Please use that address when you unsubscribe. Used to be that being five meant spending your days with paint-covered fingers and visions of nursery rhymes dancing in your head. But educators and parents are now debating at what age kids should begin their adventures in academia in earnest. It's a change that all South Shore towns, with the exception of Quincy, have adopted. Their daughter missed the cutoff by 29 days and will start kindergarten a year later as a result.
Advocates argue that it ensures that students are emotionally ready to begin school.
But the demands that education reform have placed on students may be the culprit. Last week we asked if all beaches should have a section for nonresident parking. I agree that there should be some restricted areas but we shouldn't shut out the public from the public beach. In Boston the properties along the waterfront had to make walkways so that the public wouldn't be shut out from the waterfront. How about a shuttle bus to the beach from a bigger lot away from the beach for a nominal fee.