music lessons etc etc. where 1, they would have offered to combine those ages and 2, if they had offered I would have said "cool, my kids would love that". Nope.
I get that but don't think raising the junior age without also raising the bottom is a step forward. Also, not sure if your experience was before or after the D2 split but other teams there would have been in the same position. I could maybe, possibly a waiver for start up programs 35 athletes and under but not sure...

They go through the effort to revise the grid - and I am not even quibbling about senior age - but that 6-15 could have been addressed as well. I think it is fair if everyone is eligible for two teams:
- 6,7,8 (not sure about 8 but at least 6,7) could be mini or youth
-9,10,11 (and I would have added 12) could be youth or junior
-13, 14, 15 junior or senior
-14+senior or open


5-15 makes no sense to me whatsoever.
This seems totally insane IMO. 6-16 is way, way, way too wide of an age range. It also seems totally unnecessary. What does it accomplish? It doesn't seem like even small gyms would need to put a 6 and 16 year old on the same team. But maybe someone has some insight I don't as to the logic here?

It accomplishes gyms being able to collect tuition and fees to put kids on teams who otherwise would have to go to another gym or not cheer at all. I believe that it shows integrity to say to a family "hey we don't have a team that would be a good social fit for your child" But gyms want that money and continue to put kids on teams that are socially and developmentally inappropriate for them.
 
I feel like junior and senior will be so similar. The difference in top age used to be 4 years. 14 vs 18. Now it’s 2.5 years. 15-16 vs 18.

There might be less senior and more junior teams now. I feel like they should have kept junior at 14 but with the birth year change it would have been 14-15. (They have in effect raised the max age for junior by 1.5 years and the others have been raised by 0.5 years. Senior max age is unchanged from what I can understand. Or raised by a couple of months.)

I don’t really care about minimum ages. Most gyms won’t put a 6 year old on junior.
 
I don’t really care about minimum ages. Most gyms won’t put a 6 year old on junior.

I agree that is not common, but large age gaps happen.

When my kid was 14 she had a 7 year old flyer in her stunt group on a junior team. The year was successful in that they scored well, and won most comps they attended. But from a social standpoint it was awkward. On non-comp weekends she got paid to babysit kids older than her flyer. And since you spend so much time working with your individual stunt group, she missed out on getting to know kids closer to her own age.
 
If your kid is the baby on a Junior team though, how much are they really interacting with older girls?

My niece was the youngest of a dance class and I noticed that it was very Littles With Littles hanging out and Older With Older.

I do see the value of keeping ages together. I think that's why some gyms will have Baby Brittany (example) on a J4 and also competing with a Y3. One is for skills and the other more so she can have some same age cheer experiences.

I remember watching the Twinkles documentary and the WC coach talking about why they created Y5 Twinkles. They recognized that yes, the kids were talented, but they are still into Barbie and it's important for them do what they enjoy with kids who relate to Barbie. Not that older girls will go out of their way to be inappropriate, but they won't have anyone to hang out with at comps, room with, etc.
 
I think it would have made more sense to change junior upper limit for next season to 2005. In this grid, kids who aged out of junior last season (ie dob april 2004-turned 15 in April 2019) can now be back on junior team next season after a one year hiatus. By making it 2005 you ensure kids who aged out in 2018-2019 season aren’t back junior eligible, and those kids with the sept-dec 2004 birthdates age out of junior this season just like they would have if they hadn’t changed the grid. And then essentially the kids with birthdates Jan-August 2005 get the extra season on juniors so your still picking up more kids/raising age (or whatever the intended outcome of the grid change).
Or am I misunderstanding something?
 
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